Centering

 (I've been sick for a couple weeks, just beginning to feel good again. Here's a poem I wrote just before I moved from the farm to our cohousing community, and it seems a good one for us right now in our troubled world.)

Centering

I taught my two grandsons to use a potters wheel. 

They were excited, ready to engage,

imagining beautiful vases, plates, creations.

And then they found out about centering,

a challenge only one of them finally mastered.

There is the whirling surface,

and the hunk of clay in the center,

wobbling and bumping around,

all cattywhompel, uneven, rough and stubborn.

What is needed is firm, strong hands,

braced on stability, urging the clay down and in,

resisting the pull outward,

resisting the pull to disorder.

It takes slow patience,

easy breathing, focus, unflappable intent.

And once the clay is finally guided to the still center,

it spins beautifully, smoothly, unerringly in place.

It is only then that the potter can begin to shape,

to carefully, bit by bit, open a hole,

gradually spreading the base,

smoothly pulling up the sides.

From a centered lump of moist clay

balanced beauty can emerge.

Animals often seem centered:

the still watchful pause of a hunting cat,

a frog quietly meditating from the lily pad.

Perhaps to animals, this practice comes more naturally

than to humans.

Yet we too learn that centering,

whether in the midst of tumult

or during a normal day,

can bring us into peace,

into the heart of ourselves.

In our loud demanding world

remember the potters wheel,

the stillness and clarity,

unhurried aliveness, that comes from

returning to Center.