Becoming the Vessel — learning to reclaim like clay
Clay has a memory and a body. When we touch the clay, it knows if we are too harsh, too soft, too quick, too slow. It will show us through the language of movement. When we spin the clay, it can look as if it is dancing, there can be undulations we don’t see or feel until it is motion. Sometimes we push the clay too hard and it collapses into our hands. But the beauty in this, is that we can reclaim.
Reclaiming clay is by no means a special activity. Many potters would even regard it as an arduous chore. It requires patience and labour. When the clay becomes too wet, it can no longer hold its form and it will fall over. It is here, we take the clay to rest and let excess water evaporate out of it. Then, we repeatedly wedge the clay—you can imagine the movements of kneading dough, but instead of allowing air in, we want to ensure that there is no air in the clay. We do not want the contents, the memory, from the previous vessel to linger too much. So we work it out between our hands, shaping and forming new memories.
We can also reclaim our own bodies, our own memories, our own vessels of being. Our bodies may remember—holding onto what we think has passed—but those memories may remain. So we must rest. We must shed our tears. We must move on and form new ones. There will always be a lingering memory, but this is how we learn. We find strength in our resilience to keep going.
“We join spokes together in a wheel,
but it is the centre hole
that makes the wagon move.
We shape clay into a pot,
but it is the emptiness inside
that holds whatever we want.
We hammer wood for a house,
but it is the inner space
that makes it livable.
We work with being,
but non-being is what we use.”
Kinstugi is another beautiful practice of repair in Japanese pottery. This is the art of repairing with gold. This shows that even when something can be broken, or worn down, it is still beautiful—in fact, it may be even more so because of its stories. Our pains do not make us weak or ugly. They are to be honoured and celebrated for what we have overcome.
Reclaiming is not merely an act of resilience, but an act of hope. We create, and re-create, when we believe that there is a future. So, be like clay: reclaim.
