I have a friend, she is a yoga teacher. She is good at rest in your body, tension and relaxation, breathing, grounding and degenerating.
I myself have been doing or not doing yoga for years, it goes up and down with me. I find it a pleasant way to keep moving and to let my thoughts go during relaxation. Sometimes it's a moment for myself, nice at home with my yoga app. Sometimes I like to join my girlfriend's classes.
A year ago there were many articles about pottery being the new yoga. Now I am convinced that there are certainly similarities. When you are spinning on the turntable you have to keep your attention in the here and now. You are completely absorbed in that one act. You no longer have time to think about anything and everything. Are you distracted? Then your potty likes to fly out of the corner. Clay is quite stubborn and it takes a long time to master it. If you don't keep your full attention on this, you will be punished immediately. When you are busy with your hands, you also have to accept that what you want does not always work out immediately.
Working with your hands is also very much about the process. Like yoga or painting, it's about doing the movement or action. It is a balance between tension and relaxation, thinking and feeling, creating and letting go.
We have all ended up in a kind of delay due to the corona. No rushing back and forth to sports or the office. No more clock rhythm for a while.
I started gardening more and without students I started claying more myself. Recently, when I tried to wash the mud and clay off my hands, I realized that I had actually been sitting with my hands in the earth all day. That is certainly grounded.
Now that the measures are loosened again, can we maintain this delay? For me, driving back and forth to school and sports has already started. I'm coming up with all kinds of workshops again for this summer without vacation. Delicious, and I'm looking forward to it. But it is important to try to hold on to the delay and to keep an eye on the process.
Unlike yoga, the process in pottery comes back in a visible result. That's the beauty of handmade items in your home: whether you made them yourself or not, they always have a story.
If you occasionally want to look for a delay, clay and yoga are a powerful brake. Then something can grow again with full attention.
