Posted on by Jessica Dofflemyer · 4 Comments

At the Potter’s Wheel

I’ve been thinking about the potter’s wheel. How so much depends on the careful balance of speed and applied pressure.

Too slow on the foot pedal, you’ve got wobble. Too fast, you’re out of control.

We each exist on this wheel of sorts. Spinning through space on an earthen sphere, we subsist in the mysterious still point of perfected gravity. At this very moment, we are whirling about at such speed, moving through our days, molding and shaping our lives.

These events, the infinite details, they unfold as soon-to-be memories. Seven billion lives evolving, each a potter’s respiring creation.

We are crafters, mastering a work in progress. We play with the elements, adding liquid to solid in measured doses. We test velocity, adjusting the speed of our wheel.

We are seated at the messy helm. Hands in deep, slippery, and full of gooey matter. This is the real. This is the good. This is the stuff. Beautiful and wild. Full of a nothing that can spin into something. Anything.

What are you creating?

photo courtesy of Melissa Bridgman
photo courtesy of Melissa Bridgman
Posted on by Jessica Dofflemyer · 2 Comments

Rising

“A bird doesn’t sing because it has an answer, it sings because it has a song.”

~ Maya Angelou     April 4th, 1928 – May 28th, 2014

Maya-Angelou

 

A profound influence on me, and the world, Maya Angelou has given me the courage to sing my song and share it. She was right there in the beginning, when I first began For the Archives in 2010. Ever-grateful for her contributions to us all. Mahalo nui loa, Maya Angelou!

 

October 8, 2010

I go to the Princeville library on a mission but they don’t have a single title by Robinson Jeffers.  I get a book of poems by Maya Angelou instead; “And Still I Rise.”  By donation only, I get a facial at the Rainbow Ministry and am told what I offer is too much.  Afterward, with a fresh face I buy a single strand of jade beads.  On my way home my surfboard almost flies off my car crossing Kalihiwai bridge when the bungee pops off while driving.

 

book cover design Janet Halverson, Random House 1978

 

After school my son loses his tooth when the tether ball hits him in the face.  I am in the fundraising meeting planning salsa dancing when he comes to me with blood smeared on his lips:  “Mom, don’t tell anyone…I lost my tooth.”

It’s Friday night and we get take out, play with beads and watch a movie.  It’s a film made by Christians but if I ignore some of the church talk I still get teary in the scenes about having faith.