Saying Goodbye

It's been almost a year since my life changed forever with the loss of a very dear person. I've wanted to write this post for nearly that long, but it's been hard finding my way to it. This is not going to be a post about my dear friend, that is too personal, but a post about clay and the path to healing.

The decision for cremation was made and the ashes would be spread on our property during an intimate gathering of only the closest friends and family. I have to admit the first thing that came to mind was the scene in The Big Lebowski with The Dude catching a face full of Donnie's ashes. Things can go very wrong when spreading ashes and although amusing in a movie one should try to avoid it in real life. My dear friend was gentle and sincere and I just had to find a way to give him a gentle farewell.  

I looked around for ideas, but with ashes the best people have to offer is dropping from an airplane or having the ashes turned into fireworks and shot into the air. Both of these would be great send offs for the right people, but not this one.  Somehow the story of chai tea on Indian trains came to mind. I got to work.

I started throwing small unfired urns that we could carry into the woods, spend a moment saying goodbye, and place under trees, ferns, flowers. With the rain the clay would gently dissolve and the clay and ashes would gently become one with the earth.  

I write about this here to give the idea to others looking for a way to say goodbye peacefully. It is an option that I wanted to share.

Let your heart sing.

-B

Loading a wood-fire kiln

Loading a wood fired kiln is a labor of love. Loading any kiln is like putting together a puzzle with no idea what the final picture looks like. Wood firing adds another step, every piece that will touch another surface needs to be separated by wadding and or kiln wash (which is a watered down version of wadding). You will see the little balls under all the pots as they are going in. This includes the lids of pots.

This video is short and sweet, don't want to bore you.  This will give you just a little taste of how the process shakes down.

P.S. I apologize for the quality of this video. I will never claim to be a tech savvy person, but I just had to give this a shot. Enjoy!