Inner child...

Today, I chanelled my inner child. I know, I know that sounds so cliche, but it's true.  Hands in the dirt, feet caked with mud, digging, planting... I had forgotten how peaceful it is. When I was a kid I stayed outside all day and into the night to play with the lightening bugs. It's kind of ironic that as a kid, making mud-pies was my favorite thing to do and now my profession is making art with mud.  I told my grandma once when I was about 4 years old while she was weeding her garden that when I grow up, I wanted to be a dirt-worker just like her... It's funny that I can still mortify my mother with my clay sculptures sort of the same way she couldn't understand why I would put my earth and worm creations on a dish and place them in the refridgerator for her.  Today, I reconnected to why working with clay is so zen like for me. Having my hands in clay or mud is not only a viseral experience, but a direct connection to our far past ancestors. At the risk of sounding hokey, I felt them today. Later, when I sat on the deck as the sun began to set, listening to the birds sing and feeling the chill of the coming night, I was more peacful than I had been in a very long time.