Simon P Walker

Simon often writes and tells stories by way of teaching. His collection is at the time of writing unpublished, but two are included below.

The Travellers and The Settlers

Once, in a land far away, there lived two tribes. One was called the Settlers, the other the Travellers.

The Settlers lived in comfortable homes in the grassy valleys. They prided themselves on the land they owned, and were always doing things to improve their plots. Some built bigger houses, others more wonderful and beautiful gardens, still others laid swimming pools and planned extensions. Being Settlers, they enjoyed doing all they could to make their land more desirable.

The Travellers, by contrast, held lightly to their dwellings. To them homes were places for people to meet, entertain, listen to, and discuss the wonders of the universe. Clusters of Travellers would talk late into the nights, around fires, telling each other tales of their ancestors, and of their dreams for the future. They were all great dreamers were Travellers, and when their dreams led onward, they would say their farewells to those they had dwelt with these past years, invite those who wanted to come to travel with them and set out on their pilgrimage once again.

The Settlers also dreamed; they dreamed of comfort. They devoted themselves to making their lives and homes ever more comfortable, and yet the peace they sought always seemed to elude them. Just when they thought they had finally built the perfect home to meet all the needs and wants they could ever have, their neighbours would go and build something even more incredible, leaving them just that tiny little bit disappointed with what they already had. So the next year, having worked even harder, and got even more tired, to earn even more money to pay for it, the Settlers would once again, set out to improve their homes and lives.

Discomfort was something the Travellers had learned to live with. For them, travelling involved a degree of frustration- of unfulfilled hope, of longing and anticipation. They never expected to be entirely at home or have all their desires fully met. Rather than striving endlessly to acquire enough to be truly comfortable, the Travellers enjoyed the pleasures that came their way. They made the most of what they had and gave thanks for the freedom they had to not to be always worrying or striving for more. Life was an adventure with rich unforeseen blessings and it was only if you kept your eyes wide open that you noticed them.

The irony was that the Settlers, whilst never moving from their homes, were never truly still; whist the Travellers, who remained on the move, had a part of them that was truly and always still.

Three Potters

There were once three potters. The first was acknowledged to be a master of his craft. His work was exceptional, sublime; faultless pieces would spin out of his skilled hands, testament to years of devotion and training. To watch him at work was to watch a perfectionist, fixated, focused, almost violent in his desire for dominance of his material.

Of course, if he ever found a fault in the clay - a lump or stone- he’d discard the lot. If he ever chanced to make an error he’d crush the pot up. His workshop filled with broken vases and statues, pots and ornaments. He would not tolerate anything less than perfection.

The second potter was focused not on perfection but on productivity. His workshop was a production line turning out lines of pots, vases, cups and saucers, plates and bowls. There was an impressive consistency to the work and an extraordinary stamina from the man himself. More than that, he was known to be one of the most profitable and rich artisans in the country. Rumours had it that he was almost wealthy enough to retire from his trade up to his home up in the mountains in the next few years.

The third was the strangest potter the land had ever known. He worked not with clay, but with mud. Painstakingly he’d dig the mud with his bare hands and fashion it laboriously on the wheel. Because it was so fragile it would crumble and break, yet with tenderness, skill and patience he would work it into pots and shapes.

Patience, he had endless patience – he would forgive the mud anything. Gently retrieving the fallen lumps, moulding them back in, carefully working away the rough edges, the bulges and protrusions that the rash and unruly mud would form itself into. Of course there were stones and fragments of glass often in the mud, and the potter wore no gloves because he wanted to feel the material beneath his fingers. So as it spun, it cut and grazed his skin – most deeply when the potter had a particularly poor piece and had to work hard and firm with his palms to shape the matter.

His workshop was lined with unique creations – no two the same, each bearing the marks of a break here, a stone there, a lump or a dent or a scar it’s defining mark. Yet each flaw was somehow worked into a more beautiful and interesting form than without it. And the potter himself bore the scars of his labours in the flesh of his hands as he tenderly worked his gentle art.

Three questions:
1. Which potter do you yourself identify most closely with?
2. What would your Pottery look like if we paid a visit?
3. Which kind of material do you feel is most like you?

“God is a potter; and he works with mud.” Unknown