Some days that hope shines brighter than others.
Now I'm on the fourth iteration of a fishhook barrel cactus pod. For interested polymer clayers, I've learned more about translucent clay in this project than in all my past lives put together. I've learned that there are three rules for working with translucents: (1) Translucents burn faster, discolor easier, and throw more curves than other clays. (2) Always do a test piece before launching into a project. And (3) always do a test piece before launching into a project.
I give myself airs. A series? Yeah. Well but yeah. I don't mean I expect to show at the end of this creative phase. I mean that I intend to create a series of pieces unified by one concept worth, by my lights, pursuing. I'm not thinking about what happens at the end. I'm thinking about each piece. One at a time. Each one has my focus. I'm not thinking about what happens later. I'm drilling down, mentally and physically, studying the architecture, color, texture, rhythm, and function of each pod. It takes a kind of obsessive-compulsive mindset to do what I do. And that's OK.
I find myself slammed with the "real" world. Infobits congregate over my head and then hammer down on me like hail stones. Each one seem to think I, personally, am responsible for its safety in the archive of human knowledge, and most of them have some agenda that I, personally, am expected to accomplish. I know how miserable the Tamil boat people are, and how hideous it is that it took three months to reach Vancouver, BC, but I can't do one single thing about that.
A student once made anarduous trek to a Zen master for enlightenment. When he arrived, the master instructed him to return to his home, find a live goose and a big bottle with a narrow neck, and then to place the goose into the bottle without harming the goose or breaking the bottle.
Five times the student trekked back up the high rocky mountain to the master, shamed to confess his failure to accomplish the deed. Five times the master sent the student home way to try again.
On the sixth try, the student returned to the mountain top, lifted his face to his master, and said, "Master. This is my answer: It's not my goose, and it's not my bottle. Farewell." And the master smiled.
This work is the antidote for me for the barrage of hail stones. Not that I am not committed to peace/justice and other priorities in my life, but that I've learned to honor my priorities and that focus is the only way I know to survive or to progress.
I'm not sure that many would concur that replicating the pod of a fishhook barrel cactus is worth much attention. To them, I would say that my priorities are mine, and repeat a phrase from the great Joan Baez: "I hope you can adjust."
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