Moss Whispers

The hole where the skink (or was it Slab?) crawled was under the Potter’s mantle.

Had a dream last night that I was teaching again and was introducing working with clay, specifically ‘slab work’ with clay and rolling pins. Couldn’t find enough free surfaces for each child to spread out. Wanted to work in ‘an extra studio’ I had set up years before in an extra room at the school. As far as I knew it had not even been entered since then. (This is a ‘studio’ I’ve seen in my head for years also. Don’t know for sure if there is one somewhere. It’s not the one in our garage.) I opened the door for us to use it, and there was a whole group of kids and a teacher already in there!) So we continued to work where we were all over the place…on the floor, under tables, etc. I was trying to teach them to roll their clay a certain consistency…not too thick, and not too thin. I gave them each two flat sticks to put on either side of the clay to keep the rolling pin from rolling things too flat. I was trying to explain the word, ‘slab’. I just had to invent Slab as a character to show them what I meant. Very similar to Gumby, but uniquely Slab. So now that I’ve had the thought many times about this character at the Hillock, and have written about Slab as the character, the Potter, and have now dreamed of the importance of the character Slab as a teaching tool and example….is it time to focus on him as a character first? Also at the Hillock the other day, there was a very large colorful skink who raced into the Potter’s house, ran under the mantlepiece on the cedar tree that holds some of his pottery, and scurried down a hole there! Hmmmm….