On the Potter's Wheel

Life is a lot like making pottery.

This is a post from the archives in 2024. I hope you enjoy it! I’ll be back next week with all new content. Thanks for reading! And while your’re here, please subscribe!

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My great-grandmother loved to do crafts. She was quite talented and could create just about anything using seemingly nothing. She was creative, and it shined through everything that she did. What a project looked like when she began was nothing compared to how it appeared when she was finished.

She was at her best when doing ceramics or pottery. She even owned her own kiln! Knowing that history, my wife talked me into attending a pottery class on vacation one year. It was a one-day deal, and you could choose what you wanted to make from several items they offered. We decided to make coffee mugs. The instructor made it look easy. Me? Mine was messy, a real mess, in fact. Several times after beginning, we would have to crush what I had done thus far, roll the clay back into a ball, center it on the wheel, and begin again. It didn't look like a mug until I was finished. Once completed, we left our coffee cups with the instructor for the final process. We received them in the mail a few weeks later. That's the picture above. 

Making pottery on a spinning wheel is a lot like going through life. Both start with something simple and shapeless, but with a bit of effort and care, you can turn it into something unique and useful. Here are three tips that I learned from our pottery-making experience.

First, find your center. Before creating something on a pottery wheel, you must ensure the clay is directly in the center. If it's not, whatever you're making could wind up lopsided. That's true in life, too. Centering ourselves is a daily, sometimes hourly, practice. Finding a sense of calmness, knowing that we are balanced, and keeping things that way is essential to living a quality life and achieving the goals we set out to reach.

Second, work with the pressure. When shaping pottery, one has to push on the clay carefully. Push too softly, and the clay won't change shape. Push too hard, and it may break apart. Life is like that, too. Pressure is normal and can actually help us grow. It's all about how we handle it. The right amount of pressure applied in the right way can help create something we never thought possible.

Third, connect to a tribe. When we started, we had no idea what we were doing, so we found someone who did and learned from them. We couldn't do it alone, either. It took others to put the final touches on our coffee cups before we could use them. Don't try to do it alone. You have unique gifts, talents, and abilities that others don't, and others have what you don't. That's why it's crucial to connect with people you can trust in order to learn from them and work with them.

Building a life and making pottery are both about creating something remarkable from something simple. Every great thing that we achieve starts with facing a challenge. Embrace what life throws at you, and let it help you create your own masterpiece.