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The Empty Bowl 

 

Two nights ago around midnight, a golden honey-colored bowl is glowing in the night sky. Its color intensifies as it slowly sinks into the dark horizon. It is the moon, inviting us to selectively fill our emptiness. Our nights and days, our mind and body, breath and heart. The wide-open bowl, ready to receive, and hold nourishing visions and efforts. What is most essential? Perhaps an offering of berries, a smile, the sound of bells, tears of gratitude, the beauty of a hand gesture, seeds, serenity, glimpses of freedom, water…  



Brass bowl 

(height 2 inches, radius 3.5 inches)


When I studied design in the early seventies at the Technical University in Munich, we had to do a four-month internship in a factory. I chose the company WMF (Württembergische Metallwarenfabrik, in existence since 1853), a factory located in the tiny village of Geislingen an der Steige near Stuttgart. It was well-known for its elegant designs and manufacturing of high quality household goods. One high point was assisting the Glass department’s head designer who at the end let me design a wooden glass blowing mold for my own drinking glass. Watching the master blowers work in their teams, this time producing my own design, was extremely exciting. I was good with my hands, so I spent many hours in the glass engraving section. Another highlight of my apprenticeship was the Metal department for forks, knives, spoons, bowls, pots, candle holders, and more, where the Meister (foreman) taught me all kind of skills. Early on he put a flat sheet of brass on my work table. I had observed him, and on my first try I was able to slowly hammer a small bowl into existence. Out of flatness, a three-dimensional miracle. With hundreds of blows of little hammers: sculpting emptiness. The bowl arose and shaped itself – I still have it. 

 

Winter is a good time to pause and contemplate emptiness. Then we selectively fill, till it is time to let go again… I am not speaking of things here, but rather of qualities, activities, focus. Nature’s cycles mirror us this arising and vanishing. We humans, too, are seasons, are “seasonal” – part of transformational movements. Like moon, stars, trees, ocean, foxes, civilizations, all waxes and wanes, it is here and then it disappears. We live and then….  

 

Comments

  1. Alex KJanuary 12, 2022 at 2:42 PM

    Your words echo deeply. They have me thinking about feelings of loss and sadness that I have experienced often times. As I've grown older, I have come to make sense of them but not fully. Seeing them as emptiness and as part of the nature of things, suddenly my heart softened and opened. That bowl of yours is beautiful and wondrously resonant.

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  2. nicole gervacioJanuary 18, 2022 at 9:37 AM

    an incredibly beautiful & delicate bowl, appreciating these memories & reflections...letting go truly resonates this season, self-initiated & also external– things, people, ideas– volunteering to let go of me, for me. this type of letting go can possibly feel like a blow to the ego, lead to self-doubt or insecurity, but a what relief when accepted with humility, understanding, and openness.

    the process of letting go, making space, sitting with openness can be so liberating, regenerative, inspiring when done intentionally or moving with the unexpected & unanticipated, like a dance, like water moving with the ebbs & flows...love reflecting on your words Karina, especially reading this in the wake of the full moon in Cancer :)

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