on generosity

today my potting friend Richard and I rented a u-haul trailer, drove a little ways outside town, picked up a cord of wood from a custom mill and took it to the kiln on the opposite side of town.where we cut it up, split and stacked it with the help of another lady on the crew. three people, six hours, 2000lb dry fir, everything swept up- I am pleased. In the bundle that we purchase was a wide variety of cuts- some were beasties of slabs cut from the round tree to make a square board, an eight foot piece might have weighed 150 lb before being cut.. other pieces were as thin as kindling, and a few were clean boards an inch thick- perhaps warped, perhaps too irregular, but aside from that the kind of wood that is sold as "rough-cut" lumber for so and so per board foot at the yard. nice stuff, for firewood. This I culled out and took home, and it is this small pile in the driveway that has sparked the blog entry.

potters who fire with wood as their primary fuel become connaiseurs of the qualities of woods: density and sap content, silica and mineral content, flame characteristics, moisture content, ease of splitting, odor when splitting or burning, etc. Some potters aren't too picky about their wood source, and some pay rigorous attention to type, quantity and timing of woods entering the kiln ( in addition to the host of other factors) in order to affect certain results. my lady Lindsay Oesterritter is one of those, and she reaps the benefits of knowledge by creating pots that are awesome and also reproducible- this is a tall order for a wood kiln. Point being, know your fuel to know your work. My kiln requires fry oil of course but also about half a cord of wood- some of it chunky fireplace stuff, and some of it no longer than ten inches, no wider than three. and I need a good few wheelbarrows worth of that size, which is not so easy to come by. I took advantage of the opportunity to select out exactly what I needed from the full cord (4'x4'x8') that we towed along the freeway today, destined for a different kiln that we will fire in two months.

My firing is in three weeks, and there is much yet to be done to prepare- I was relieved for the opportunity to check one off the shopping list of kiln needs, but it meant that I was taking some of the cream off the top of our work for one further down the road. I voiced my question to my friend and he, wise old dude that he is, said "so long as you get good pots out of the firing...." which immediately addressed the big question of the firing. and the bigger one than that: how exactly does one's intention work in the world? The man fixing my motorbike doesn't charge me for all his time. I say "these things come around", and I reminded him to give his wife my card and visit me someday. Certain friends always at least move to pick up the tab. My lover in MN helped me make my wheel, helped me fire my kiln, helped me collect wood for the brutal winters. We help, we love, and the intention of our action carries further than the physical work. Maybe that sounds metaphysical, maybe it is- to me it relates to that "economy of good juju" that I talked about in the interview with SOF. (except that I didn't say juju, or intention, but its all the same). Richard knows that I am not trying to skim some cream off our hard work today out of malice- I just need to get something else done too and I have plenty of time to make it up if a lack is perceived.

But this is the way that he expressed it to me as the day eased into a night of merriment, (he of Buddhist tendencies): he chafed a bit at being suddenly in the position when (yet again), he was assisting someone in acquiring something that they needed tanjental to the task at immediate hand. and then he remembered that it was absurd to value "his" time, "his" need, his agenda as separate or more important. I mused on Joel, my ex-loverman in MN, who was so generous with his time and energy that he found himself frustrated with a lack of reciprocation in like kind. He was self-observant, and would also say that one of the biggest things that he learned from his hitchhiking days was "pass it on"- that generosity is frequently not a two way street, but an unstructured flow of intention. ("and attitude!", my Pop would chime in at this point.

related, I am not at Burning Man right now. any spare cash that I have is going to the motorcycle that may take me there next year. I have never been to Burning Man, though I dearly want to. mostly I want to see the awesome art projects and of course dance all night. But I was telling a friend about how I am managing to trade my work for massage and food, and he says to me "you don't need to go to burning man- you're bringing it right here". Never having attended, I had forgotten that aspect of the big meeting of minds- it is an intention to a different paradigm of commodity exchange. and I must stress that, as with a marriage that lasts, the success of the endeavor hinges on an attitude of generosity.

Mama's in town, I'm off to meet her. Art in the Pearl art fair is this sorrowfully rainy weekend, and the Time Based Arts Festival!! for the next ten days.. kiln wood is collected and under cover, large pots are drying, my back is better, it's time for some visiting with the dear Mama.