Someone wants to know why I don’t open up the sacred space of my cyber ceremony to critical debate? I do not bow down before the false god of academia. I am a dyslexic poet. I answer only to Grandfather Coyote and his high holy cadre of spiritual cohorts. If someone wants to enter into a celebration of creativity, well then… let’s dance! But understand all you intellectuals and academicians out there, all of your credentials and education will not help you here. Here, in the realm of Firebird Ceremonies you venture into the sacred space of a Heyoka Coyote Poet Warrior. Careful, because for all the years that I have been honed against the stone of Allah (Ouch!) my pen was at my side; perhaps it has developed an unusual edge. And remember, Grandmother Moon and a spit fire platoon of Ancestors are covering my donkey. I will gladly pit one humble man up against all you highly educated persons out there: and my beloveds name is Hafiz. Let our hearts all be imbued with the sacred sanctum if his holy verse!
I pit fire without the use of a modern kiln, estranging me from the process, because I know how to pit fire, period. I do not have an inordinate amount of breakage because I know how to stop, and ask, and listen, and wait; days, weeks, months, or years if that’s what it takes, and then to humbly accept the gift, in whatever form it comes.
Feel free, all takers, to email me a poem, wrung from the marrow of your ancestral bones; pulsing, hemorrhaging, and oozing with passion for the position you take. I am not asking for what you can prove on paper. But where do you stand in your heart of hearts, and from there, can you truly claim that you know how to and do pit fire your pots? Just how slowly must the fire approach, embrace and kiss the raw clay for the pots to survive that magnitude of unbridled power? If you do not know the answer to this question, you do not know how to pit fire. If on the other hand your overshadowing concern here is “market appeal” and productivity; then yes of course, pit finishing is indeed the correct process for you to employ.
There is a song written by June Carter and Merle Kilgore, sung by Johnny Cash, it expresses very well the magnitude of Love and passion that I feel for my work. I have a profound willingness to sacrifice for and be consumed by this love. The song is called: Ring of Fire. Another song, one he wrote himself, speaks volumes about my relationship with the sacred work that I do. It is called: What Do I Care.
Warn out, academic, fixed railed, disconnected from the land “thinking”, has contributed greatly to this disastrous global situation we are in. This, “I’m right, because I have the paper that says so!” attitude won’t fly here.
Ah, but what does the heart say?
It is the poetic spark of original creative thought, in us all, that will save our collective donkey!