1 post tagged “balance”

Recently one of our pottery classes was taught by the woman who owns the studio. As she led the class, she gave us a refresher course on some of the finer points regarding studio maintenance and etiquette. She stressed checking your workspace, making sure it was clean and prepared, checking equipment prior to each step.

She indicated to the collective that she does this always before she begins this part of the process because, she doesn’t trust the person who was using the materials previously. I laughed a bit louder then the rest of the class. It was safe to say I could readily identify.

I don’t trust you.

Shit, I work overtime and nearly give myself the spins just trying to trust myself. So I don’t have the energy or bandwidth to even consider what it would take to trust you.

I process. And re-process. I disassemble, oil all parts, reassemble and press the on button. And then...I process again.

One day, I expect my intuition is going to pack its bags, call a taxi and leave me a Dear John letter. Here it is, working all the time to give me some clarity, to shed some light on the darker corners of my spirit. I give it audience for a bit, even amuse myself with what it tells me...and then I turn to my ever active brain who lives to derail every intuitive thought with all it knows about history, failure and doom. Suddenly, intuition has been shoved to the short end of the couch and my brain is scrubbing any sense of “sense” off the floors, dusting the shelves and checking for fingerprints.

I don’t trust you.

Why? Because you don’t give me tangible proof. You utter words like faith and patience which may or may not be as real as unicorns and faeries. You don’t give me a map with clear directions. And while I love what you have to say, and it feels really good when I hear it...all it takes is one good crash to make you realize life should come with better reinforcements.

I was speaking with a friend this morning after a full day of all out obsession. Through each activity I tried to distract myself with, I mulled, I weighed, I re-examined the evidence, coming up with a broad array of equations that gave me an ever broader array of answers. I tossed all postulates aside, and tried to roll with absolute logic, clearly defined and historically proven logic. And I was completely miserable with the results. Balls of unintelligible...jumble. Then I realized something more than slightly amusing. I don’t trust logic much, either.

There is nothing logical about the human heart. The brain can be chemically explained, predicted and scientifically justified. But the heart remains that variable that embraces intuition like an old lover. No matter how beaten, abused and worn it may be, if it beats, it hopes. It dares to dream and it dares even more to believe in our deepest desires. How loudly it speaks, depends on just how long we’ve been beating it to death with all we think we know of the world. Whether loud or quiet, it dares to believe in us. It knows based on nothing, and could care less about your prior experience.

And it seems mine continues to sing out hopes and dreams, whether I trust it or not.