Frogs and Ravens

Go Give Chris Money...

...because I'm selfish:  I want to read his book!

The Potter's Ayurveda

Kapha.  Heavy and slow, the mixture of water and earth.

I bought a new bag of clay this month, having used up the first one.  I am returning to the clay I know best, porcelain.  The grains are fine, the body smooth, plastic, yielding.  On the wheel it turns into eggshells, the rippled whorls of flowers, small bowls for sipping something rare and precious.  In the hand it is pliant, waiting placidly to be transformed into tiny faces, mysterious creatures, wild-eyed birds with calm bodies.

Vata.  Dry and rough, light and quick, the mixture of space and air.

Dry greenware, the unfired clay, is brittle.  Drop it, and it transforms into dust and fragments. Push it too hard, and it crumbles.  Porous, it inhales moisture, absorbing the colors of pigmented slip, seizing them and holding them fast.  Abraded gently with sandpaper, the surface becomes as soft as sandstone, a rough-smooth matte texture like the skin of a toad.  Flaws are erased through the actions of the sand, silicon grains rubbing at other grains of earth and crystal.  Dry vulnerability becomes a virtue.  Passed through fire, it becomes strength.

Pitta.  Sharp, hot, and moist, the mixture of fire and water.

Bisqueware seizes the moist glaze aggressively, holding it tight, demanding swift action with no errors.  The element of chance cannot be avoided, only compensated for.  Wax buys some room, a moist-dry shell that transforms hungry clay into restrained form capable of resisting the call of color and shine. 

Pottery emerges from the final firing hot, shining, and bright with energy.  When glaze is applied too thickly, it puddles and forms a glass-sharp edge; too thin, and the clay looks through, resistant to transformation.  Cooling pots sing, a celebration of their survival and adaptation to the world beyond.  Dull textures have given way to brightness and color, fragility to surprising strength. 

There is alchemy in the firing, lessons at every stage; clay and water,  pigment and fire, the unpredictability of air -- all of these keep the potter humble, unable to take any of it for granted.  In the practice, all comes into balance.

Fire and Earth, Water and Air

*ting*

*ting*  *ping*

*ting*

*tong**tink**ting*

*ting*

It sounded like a small windchime, these random but musical sounds dripping gently into the air of the pottery studio.  I wondered if the fans were blowing a chime, but none was in sight.  I walked over to the corner where the sounds seemed loudest.

The shelves in the studio are arranged so that each object moves from wetness to dryness, from dryness to heat, from fire-baked dryness to completion.  The sounds were loudest in the area where objects fresh from the glaze firing are stored.  Every time I enter the studio, I end up peering and peeking my way around these shelves, searching for things that I might have made.  It turns out that my memory for my own work is surprisingly poor, even when you take the transformation from unfired glaze to fired into account.  So I'm always tipping my head from side to side to peer around the pots in front, raising up on tiptoe to inspect the topmost shelves, crouching down to search among the children's artwork on the lower ones. 

*ping*

*ting*

*tunk*  *ping*

The sound seemed to be hovering mysteriously over the freshly fired pots.  I touched one, tentatively; it was as warm as skin.  I heard pings on another shelf.  I could see nothing, just pots sitting motionless, and yet this gentle music was present, like a fairy orchestra.  My mind was sure that this sound had something to do with the pots cooling, but I felt unsure, unconvinced, because the sound was just there, with nothing to indicate its source beyond a coincidence of location.  (It turns out that ears are good at locating sounds, but not that precisely.  Clearly the source of the sounds was the shelves.  Not so clearly was where, exactly, on the shelves it was coming from, or from what.)

It was a pleasantly mysterious way to begin the afternoon's work, a session that ended up with clay in my hair, and small grey freckles on my skin, which lingered, unnoticed, until evening.

Why I Will Probably Never Participate in NaNoWriMo

A random question:  why on earth is National Novel Writing Month in November, of all months?  It's short, it's dark, and it contains a major holiday that typically involves family, travel, and stress.  Is it to say that you're a Real Writer if you can pound out the word count day after day, even when family protest or scheduling is different?  Or what?  Why make an already insane task more difficult?

What month would make more sense for you?  Me, I'm thinking August.  Or maybe, although it is short, February.

On the Downward Side of Autumn

The homeopathic remedy I've been taking for my allergies seems to be having some small effect.  Either that or the new filter I bought is finally clearing out the air in the living room.  I still feel either too moist or too dry, either snuffly and clogged or constantly running.

I suppose it's appropriate that my body is acting this way, because the weather itself feels locked into a similar pattern of irritable daytime dryness and nighttime dew.  Mostly we're seeing piles of leaves and blowing winds, cold-puffed squirrels hoarding acorns and nuts, clear cold mornings and nearly horizontal golden rays of light at the bookends of the day.  The rain continues to elude us; for the most part I am unaware of its absence, except when I wonder about the last time it rained - then it seems so long ago - and it is.  In the yard, the leaves stand on end, turning from the brilliance of their early days to a rich dusky orange.

On the door hangs a sheaf of Indian corn, an autumnal garland that has been there since the end of September or so.  When the days roll into December, I intend to replace it with a conifer garland, but I am dragging my heels because it seems perverse to be talking about winter holidays when the grand harvest dinner of Thanksgiving has yet to take place  They say that snow usually comes during the last week of classes, and I wonder what the cat will think as she stares out at it, fur fluffed in memory of being a stray in winter.  In her thickening coat white freckles are appearing on the blackness of her flanks, a feline echo of crisp late night, late-fall skies.

My own coat thickens, even as my skin and sinuses dry.  I wear cashmere and merino, live in handknit socks and soft warm hats.  Today I wore my mother's Frye boots, creased and furrowed by the shape of her feet, by years of pressing down in stirrups.  As I stomped my way through the fall air, the sharp light of late fall crossing my eyes, I felt myself clearing, opening up, ready for the bright chill season to come.