The pottery-meditation/religion connection

I started this blog for a compulsory assignment as part of an E-commerce class.  I started the class in March, then dropped it.  As you can tell from the post archive over on the right, the new semester started again in September.  I just got my grade (A!), and some comments from the evaluator.  He said, "To some practitioners, doing pottery is a form of Zen meditation: yourself, the mind, the hands with the spinning mud, an eventually achieving inner peace."  I can completely understand that. 

I've never tried meditation.  I know many people consider prayer to be a form of it, but although I was raised in a Christian religion, my 'practice' of prayer was more imitation than practice...just enough to placate my parents.  (Alas, and one wonders why my devotion didn't continue past the teenage years.) 

There have been times, at the end of a long day and mighty traffic competition to get back into the city, where I've sat at a wheel content to just feel the clay circle 'round between my fingers.  I can just let my mind wander (or shut down) and feel myself relax.  It's clay-therapy, and one of the things I'm missing about not doing pottery this semester.  [Tangent:  If I could consider wheel-throwing as a form of mental centering, then a wheel should be considered medical equipment and therefore tax-deductible.  I'll send a note to the IRS and see if they agree.]

Pottery is certainly an 'ancient' art...generations have been doing it for centuries.  Initially functional, I would posit, ultimately the skill of making vessels and tools for practical purposes let itself to the practice of making items for entertainment, worship, etc.  Even my Christian education didn't imprint me with memory that pottery was mentioned in the Bible, though.  Turns out it is...

According to Don Friesen, The formative power of faith became vivid for Jeremiah one day on a visit to a potter's house. There he saw the potter working at his wheel, and as the potter worked his wheel Jeremiah recalls,"The vessel he was making of clay was spoiled in the potter's hand, and he reworked it into another vessel, as seemed good to him. Then the word of the Lord came to me:  ‘Can I not do with you, O house of Israel, just as this potter has done? ... Just like the clay in the potter's hand, so are you in my hand, O house of Israel.'"— (Jeremiah 18:4-6)

Another site discussing Chakra meditation says, "Imagine throwing a wet ball of clay onto the center of the spinning wheel and then with your hand around the moist clay, thumb on top, find the center of the clay and slowly push it to the center of the wheel, breathing deeply from your abdomen as the wheel spins with the clay centered perfectly."

As part of this (rare) 24 hours of religious awareness, there was a lot of press in the news yesterday about how US practicing members of various religions, atheists and agnostics fared on a quiz about religion.  I had heard about it, but not seen the actual quiz until Rachel sent it to me today.  The average for atheists and agnostics (my 'peeps) was 20.9 correct out of 32:  a dismal score, but better than the rest of the population...depressing.  I took it and got 28/32.  The competitive side of me was disappointed that I'd gotten 4 wrong, but I did find it ironic that one of my errors was regarding the religion I was raised with.  (Sorry, Mom.)

I am more convinced than ever that pottery will need to be a longer-term comonent of my life, if not for anything else than my 'centeredness' as a human being.  What a way to pick a hobby!