Analogous

Pottery is my chosen analogy for life. How it was chosen, or how it chose me isn't really all that important. What is important is that it has been consciously resonating to the very core of my being for something close to 4 years meow. In recognizing, recording/writing, and trying to honor these messages that come to me while working with and through clay, I am closer than I've ever been to authentic living. And, damn does it feel good. Like, probably what unicorns feel: sparkly, light-filled, energized, sexual, silly, overwhelmed with joy and gratitude, grounded, immersed in and a part of the beauty of the natural world. Sure, it seems near impossible to maintain this sort of existence i-tinuously, and doing pottery-type-things isn't a carte blanche for bliss, but it is helping me recognize how I can try to live honestly and fully in the now [or, meow].

Here are some recent musings along this vein -- somewhat scattered because I was jumping between the wheel and a notebook. And, am editing them as I type this. The voice and identity of the speaker shifts -- meaning sometimes it is a human: a potter, sometimes it is the vessel or the clay, and sometimes it is some thing/one else entirely. It's all open for interpretation. Alas...

*~*~*What is attractive about clay forms as analogous to human forms is that the shapes are honest, bold, and can be striking -- even. All the qualities I hope to see and be in my own human form. Inserting a something I wrote some time ago, because it oh-so-fits:

Bare vessels
Naked and petrified
Purified in fire.
Here, every grain, speck,
Or pock-mock
Alternately glares and screams.
Strata of lines comes into crisp focus,
Seeming to share geologic histories --
If one knows where/how to look;
What to seek.
But, we only see
What's on the surface,
Anyways.

*~*~*Spinning in and out of control: When clay spins out of control on the wheel, it swells, becomes bloated, and distorted; it starts flopping and limping along. Making the pot more vulnerable to the other phases it will encounter. If a pot is supported while spinning out of control, it may be able to correct its form. When clay spins in control, all manner of good things are possible! It has the potential for growth, beauty, longevity, and a sturdy form. Sure, this vessel still faces the pressures of spinning, and must still use a support system and its own strength to resist the forces that seek to push its form into spinning wildly out of control.

*~*~*Hands: We need touch. We need touch that shakes us to the core. We need that connection with each other. Sometimes it's a handshake, a squeeze on the arm, or a hug. Other times only a lover's sweaty, quaking embrace will do. Consistently resisting these impulses, feelings, and leanings has negative effects on the integrity of our form.
*~*We are shaped by others' hands and what our own hands are capable of.
*~*We are supported by others' hands, and in turn provide support. We are sometimes damaged, crushed even by the hands of others. We should remember to what deep and dark places this takes us, and try not to be the one with the damaging, crushing hands.

*~*~*Soft, moist to wet clay, like human beings leaves traces on everything it touches. Even the skilled potter does not walk away from the wheel without some transfer of materials.

*~*~*Phases: wheel=birth; wetbox=childhood; triming=teen years; pre-bisque drying = young adulthood  as stagnation, waiting to become, stuck between -- before the first firing, as greenware the vessel is most fragile. The bisque firing = middle age/adulthood -- the form becomes permanent and hardened by the fire, it becomes "secure"; pre-glaze= pre-retirement years -- has made it through some trials, but has others ahead, another phase of waiting to develop; being glazed = retirement, kicking back, taking on a wholly different arrangement of one's life, and making necessary adjustments, preparation for further transition. The glaze fire= the end of life, a total transformation; after glaze fire= a new life! A new beginning as part of something else entirely new to one's previous experience. Never before could our wildest dreams and imaginings come close...
For how can it -- the vessel -- or we know?
The phases come and the phases go.
This is our time. Now.
And just the way the light touches all things,
And the ways the world speaks to us,
Should hopefully
Be enough
For you
To breathe a sigh of gratitude,
A sigh of relief.