The Dark Forest

“Midway upon the journey of our life
I found myself within a forest dark,
For the straightforward pathway had been lost.”

– Canto 1, Inferno by Dante Alighieri

I hit the doldrums, that eerie calm of not feeling like doing anything while you wait for the next foot to drop. Why throw a ware board of mugs or bowls if you feel stressed out? I thought I might better wait a day or two and read a book . At my other job I was still working though the pandemic. I was not a front line worker but simply an essential worker helping to make paper towels for a large company. It was nice to keep working and have a paycheck coming is and I even had a feeling of survivors guilt.

While many were having a bad time finding a place to be creative I had the space and time to be able to but just didn’t feel like it. While others in clay lost access to their community work spaces, equipment, and shows my studio sat vacant while I moped around feeling guilty about not going down to the studio even for them. I was also feeling terrible about not being productive. Motivational posts from Facebook or Instagram were no help in pulling me back up over the bank and only made me feel worse. And the only thing that did make me feel better was the reading and the caring customers and friends who came to check up on me and told me to take as much time as I needed to work things out a bit. I thought it would only be a week or so but it was almost two months. Cobwebs grew across the moths of unfired mugs as made my way through the dark forest I found myself in.

The Guide

“When I beheld him in the desert vast,
“Have pity on me,” unto him I cried,
“Whiche’er thou art, or shade or real man!”

– Canto 1, Inferno by Dante Alighieri

While moping around I was researching business and marketing techniques for selling my work. I signed up to get daily videos from Story Brand by David Miller. In one of those video he mentioned a book called “Man’s Search for Meaning” by Viktor E. Frankl. I ordered the book and read it almost in one sitting on my day off from the factory. I Frankl’s ideas on suffering and his philosophy on logotherapy quite interesting and refreshing. If Frankl could survive the Nazi concentration camps of WWII with such a healthy attitude while seeing everything around him taken and destroyed there may be hope for me to get out the rut I was in.

Like Frankl mentions, I just needed to find my “Why” and focus more on that to keep going rather then the “what”. If I found the why the “How” would not matter as I would be able to make it happen. I could not wait for some answer or for something to happen. I had to form that meaning by creating it myself. And through creation find the “why”. Maybe I should just go back down the the studio and look around a bit. Maybe I should just knead up a few lumps of clay just in-case I felt like throwing again. And maybe… just maybe.. I should try a simple bowl real quick to see how things would go and if I still had it in me…maybe if I just took a few steps however big or small I would start walking towards the “why” at my own pace and slowly work out the “how”.

The Journey

“When I beheld him in the desert vast,
“Have pity on me,” unto him I cried,
“Whiche’er thou art, or shade or real man!”

– Canto 1, Inferno by Dante Alighieri

Well the first wear board of mugs were terrible as I got back to it a bit. With the lonesome whine of Hank Senior strumming “I saw the Light.” playing low in the background from Alexa I started though the inferno. There are others for sure who had far more of a challenging time and I am not at all looking for any kind of sympathy as we all travel our own infernos level by level when we start.

Many have a hard time finding the “why” or have no guide simply show up in same way and they may abandon that path when they see the great and terrible challenges of the “how” that stand in their way as some rocky mountain or beast. And for certain others have had a far more terrible of a journey where they had to awake the courage in some way to move forward if they were able. I thought maybe I should throw a wear board of bowls rather then mugs..and use some distraction..and let my mind flow some to relax and try to change my attitude to the mental suffering and blocks my head was going though. The bowls looked real bad also. It was not until I put the last bowl on the wear board I could see some kind of progression of style and form coming back ever so slightly. Local shops were calling for work on the reopening of the local economy as we moved from red to yellow.

My “why” appeared to be that I enjoyed helping people use authentic handmade in their everyday lives. And those things they used everyday could be also be art. I did not need to be 100% but only 70% if I needed. And the pots did not need to be perfect but maybe it was ok if they wobbled a bit. Like Dante I found my Beatrice somewhat and trudged on slowly.

The Ascent

‘We mounted up, he first and I the second,
Till I beheld through a round aperture
Some of the beauteous things that Heaven doth bear;
Thence we came forth to rebehold the stars”

– Canto 34, Inferno by Dante Alighieri

I have not made the ascent yet but making progress slowly at least. I am at least taking a few more steps forward then before in the studio. I had to switch to a new clay body as supplies ran short due to COVID-19. Learning the new clay body after working so long with the last has been a challenge. Drying cracks and firing issues are still being worked out but the struggle with the clay has been a great way to deal with the struggle is society. And as I pull the first mug from the kiln I knew things would slowly get better. I packed up that first mug and Frankel’s book and gave it as a summer reading gift to one of my customers and supporters.

So maybe sharing with community was some symbol of beholding the stars even though the the night was still a bit overcast. I am behind on custom orders and need more pots to fire out so I guess I’ll keep throwing. I find the long throwing sessions therapeutic and feel more relaxed when I finish unlike the stress from before. It was also brought to my attention that I need to still have a nice time, as if the pots ever become to much like work I might not enjoy the process as much.

Below are a few tips that might be able to help those of you who are far worse off than myself. To some all my small sufferings may simply sound like first world problems of the privileged but the slow down was real enough. If you the reader are having a bad time be sure not to be to hard on yourself and maybe start by forgiving yourself. Here is a great video on the struggle that I found helpful on climbing back up over the bank “How to Get Motivated During a Crisis in 5 Steps”.

By:

Alford D. Wayman
Artist/Owner
Creek Road Pottery LLC

Creating Authentic handmade pottery in the hills of the Blue Ridge Endless Mountains of Pennsylvania.

Notes:

Annie Reneau – “A trauma psychologist weighs in on the risks of ‘motivational’ pressure during quarantine”

Divine Comedy, By by Dante Alighieri Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth, Divine Comedy English Translation

Frankl, V. E. (1984). Man’s search for meaning: An introduction to logotherapy. New York: Simon & Schuster.

Miller, Donald.  Building a StoryBrand, 2017 (Harper Collins Leadership), Marketing Made Simple, 2020 (Harper Collins Leadership)