Something unusual seems to be happening in the studio today. I guess that means its business as usual. Today the snake spirit asks the seemingly impossible. Which of course means that it surely is possible. My best days in the studio are the ones when I feel it happening… I feel the presence of spirit beckoning me forward into something utterly new.
I have been working with Snake since the old days in Alaska. Way back in the egg rattle days. Somewhere out there, there must be a snakes’ egg rattle or two.
The Snake medicine bowls of Arizona came directly out of the Wolf medicine bowls. The third time Wolf came, spirit said, “Wolf only came to open the door for Snake.”In other words, the teacher only came to open the door for the healer. The Snake medicine bowls are only the second double spirals thus far. Where Wolf spirals down in (the journey to finding the gift) and is then required to break trail yet again to find a whole new path way out ( the journey of bring the gift into the world)… The Snakes both emerge from the center, moving outward. Where the original snakes moved as opposing forces, outward, like two arms raised up in prayer: left and right, male and female… in this new form the snakes move together, entwined… mating… conception. They move as one, in a sacred dance.
There is a kind of chaos here. A lot of electricity! When Jesus said, “Take up your bed and walk”, he shocked a lot of people! This new Snake medicine is a swirling storm of thunder and lightning: shocking, reawakening, scattering, rearranging chaos into new forms.
Also this newer snake energy embodies the energy and protective quality of the coral bean. There is protective prayer built right in to this form. The male and female mating snakes are very difficult to see; in nature and in the clay. It is a private matter this ultimate joining together, deserving protection.
It seems the most important lesson spirit wants me to get right now, is that even though it seems impossible for me to do what they are asking…if I just move forward in faith the seemingly impossible is possible. Or as Johnny Trudell would say, “Whatever can happen, just might.”

Perhaps the most important ingredient in cooking the shamanic into my work as a potter is my ability to surrender my personal desire to spirits direction. After completing the first seven Tobacco Spirit pots I knew the eighth would be my last. I did not want to quit. I wanted to continue. But Spirit was quite clear, it was time to prepare for my final pit firing of the season and move on into spring with the rest of nature.
I once put together a small collection of poems titled: Twenty Seven Poems: Shamanic in Nature. I thought this was really funny. It was a kind of playfulness in words. You see there is no other way to be shamanic. To be shamanic is to be ones true self in oneness with the rest of nature. I am an animal, first. I am a daughter of the Tree nation, literally. Grand Mother Moon rules over my life as absolutely as she does my sister the Owl’s. I am not a human being in the regular sense of the word. And so, in harmony with the spirit and nature of who I truly am I finished up my winters work.
Friday evening I began my springtime communion with the Snake Spirit, as requested by the Snake Spirit. Saturday morning I completed my second Snake medicine bowl. Later that day Moon Doggie sounded the alarm! I spent the next hour and a half bearing witness to the springtime mating ritual of two stunningly beautiful young rattlesnakes. They danced their sensuousness under the rare delight of a cloudy, cool, post spring equinox, post full moon ritual of conception: they danced. Twining and retwining, weaving themselves in and out of the mesquite fence, reaching for the sky. Falling four feet to the earth in their ecstatic primal love, they began again, entwining untwining, entwining again and again as they reach for the sky.
Some might suggest that I called them in, in to within eight feet of my house, to bless and be apart of my own ceremony in clay. But perhaps it is closer to the truth to understand that it was they who called me in to their ritual. Spirit and nature demand my participation. I am theirs, not yours. I have given my life into this thing. This love. My love of the clay is my love of Mother Earth given voice in form: a voice that sings in ecstasy. I am putting together a collection of pots, perhaps I shall call it: Twenty Seven Pots: Shamanic in Nature. More and more as I mature I live the knowing in the being.

Shar Shk Buk X
3-31-13

P.S. Are they mating or is this actually two males in competition for the attentions of a lovely female watching from near by?

There is a man in Tubac Arizona who is known as The Grumpy Gringo. He has a stogie shop and as it turns out some really nice stogies are packed in big wads of loose coils of tobacco. He gives me this tobacco free for my ceremonies and all manner of cigar boxes also free. I decided I would make him a ceremonial ashtray as a gift which plays in nicely with the old “ashtray art” concept. I have long held that this insult is actually a veiled reference to potteries ceremonial beginnings, and so the spiraled ceremonial ashtray is born.
Now, along comes Coyote and the divine folly is in full swing. This grumpy gringo is out there sitting on his porch puffing away in absolute sacrilege. All his cronies gathered there puffing away in sacrilege. But Coyote just loves it, and I move easily in my own reverence as my first tobacco seeds begin to sprout.
The Elephant spirit then makes a comeback. I have a day in the studio and make an Elephant spirit, rain cloud, pot. I understand as soon as I finish the pot that Elephant is just a messenger this time and the next day I realize it is Coyote and the tobacco spirit moving together into my sacred space. This tells me right away that there will be four spirals in the center. So I make a cloud with four spirals and get that I need to go forward into another form of flower blossom… moving from the constantly changing cloud to the balance and grounding of the four directions and the four directions between the directions. Before I can even touch the clay to create the new eight petaled blossom, the tobacco spirit grabs hold of me and makes me sing for two hours. I do all of my chores singing, “Holy, Holy, is Thy Name”. I sing to all of my plants and bless the place where I plan to plant my Tobacco. The first pot is ok, on track, but I can see that I haven’t received the form in its full realization. So the next day Tobacco Spirit makes me sing for an hour and a half, as I am now ready to receive the form. It felt like being under the powerful direction of the Peyote Spirit in full ceremony.
The Tobacco spirit pot has eight petals; between the petals are eight Elephant heads. The trunks of these holy beasts are double ended: able to give and receive simultaneously. In the center is the four-pointed star. It was a serious challenge for me, sitting there with that pot in my hands, to move in on that beautiful pristine center area when I knew that four spirals would never fit. I hesitated to spoil my morning’s work… At last I dove right in and sure enough, Spirit was right… and the Star Flower was born!

Shar Shk Buk X
February 27th. 2013

Tobacco Spirit pot before the “Star Flower” center is completed.

The Star Flower, pit fired with Mesquite sticks.