Heart Crafted

Someone once said, ~A potter shapes clay with firm yet gentle hands. If the potter is too harsh, the clay cracks; too soft, and the shape is lost. Similarly, boldness shapes hearts with truth, but kindness ensures the message is not destructive.~ If you think about it, matters of the heart in regard to a strong, worthwhile relationship and sitting down to make pottery are, in some aspect, very similar. How and in what way? For the most part, both of them take a tremendous amount of time, effort and patience that goes into a seemingly thoroughly detailed process knowing it may or may not turn out what you imagined it to be. In any case, it’s truly a thought provoking situation indeed the process it takes to not only create, but be able to mold together a long last relationship of 2 human hearts into one on the metaphorical relationship pottery wheel.

Let me ask this question to those who know or at least experienced making pottery; other than clay, what essential material is needed to help in making the shaping process considerably easier as it pertains to creating by hand something that will most definitely be a work in progress? If you answered water, then you’d be absolutely correct. Essentially, water ensures a workable smooth surface in which you’re able to soften, shape, slide, bend, connect, and expand the clay without any sort of problems. Hey, just like water is used to do what was previously mentioned for a block of hard clay, the water representing a couple’s thoughts, feelings, and emotions help in not just gradually softening and smoothing out, but working through any hardened clay of relationship issues between one another.

As I said before, water ensures a workable smooth surface in which you’re able to soften, shape, slide, bend, connect, and expand the clay without any sort of problems. Oftentimes, couples go through some chaotically difficult rather than calmingly smooth problematic issues causing cracks in the relationship. In other words, cracks that can be either mental, emotional, physical, and maybe even spiritual as well. For the most part, those aforementioned cracks are a representation of anger, fear, hatred, jealousy, spite, doubt, worry, insecurity, sadness, frustration, bitterness, disappointment, utter contempt, etc. Unfortunately, without water or should I say communication the problematic cracks in question don’t just dry up, but spread out to the point where the relationship becomes so fragile it ends up easily breaking apart.

For the question can be asked to anyone who made their own pottery: what did you enjoy the most after being able to create and design by hand what was deemed as a labor of love? I think it’s safe to say a number of people possibly enjoyed firing up the kiln in order to establish a finished product in what they’ve worked so hard in creating. Thinking about it further, when it comes to reaching the kiln stage of a worthwhile relationship it’s not the end of the process by any means whatsoever. You see, it’s a work in progress filled with challenges and one of them is keeping the fire within the kiln of each other’s hearts continually burning. What it primarily comes down to is knowing the longer a relationship goes the hotter it gets and trust me when I say there are people out there who are waiting to see if the both of you can take the heat, so to speak.

In retrospect, if you’re into pottery then you know there’s something considerably therapeutic and relaxing to the point where you simply lose track of time. I think it’s safe to say that anyone living the single life wants to have that same experience when it pertains to love/true love. Of course, whether or not it has the Demi Moore/Patrick Swayze pottery scene vibe from the movie Ghost with the song Unchained Melody by the Righteous Brothers playing in the background is a complete unknown. Ultimately, every relationship starts out like lumps of clay spinning on the wheel in hopes of not just learning lessons but striving to reach different stages of maturity. In the end, if you’re proud of your relationship and what the two of you have created together then you’ve hand or should I say heart crafted something uniquely different, valuable, and priceless.