Normally, you find me slinging clay late at night, after the kids are asleep.  Since today’s a snow day, our schedule is all askew, and with hubby at hand to snap photos, I can relay my pottery craft.  I call it “craft” because I don’t know enough to consider it my art.  I don’t mix the clay or understand the minerals of it, and I am terribly inefficient.  I took a wheel class, but I haven’t studied or perfected the technique behind it; it’s on my list of things to do.  Right now, I’m helping keep our local pottery shop in business and enjoying the learning process.

We are blessed to have an electric wheel (a Shimpo) and a nice electric kiln (Skutt).  I am blessed to have a husband that doesn’t mind spending our retirement money on hobbies.  If we’re lucky, maybe selling the pottery in our retirement age will get us by. 

So, this morning, I make a mess, and here’s how I do it.  If you’re looking for a detailed how-to, I can suggest a simple book, but I recommend taking a class.  Pottery is very hands-on, and you just have to do it to get it.

Cut the clay off the block.  Already, I’ve got my tools and bucket of water by the wheel.  Then, “wake” the clay.  Oversimplified, this compacts it.

Center it on the wheel, using high speed. (This exercise tests your awareness and breathing, actually quite a good morning experience, but that’s for another post.)  I like working “off the mound” since I think it’s easier to center, which for me is the hardest part.  Naturally, it is also the most important part.

Set it out to dry a bit before trimming.  (I brought mine indoors to dry quicker so I can trim it tonight.)  I use another bat with newspaper.  If I were leaving it for longer, I would cover it with a plastic bag, which is what we did in our weekly pottery class.

I figure I waste enough clay in the process, so I try to use what is left on the wheel.  Today I actually got another bowl of sorts out of the leftovers.  In class, our very talented instructor worked off a much larger mound and could produce bowl after bowl.  Someday . . . someday.

Next week, I’ll show the trimming.  It will be a couple of weeks before we bisque fire.  We want to use up the clay we have, filling the kiln as much as possible, to be more efficient.  Plus, it uses most of our wattage to fire the kiln — no laundry, dishwasher, microwave, or t.v. while it’s going!  After the bisque, then we’ll glaze, and I can show the final product, hopefully in one piece (another lesson in non-attachment!).

Thanks for reading!!  I would love comments or advice.

How many comic strips have been done about the many roles a mother performs?  “Mother” at once also implies nurse, baby-sitter, chef, server, chauffer, social planner, chief home officer and sometimes even parole officer — to name a few.  If compensated for our time and duties, our pay would exceed $100k in our current era.  So why do so many of us want more?

It could be societal recognition.  We want a title, aside from mother, that is recognized and monetarily compensated.  That would be nice.  Yet I know for me it is something more.  I love being a mother and feel it is a worthy calling in and of itself.  I will always be a mother.  Yet I feel I have another role to fill in this life; I have something else to offer for the universal good.  I know that being a mother is part of my role and will enhance whatever it is that I do.  I’m sure few mothers can say that motherhood has left them unchanged as a person (major understatement, I know!).

So even after having four children, I wonder which path I am to follow.  I would like to go to my spiritual director and ask, “What am I to do?”  Actually, I already did.  She’s told me I’m doing the right things as I begin my process of discernment.  That’s at once frustrating and encouraging.  It’s frustrating because like everyone else, I would rather know sooner than later what my life holds.  It’s encouraging, though, because at least I know I’m on the right path.

What is it that I’m doing right?

• I write (almost) daily in my morning journal.  In it I vent, ask for guidance, express my thoughts and sometimes experience little awakenings. 
• I give myself space to listen and to talk safely and openly.  In this space, I hope to hear my heart reveal my calling. 
• I also have the luxury of a companion whom I have journeyed with for several years along our creative paths.  Personal check-ins reveal how you’re treating yourself, what your dreams are telling you and where you are right now.

Basically, as I seek to find what role I will fill in addition to motherhood, I give myself space and time, which we know is a gift itself.  The answers will come quietly in their own time.  May I listen well and love deeply in the meantime.