Skool of Ugly Fish sitting on the kiln top waiting to be packaged, ceramic sculpture by Tammy Vitale.

Did everyone have a Happy Mother’s Day?  Does everyone know the real background of Mother’s Day?  and no, it wasn’t created by Hallmark Cards.  Had I been able to slide the computer away from Grandson yesterday, I might have posted it.  But, since I was playing Nana and spoiling him I didn’t, so I’ll post it today.

In 1870 social-justice activist Julia Ward Howe (1819 – 1899) wrote the Mother’s Day Proclamation to inspire the world’s women to protect their sons by ending war. (She also wrote the Battle Hymn of the Republic.)  In 1972 Howe proposed an annual Mother’s Day for Peace.  For the next 30 years, American celebrated Mother’s Day for Peace on June 2.  In 1913 Congress declared the 2nd Sunday in May as Mother’s Day – note:  no longer "for peace."   (Note:  make sure you click over and read the Proclamation – it is rousing and needs to be remembered)

Read more here and here.

We forwent our traditional Mother’s Day:  trip to Virginia winery for Daughter and me to taste away while Husband gets to drive, and then to berry farm where we pick strawberries and Grandson gets to play with goats and sheep and other assorted animals on the petting farm.  Acid reflux means no wine or strawberries.  So instead we went to see Spiderman 3 – because I wanted to.  Grandson had already seen it with his daddy the weekend before.  Well-peace vs. violence.  That has to be one of the most violent movies I’ve ever seen and Daughter at Grandson’s age would have been under the seat, but he was unfazed.  I will rethink being the vehicle for that again – although generally I liked the movie and its message.  Still, talk about desensitization.

Aiming to get in the studio today.  Then the rest of the week is part-time job because I’m flying out on Friday for Friday through Tuesday in Washington state at the River Rally: good networking, great workshops.  Maybe I’ll even get out a bit hike – where we are is supposed to be good for that, although i won’t have a car, so I may just have to enjoy where I am.  Which is also fine.  I can catch up on my morning pages.

thought for the day:  Actually there’s nothing wrong with being a clay pot.  It’s just that all of us have the possibility of becoming porcelain.  And it isn’t quite so simple as just being fired or not being fired.  Some of us explode in the kiln.  Some of us collapse before we ever reach the kiln, and some of us develop horrible cracks that seriously threaten our utilitarian value.  Yet probably the saddest response is to have gone through the firing and to refuse to become porcelain.  All of us have furnaces in our lies.  Not all of us glean the lessons from the firing.  Anne Wilson Schaef, Meditations for Women Who Do too Much