"We live in succession, in division, in parts, in particles. Meantime within man is the soul of the whole; the wise silence, the universal beauty, to which every part and particle is equally related; the eternal ONE. And this deep power in which we exist and whose beatitude is all accessible to us is not only self-sufficing and perfect in every hour, but the act of seeing and the thing seen, the seer and the spectacle, the subject and the object, are one. We see the world piece by piece, as the sun, the moon, the animal, the tree; but the whole, of which these are the shining parts, is the soul." -Ralph Waldo Emerson
I came across this quote the other day and couldn't help but associate that which I do with my days, making objects with my hands from clay for people to see and to hold and to use in their own daily lives, with Emerson's more complete thought about the world as a whole: "...the act of seeing and the thing seen...the subject and object, are one." The user of the pot completes it and makes it whole, ONE. I never make pots without some sense of its final home in my mind's eye, its completion by being held by another, filled with food or flowers or gazed at upon a wall or a table. I see it, alive and part of another's life, in the future, as I am smoothing the rim, or trimming the foot or applying the glaze.
I wonder if the glacier grinding the granite into clay eons ago envisioned the bowl holding the soup, too? Or if the ancient ice crystals forming in the stratosphere and falling to the earth as snow imagined they would on day be part of this table laden with vessels and victuals, surrounded by friends and family laughing and raising their cups in salute to the occasion. Or if the wheel of time is merely doing its work and we each do our jobs as part of the larger scheme of things, however obscure it may seem to us now, at this point in time. No matter. I will go out and make more pots tomorrow. And someone will hold that pot in their hands and fill that pot with wine and lift it to their lips and drink it one day. And maybe even see it as a shining part of the whole.
I wonder if the glacier grinding the granite into clay eons ago envisioned the bowl holding the soup, too? Or if the ancient ice crystals forming in the stratosphere and falling to the earth as snow imagined they would on day be part of this table laden with vessels and victuals, surrounded by friends and family laughing and raising their cups in salute to the occasion. Or if the wheel of time is merely doing its work and we each do our jobs as part of the larger scheme of things, however obscure it may seem to us now, at this point in time. No matter. I will go out and make more pots tomorrow. And someone will hold that pot in their hands and fill that pot with wine and lift it to their lips and drink it one day. And maybe even see it as a shining part of the whole.
Better to write for yourself and have no public, than to write for the public and have no self. -Cyril Connolly
ReplyDeleteSo glad you are putting these wonderful thoughts down in one place. Love you.