← Listen To Sleep - Quiet Bedtime Stories & Meditations
Listen To Sleep - Quiet Bedtime Stories & Meditations
The Potter’s Hands - How Imperfect Things Teach Us to Hold What Matters
00:42:57
Loading summary
Transcript5 lines
- [00:01]
A
Hey, it's Eric. Before we begin tonight's episode, just a quick reminder. You're about to hear a few ads that help to support Listen to Sleep. If you'd rather drift off without them, you can join Listen to Sleep plus and get every episode ad free plus bonus stories and meditations. Just go to ListenToSleep.com and click on Support to learn more.
- [00:29]
B
We live in a culture obsessed with dieting, weight loss and exercise, and that can make eating disorder behaviors easy to miss. But the reality is eating disorders are serious mental illnesses that take a major toll on your health and your life. But recovery is possible. Eating disorders are more common than you might think. Chances are you know someone who is struggling with one, or maybe you're struggling yourself. If you're concerned about an eating disorder in yourself or a loved one, I want to introduce you to eqip. EQIP is a fully virtual evidence based eating disorder treatment program that helps patients achieve lasting recovery at home. Every Equip patient is matched with a multidisciplinary care team that includes a therapist, dietitian, medical provider and mentors. And you get a personalized treatment plan that's tailored to your unique goals and challenges. Equip treats patients of all ages and all eating disorder diagnoses. It's covered by insurance and there's no wait list. If you think that you or a loved one could be struggling with an eating disorder, don't wait to get help. Visit Equip Health to learn more. That's Equip Health.
- [01:35]
C
And now a next level moment from ATT Business. Say you've sent out a gigantic shipment of pillows and they need to be there in time for International Sleep day. You've got AT and T5G so you're fully confident, but the vendor isn't responding. And International Sleep Day is tomorrow. Luckily. AT&T 5G AT&T lets you deal with any issues with ease so the pillows will get delivered and everyone can sleep soundly. Especially you. ATT 5G requires a compatible plan and device coverage not available everywhere. Learn more@att.com 5G Network.
- [02:05]
B
It'S fall at Whole Foods Market with so many ways to save. Gather friends and family around the table or fire pit with delicious finds from 365 Brand at Great Everyday prices. Fill your pantry with organic pasta and robust sauces and your freezer with wild caught breaded fish sticks and appetizers like the Quiche Trio and Breaded Calamari. Want more savings? See yellow sales signs throughout the store. Shop low prices at Whole Foods Market in store or online.
- [02:40]
A
Hey friends, it's Eric. Welcome to another relaxing episode of Listen to Sleep. It has been raining on the mountain this week. Not the dramatic storms of winter, but that soft, persistent autumn rain that just settles in and stays. It's the kind that makes the cabin feel so cozy, and it kind of invites a particular flavor of melancholy. Autumn seems to carry grief in it, the trees letting go, the light fading a little earlier each day, everything slowing down, turning inward, preparing for the darkness of winter ahead. There's a weight to it, a weight we're better off feeling than trying to think our way around. I let it be a reminder to stay present with sadness when it's there, instead of trying to fix it or rush through it to see how this season is meant for slowing down, for letting things fall apart so that they can be gathered up and made into something new. Tonight's story is about that kind of patience. It follows a woman who takes up pottery after a loss, learning that failure isn't the opposite of success. It's part of the process, and that sometimes the most important work we do is simply beginning again. It's a quiet story about grief and clay and the small, imperfect things that we make with our hands. Before we get to tonight's story, I want to share something with you. Creating Listen to Sleep is a big part of my life's work and your support makes a huge difference. If these episodes help you find peace, I would be so grateful if you'd consider joining Listen to Sleep plus for less than a latte each month, you'll get ad free episodes with no interruptions, plus extended readings not released anywhere else. You can join@listentosleep.com support or now you can subscribe directly in Apple Podcasts, where you can also get a seven day free trial. Thanks so much for your support. Let's take a deep breath in and out. Feels so good to just let go of the day, feeling the weight of gravity pulling you deep down into the mattress. And let's take another deep breath in and letting it out. There really is nothing to do, nowhere to go, no one to be. This is your time. Quiet time. One more deep breath in with me and out. If you get tired while I'm reading to you, that is okay. Just let yourself drift off the potter's hands. The pottery shed stood at the back of the garden behind the overgrown tomato plants and the fence that needed mending. Amara hadn't opened the door in quite some time. It had been Mateo's space, his weekend retreat, his place of mess and making. But this evening, as the October light slanted low and golden through the apple trees, she found herself walking down the familiar stone path, her footsteps slow on the stones he had laid so carefully years ago. Now the brass handle was cool under her palm. She paused, her hand resting on the metal, feeling the weight of the moment. Then she turned it and stepped inside. The air smelled of clay and wood and something else. Time, perhaps. Dust motes swirled in the amber light from the single window, moving in lazy spirals. The pottery wheel sat in the center of the small room, patient and still, its surface filmed with dried clay, holding the memory of hands that were no longer here. Shelves lined the walls, holding Mateo's bowls and cups, some finished and glazed to a soft green or deep blue, some forever waiting for the kiln they'd never see. A bag of dried lavender hung by the window, its scent mixing with the earthy smell of clay. Mateo had always kept lavender in here. Now it was faded to pale gray, but when Amara brushed against released a whisper of its original fragrance. A gray tabby cat slipped past her ankles and leaped onto the wooden workbench with a soft thud. Luna the cat had been Mateo's companion out here on countless Saturday afternoons, and now she looked at Amara with green eyes that held neither judgment nor nor expectation, just presence. Amara stood very still, letting the space settle around her. She hadn't come out here to make pottery. She didn't know the first thing about it. She'd come because she needed to be somewhere that still held him, even in his absence. Somewhere quiet, where she could simply sit. With what was on the workbench. She found a notebook. Mateo's handwriting, loose and looping, filled the pages with notes and sketches. Cone 6 glaze, one page read, white stoneware wedged thoroughly. She traced the words with one finger, not understanding them, just feeling the grooves the pen had left in the paper. Luna began to wash her face, one paw moving in slow, deliberate circles. The sound of her tongue on fur was the only sound in the shed, rhythmic and meditative. Amara pulled out the old wooden stool and sat down at the wheel. She didn't turn it on. She just sat. The light was fading now, going soft and blue. Through the window she could see the garden settling into evening. The lavender he'd planted years ago swayed gently, their stems gone woody but still holding their shape. The stone path wound through the beds, each rock placed with care. She remembered watching him work on it one summer, how he'd hold each stone, turning it, finding its best angle Everything he'd touched seemed to hold his patience, his way of moving through the world without hurry. Shadows stretched across the garden. A bird called from the apple trees, a last song before night. The shed was growing dimmer, the amber light fading to gray. She placed her hands on the wheel's metal surface. It was cool and smooth. For a long moment she simply let her palms rest there, feeling the solid reality of it. Then, almost without deciding to, she reached for the small bag of clay on the shelf beside her. The bag crinkled as she opened it. The clay inside was wrapped in plastic, still damp, still workable. She pulled out a piece and set it on the wheel's center, where she'd seen Mateo place clay many times before, though she'd never paid close attention to what came next. Luna hopped down from the bench and wound herself around Amara's ankles, purring. The sound filled the small shed like a motor, like a heartbeat, like the earth itself humming. Amara looked at the lump of clay. It sat there, inert and waiting. She had no idea what to do with it, no plan, no skill. But her hands were resting on either side of it now, and outside the light was almost gone, and somewhere in the stillness she heard herself whisper, okay. And then she pressed the foot pedal. The wheel began to turn, slow at first, then faster as her foot found the rhythm. The clay wobbled unevenly off center, threatening to fly apart. Amara's hands hovered around it, uncertain, not quite touching. Luna sat on the workbench now, watching with the infinite patience of cats. In Mateo's notebook, she'd seen a sketch labeled Centering. His drawing showed hands cupped around clay, pressure firm and steady. She tried to remember the times she'd glanced out the kitchen window and seen him at work, his body curved over the wheel, his focus absolute. He'd made it look as easy as breathing. She pressed her palms against the clay. It resisted, cold and slippery. The wheel spun the lump against her hands, and instead of centering, it wobbled harder. She eased off, tried again. The clay lurched. The light was almost gone now. She reached up and pulled the chain on the old lamp that hung above the wheel. Warm yellow light pooled around her workspace, leaving the rest of the shed cloaked in gentle shadows. Moths appeared at the window, drawn to the glow, their wings soft against the glass. She tried again, hands around the clay, elbows braced against her knees, press in and down. The wheel turned. The clay moved under her palms, alive and dense. For just a moment, maybe two seconds, she felt it, the clay responding, starting to center, starting to find its balance. Then it lurched again, fell off center, and she had to stop the wheel. Her hands were covered in wet clay now, gray and slippery. It was under her fingernails, in the creases of her palms, cool against her skin. She looked down at them, these hands that had moved through recent seasons like they belonged to someone else, uncertain of their purpose. Now they were learning something new, learning to read clay, to understand pressure, to feel when to push and when to ease back. Luna yawned, showing her pink tongue and small white teeth. Then she settled into a loaf shape on the bench, eyes half closed. The cat seemed content to wait, to watch, to simply be present while Amara worked. She pulled the clay off the wheel and rolled it between her palms, feeling its texture, its cool density. Clay was strange stuff, solid but yielding, heavy but responsive. She could feel tiny air bubbles in it, small pockets that would need to be worked out. Mateo's notebook had called this wedging. She kneaded the clay against the wooden workbench, pushing down with the heels of her hands, folding it over, pressing again. The rhythm was oddly soothing. Then she slapped it back onto the wheel and started again. This time she moved slower. She didn't think about bowls or cups or anything that might be made. She just thought about the clay, about keeping it centered, about the feeling of it under her hands. Press in, press down. The wheel turns. The clay responds, then resists, then adjusts. She presses again. Outside, night had fully arrived. The shed had become a small island of light in the darkness. Inside this space, there was just the whir of the wheel, the smell of wet earth, Luna's steady breathing, and the clay that refused to center but didn't seem to mind her trying. After several attempts, the clay finally centered. She felt it happen, a sudden smoothness, the wobble gone. The clay spun true under her hands, perfectly balanced, and for a moment she nearly let go. But she held on, kept steady, and felt the wheel carry the centered clay around and around, steady as a heartbeat. She held it there, feeling the perfection of it. The clay was warm now from the friction, moving like silk under her palms, fluid and responsive. Mateo's notebook had called this the foundation. Everything began here, with this moment of balance. She didn't try to make anything yet. She just held the clay centered, feeling the wheel turn, feeling her hands steady, feeling something in her chest that wasn't quite peace but was quieter than before, Something like a door opening, something like being able to breathe deeper. Luna chirped softly from the bench, a small sound of acknowledgment, and Amara sat back, her Hands dripping clay water, she looked at Luna, who looked back at her with those calm green eyes. Okay, she said again, softer this time. Okay. She would come back tomorrow and the day after, because something in this space, in the wheels turning, in the clay's resistance and response, in Luna's quiet company, felt like exactly where she needed to be. Weeks passed, and the shed became Amara's evening ritual. After work, after dinner dishes, she would walk down the garden path to the cozy shed with the small window. Luna always met her at the door, tail up in greeting. The failures came often at first. Bowls collapsed mid pull, walls slumping inward. Rims tore when she tried to thin them. Centers that seemed solid would suddenly slip off. B but with each failure came small wisdoms. Her hands learned the pressure needed, firm but not forcing, steady but responsive. Her eyes learned to read the clay's readiness, to see when it was too wet or too dry. Her body learned to breathe with the wheel's rhythm, to let her shoulders drop, to keep her elbows anchored. She began to understand what Mateo had loved about this. Not the finished pieces, though those mattered, but the conversation with the clay, the way it taught through resistance, the way each attempt revealed something new about patience, attention, and beginning again. The clay was an honest teacher. It showed you immediately when you pushed too hard or not enough, when your attention wandered, when you forgot to breathe. Some evenings, when attempts felt discouraging, she would sit at the wheel without turning it on Luna on her lap, and looking at Mateo's pieces on the shelves, she could see his learning in them too. Early bowls with tentative walls, later ones growing more assured. Even his best pieces carried small imperfections. A fingerprint preserved in glaze, a rim slightly thicker on one side. These weren't flaws, she realized. They were signatures, proof that a human hand had made this, that someone had been here, paying attention. One evening in November, as the first cold settled in, Amara pulled up the walls of a bowl, and it stayed. She centered the clay with growing confidence, opened it with her thumbs, and now she was pulling. Fingers inside, fingers outside, steady upward pressure. The walls rose under her hands, thinning gradually, the clay responsive. When she reached the rim, she compressed it gently, smoothing it, feeling it become complete. She sat back and looked at what she'd made. It wasn't perfect. The rim wavered slightly in one spot. One side was a touch thicker, but it was whole. It was a bowl. It would hold things, soup or fruit or morning light. She cut it free with a wire tool, sliding it beneath the base, feeling the bowl release. Then she lifted it carefully and carried it to the drying board. It sat there in the lamplight, still damp and dark, its walls showing her fingerprints in subtle spirals. She thought about all the collapsed attempts before this one, all the evenings of trying, all the clay gathered and tried again, and she understood those failures weren't separate from this success. They were part of it. The collapsed bowls had taught her hands where to press and where to hold back. The frustration had taught her patience. The falling apart had taught her how to begin again. Every failure had been a lesson, and this bowl held all those lessons in its walls. She made two more bowls that evening. Neither was perfect, but both were complete. The second came more easily. Her hands remembered the rhythm now, the pressure needed the way to coax the walls upward. The third she made slightly wider, experimenting, and though one side ended up taller, she laughed as she decided it had character. They stood on the drying board in a row, three bowls where there had been none, three containers made from earth and water and her own uncertain hands. When she finally cleaned up, washing her hands and wiping down the wheel, sponging away the clay slip, she felt something in her body she hadn't felt in a long time. Not happiness exactly, something quieter, something like being okay with where she was, like her body was finally her own again, capable and present. And here Luna waited by the door, patient as always. Together they stepped out into the cold evening, Amara locking the shed behind them. The garden was dark, the lavender silvered by a faint moonlight, and the house beyond glowed with warm windows that looked welcoming now instead of empty. As she walked up the path, careful on the stones in the darkness, she thought about Mateo, not with the sharp ache that had filled her before, but with something softer. Gratitude, maybe, for this shed, for these tools, for showing her, even unknowingly, that making things with your hands could be a way of finding your way back to yourself, that beginning again, over and over, could become a kind of grace. Winter brought early darkness. By the time Amara finished work, the sun had set and the shed waited in blue twilight. She'd been coming here for nearly two months now, and the routine had become as natural as breathing work, dinner dishes, then the walk down the darkening path to the shed. She'd brought a small electric heater now that the weather turned cold. It glowed orange in the corner, humming softly, taking the edge off the December chill. The shed stayed warm enough that she could work in comfort, though she still wrapped herself in one of Mateo's old flannel shirts from the hook by the door. It smelled faintly of clay dust and memory Luna was already inside, having slipped through the cat door Mateo had installed years ago. She looked up from her spot near the heater, blinked slowly, then returned to grooming. Tonight Amara wasn't here to make anything new. She'd come to trim the bowl she'd thrown last week. It had dried to leather, hard now, firm enough to handle, but still soft enough to carve. She centered the bowl upside down on the wheel, using small coils of clay to hold it steady. She turned on the wheel slower than for throwing. The bowl spun smoothly, and she held the trimming tool against its base. The tool bit in and a ribbon began curling away, thin and even. She worked slowly, watching the clay peel back. She carved a foot ring, the small raised circle that would let the bowl sit stable. As it emerged, the bowl transformed from a heavy lump into something that seemed to float. The trimming was peaceful work, quieter than throwing, less about building up and more about refining, finding the final form. The ribbons fell away in spirals, and the bowl's shape emerged rounder, lighter, more complete. When she finished, she held the bowl in her hands, turning it, feeling its weight. It fit perfectly in her palms. The walls were thin enough to let light through. The foot ring was slightly uneven but solid. Her fingerprints were still visible on the interior, faint whorls in the clay. She knew who it was for Margaret. Two houses down. She'd been leaving small things on Amara's porch over the past year. Soup when the weather turned cold, still warm in a towel. Tomatoes from her garden in summer, six arranged in a bowl Amara was meant to keep. Once a well worn book with a note. Thought you might like this. It was a mystery novel, clearly one of Margaret's favorites. Amara had read it in three days and left it back with thanks. The next week another book appeared. Margaret never knocked, never expected conversation beyond the occasional wave across yards. Just left these small kindnesses and moved on, tending her roses, walking her ancient corgi, living her life in a way that made room for noticing when someone else might need noticing. This bowl would be for Margaret not because it was beautiful or valuable. It was neither, not really, but because it was made by hands that had learned to try again, because it had been formless clay and had become something that could hold things, soup or tea or tomatoes or whatever Margaret wanted, because it was proof that uncertain hands could still make whole things that seemed worth giving. Amara wrapped the bowl in newspaper and set it aside. She would fire it next week in the community kiln Mateo had used, then deliver it to Margaret's porch with a simple Note thank you seemed insufficient, but maybe simple was what was needed. She sat on her stool, not working, just being in the space. She poured tea from her thermos and watched Luna wash her ears in slow, methodical circles. The shed was warm and quiet, filled with things made by hand on the shelves, her own work accumulated alongside Mateo's bowls and cups, in various stages of drying, each carrying the marks of her learning, each imperfect and complete. Outside, frost was settling on the garden, silvering the lavender and coating the stone path. The fence still needed mending, she noticed it every time. But maybe that was okay. Maybe not everything needed fixing right away. Maybe some things could wait while you learned other things, more important. Things about how to be in the world. Amara thought about the woman who had first walked into this shed months ago. That woman had been uncertain, disconnected, not sure how to move forward. And here she was now. Not fixed, not transformed into something new but different, softer around the edges, more able to hold what needed to be held, more willing to try and fail and try again. The grief was still there. It lived in her chest like a stone, smooth and heavy. But it wasn't the only thing anymore. There was also this. The clay, the wheel, Luna's purring, Margaret's kindness, the satisfaction of centered clay and pulled walls and bowls that held their shape. There was room for both now, the weight and the lightness, the ending and the beginning. Again she thought about Mateo. More gently now. She could remember the good things. His patience, his quietness, the way he'd moved through the world, touching things carefully, the way he'd shown her that attention itself was a kind of love. She could feel grateful for the time they'd had, even while holding the truth, that it ended. Both things could be true at once. That was something the clay had taught her, too. How to hold contradictions, how to let opposing truths sit side by side, each one complete. Luna hopped onto her lap, circling twice before settling a warm weight. Amara stroked the cat's soft fur, feeling the purr vibrate through both of them, that ancient sound that seemed to say everything was somehow exactly as it should be. Outside, the stars appeared in the clear, cold sky. Inside, the heater glowed steady orange. The wheel waited, patient, ready for tomorrow's work. The bowls continued their slow drying, turning from dark gray to pale gray to white as the water left them, as they became ready for fire. And Amara sat a potter now, someone who knew how to center clay, how to pull up walls, how to begin again when things fell apart. Someone who had learned that making could be a form of healing. Not because it fixed what was broken, but because it taught your hands. They could still create something whole. She would come back tomorrow and the day after. This was her practice now. This place where earth and water met in her hands. This place where failure taught and patience softened. This place where she was learning slowly to be okay with where she was. Luna purred, steady as a heartbeat. The night settled around the shed and in the warm lamplight, surrounded by the smell of clay and the hum of the heater and the gentle presence of things made by hand, Amara knew this was enough. This was enough. Good night.