Practicing the Silence of Spaciousness
The weight of light falling into the garden, and upon my bedroom cottage, is surprising – and exposing. My missing big Mama Oak lives on in her roots. Heaps of sawdust where she once resided, her generosity still palpable, it always will be. She and nature keep gifting, keep changing. The Unknowable is present. The silence of spaciousness – delicate, and intricate.
Out of nowhere, David sends me a photo from his shop. First rough bowl, he writes. It is cut from Mama Oak’s wood he has picked up five days earlier on July 6. A rough draft that stills needs to cure for a few months till it can be fully sculpted. In eine Schale. By nature, a bowl is empty. Within its emptiness, space is hiding… waiting... the mystery still to be unraveled.
Visiting David’s efficiently, safely, and beautifully outfitted woodshop, I learn a lot from him. He has been a wood worker all his life in various capacities, furniture maker, carpenter, and more. Patiently he explains the long and involved process of turning a bowl. Many steps have to be adhered to, the sawing to size, making of a foot on the slab to hold it on the wood turning lathe machine, turning a rough draft, to be waxed. The waiting for the curing to happen. When the wood is dry enough, the turning and sculpting, constant sharpened of tools, sanding, waxing for finish, and much more. So much process, transition, and shapeshifting – a long journey from tree to bowl. Paying attention to the wood. The wood itself determines the shape, David stresses. He loves to listen to the mystery of how the bowl wishes to reveal its secret. Not only is he a craftsman, an artisan, but an artist.
All this reminds me of my decades as a theater maker and filmmaker. The long years of training, learning, discovering, honing one’s skills. The need for practice. Each time we go on the journey with beginner's mind. In my experience, Listening is the most important ally for an artist, no matter which medium. To the inner voice and spirit of the material, the demand of the times and the place or space (or platform), and one’s own deeper vision. This I call the Practice. Inherent in it is the mindset of how we go on the journey, how we allow it to unfold. Dedicated, curious, humble, and grateful. The energy and presence needed for Practice is a spiritual element, and more enduring and luminous than the end product which will turn to dust or ashes over time ….
…and this is how Life chisels, sculpts, and shapes us
within the silence of spaciousness
life ebbs and flows...
The time and planning and waiting and making of the bowls, reminds me of the time and planning and then the action of taking the Mama Oak down. The taking down was done in the most graceful way possible, with so much thought. Soon the bowls will be made and and they will also have a space for apples and plums and many things. And the life of ebb and flow and journey continues on in its new form.
ReplyDeleteThe last 3 lines break my heart open. There is something I feel so tender and poignant about the image of the empty bowl, the spaciousness and the sense of life making us. The way you write about this feels like listening to a deep story that at moments feels so vast and frightening (for we are being worked) but then so held, generous and loving.
ReplyDeleteWhat you write about listening has been echoing in me for the past 2 days. I keep wanting to listen to the "silence of spaciousness" and reflecting on what that means in my life. I think about when I feel most in the right place with a client-when I have somehow let go of expectation and felt empty without going away and then something would be said or expressed that was right and in that moment seen. Knowing also that I have been devoted, studying and practicing for many years.