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.

List 10 simple pleasures.
#1 10 little babies…
A poem is read. A question is asked… What if?
Write for 30 minutes.

I have a sense this morning, first thing as I arise, that the foundation of my personal belief regarding myself and my place in the world has been utter fallacy all along. Still I keep trying to believe that my greatest pleasure, simple to the core, is the time I spend alone in my studio. Alone that is with an entire pantheon of divinity and a zoological cadre of saintly companions: alone, as the lone human.
I see at the top of my list of simple pleasures: 10 little babies. Only once, for a very blessed period of time, have I experienced that pleasure. Three or four days a week for two years I was in the company of 10 babies. For me the changing of a diaper was an act of reverence. I was aware of their awareness of my attitude, our mutual awareness, encouraging my devotion.

Rule #1 To heal the child within…bless the child without.

I was once changing the diaper of a strapping young child of about two and a half years of age. He was destined to become a man of great size and strength. But he was only a child, a baby in diapers. When I did my cautious peek, to see what I had to deal with, he flinched! He fully expected to be hit for pooping in his diaper, he was not yet three! I looked him in the eyes and said, “Oh, no. It’s ok, the diaper is for pooh.” If only once he hears it, at least he hears it once. If only once he feels the tenderness of a woman honored to change his diaper, perhaps choice will be a part of his experience. Somewhere in his psyche being allowed to be a baby will exist and perhaps tenderness will have a chance to bloom in him.
The baby learns like a sponge, absorbing everything equally: every sight, every sound, every emotion, every word uttered in their presence. Women and all child care providers hold the destiny of humanity in their hands, literally. The single most important “ Job “in our world goes disrespected, undervalued and its true importance unaccounted for. The future of humanity is determined by the changing of a diaper, multiplied a billion times. The future of humanity is determined by the cooing or cursing; the respect or neglect a child receives from day one, multiplied a trillion times. To gaze deeply into the eyes of a baby and communicate to them their humanity is our first task. And then to never forget that if they seem to fail us in their humanity, it is we who have failed.

Shar Shk Buk X

I have found at last the man of my dreams:
His name is Hafiz.
He breaks my heart
with his love,
and sends god’s lion
to lick the wound…
until I swoon in ecstasy
and weep at the sound of His name.

I have found at last, the man of my dreams.

Cathie Jo aka Shar Shk Buk

Until Hafiz

I had been looking for God
for so long
I feared that I had lost my way…
Until Hafiz
emerged from the sands of time.

And now my souls desert
blooms
a lush, mad jungle
of beauty and Love…

Every unexpected flake of snow
a Valentine from
God.

Hafiz calls out:
“SNOW DAY!”
Let us make love, Hafiz
Lying naked,
stretched
across the sands of time.

Cathie Jo, Valentine’s Day 2013