Mt. Mitchell day trip

There were some pretty wild (?) flowers alongside the road, but not many places I could stop to take pictures. I skipped all the "scenic overlooks" last Friday.

It had been raining for at least 3 days and finally we had some sunshine, though there were still clouds hanging around. I wish I'd had a chance to capture some of this water to bring home, but just after taking this pic, I saw a sign saying I was now in the Asheville watershed, and couldn't legally even stop beside the road any more.

That was ok, as it was a nice steady drive and I finally figured out how to have the side windows both down and take pics through them, or in this case, hold the camera out the window over the top of the car, and hope it wouldn't be too cock-eyed crazy...because the cloud was so neat right over the field between me and the next mountain crest. I did have a bumble bee who flew right in the window once, landing in my hair...so I stopped pretty fast, pulled to the side of the road, opened the door right after the car that had been behind me passed by, and shook her outside. We were both in shock, you'd better believe it...since she'd falled down inside my glasses next to my eye when I opened the door. She and the glasses fell out on the pavement...then she recovered and took off. I said, see, aren't you glad I've been so good to all your fellows this spring while they ate nectar from my azaleas and cherry blossoms!

I started out going to Craggy Gardens, but it was pretty dull, no flowers yet, and no view to speak of because of clouds. So I just kept going (thanking heavens the road was no longer barricaded) to Mt. Mitchell. Here's the first tunnel on the way.

And here's the actual construction that was still active where there had been a landslide a couple of years ago. The Parkway had been closed in this stretch ever since I moved here in 2007. So I was estatic to have a chance to drive straight up from Swannanoa. 36 miles got me there!

My trusty little Toyota.

This is looking back down the path that leads up to the lookout platform on top of Mt. Mitchell. Believe me I was out of breath and stopped for lots of picture taking while dealing with oxygen deprivation up there (for me anyway).

I thought of Tim Perry, who is about to hike the Mountains to Sea Trail...and thought this must be a place he'd be passing by ...the highest actually...as it was right off the path going up to the observation platform.

So was this little trail. I think it's the one I went down last year which has a little spring. I'll have to go back and check it out!

The final leg of the path was pretty steep... pant pant pant...

And of course the poor Fraiser Firs are all dying back from algelid (or however it's spelled).

Not sure which lake or reservoir is depicted from on the platform...but there sure were lots of valleys and mountains to see.

And a nice little map of the state with each direction given. There are also 4 completely mapped panoramas with details of each mountain and town you can see...but they are really more fun when you're actually up there...so I'll let you go see them yourself.

This is the profile of the platform...

and here's the ramp that leads you up to it.

The next highest peak is right next door to Mt. Mitchell.

And of course I had to prove I actually got there!

Further down the road, I was able to see the Burnett Reservoir, which holds my drinking water. The recent rains have meant we are now at a normal level for this year, but the previous years drought means we still have a deficit.

This was rain water pouring down the mountain.

I finally painted one of my slab flower pots...it's full of lovely herbs. It's also full of lovely memories of my visit to my son while he was at Penland.

I'm so glad to have this blog to share my pictures with you...and to save them for myself also!

more details on our German venus

Once again I can't cut and paste into this site...argh. I gues that means to quote another article or blog, I have to retype it, or do the link thing...which I haven't learned how to do yet.

So my correction to the details of the latest oldest venus figure is...
there's a ring at the top, rather than just a missing head. She never had a head...or at least her body has a ring as it was found, so she was hanging in some way...perhaps a pendant.

Second correction is that she was made of ivory, not stone. I missed that in reading the original details.

Comment: this is exciting, that ancient goddesses are eliciting comments from others also!

The latest Venus...

is only a bit over 2.4" high. Since she's missing her head, that might have made her around 3" originally. Stone. Carved with other stones and bones and antlers!



Forgot to give you that detail when I gave you the picture.




And I found several pottery goddesses in my research! No pictures, so I'll be pushing my own creativity to come up with her image.



In Sumeria, Mami (also known as Amadubad, Aruru, Ma, Mah, Mama, Ninmah and Nindum) is the potter creatrix, using clay to form 7 male and 7 female figures, which then are given life. As Babylonia took power over Sumeria, her name was changed to Aruru the Great...but the story was the same. And through the many recorded cuneiform stories, (on clay tablets) her name became Ishtar, Inanna, Ninhursag, and Mammitu.


Originally all pottery belonged to women. "The art of pottery is a feminine invention; the original potter was a woman. Among all primitive peoples the ceramic art is found in the hands of women, and only under the influence of advanced culture does it become a man's occupation" (Briffault "The Mothers" 1927.)



Native Americans of the Southwest US had Clay Woman and Clay Man...mainly as part of a creation story. They are kachinas of Spider Woman's parents, and wear masks with white faces and red eyes. This is a dance/pantomime which the kachinas act out, where Old Man is dancing with a stick while Old Woman is making a pot...and so on. The story moves into the clay figures that represent every kind of animal...thus creating the actual ones. Clay figures are taken to be the seed from which the real objects grow.



The use of pottery for functions in the home are the places where she, the goddess of pots, must have resided. When sculptures have another purpose, they represent something else besides what you see...which means symbols were being used. For the archaeological finds, they go with lost stories.


Who was our goddess of pottery though? There doesn't seem to be any reference to that womanly deity who first made the wonder of clay become stone. It's just another thing that archaeologists may have skipped over, but eventually we will find the first pots...after all, they've found the early spear points. And of course I'm a potter, not an archaeologist, so there may be the "first/earliest pot" already. Once again, I'm sure willing to learn.



And oh, how fickle she (the goddess of pottery) was. For any of you who have had a beautiful pot fail, your hope that is dashed by it splitting, exploding, or just drooping into uselessness...think of all the failed pots that our foremothers had to deal with. No wonder there would have emerged a deity who might be asked to give the creations her blessings.

Who's the goddess of pottery?

This wonderful carved stone form is 35000 years old, just announced in AP last week as the oldest human figure found. Guess the goddess culture is affirmed...though of course there are lots of folks saying it's just a fertility figure. Sure, and a lot more.

I've been thinking, a woman once took a blob of clay, formed it into some shape or another, and left it in the coals of her cooking fire...perhaps she dropped it. And later found it had fired into stone hardness.

Well, it probably took lots of experiments, and of course it must have been either given great hoopla for someone doing something experimental...or perhaps the culture booed it and she had to do it in secret. Who knows. And who cares.

But making pottery was certainly one of the major efforts that helped us become a civilization (if that's what we call it). Storage and cooking jars...ability to keep water, wine, beer, etc.

And at some wonderful point, the pottery wheel was invented.

OK, we sure don't know whether a woman or a man did any of this. I imagine our cave woman was making a coil or a pinch pot, and turning it round and round, and a watching young man (or woman) got the idea to put a plate together with a stick which became a wheel where the pot turned. Which interestingly also happened in the Americas by the indigenous peoples, who never turned the pottery wheel on its side to create transportation on wheels, like the cultures which evolved from the Middle East did.

At any rate...if goddesses (and gods, little "G") are best known for the wonders of the natural world, and some of those which were man or woman made...it stands to my reasoning that a goddess of pottery should exist.

So I'll look through some of my mythology and goddess books, which encompass many of the cultures which had a diety who was given credit for, or at least was in charge of, special skills. Bridget, for instance, is known for smithcraft, poetry and healing.

Now I do know where goddesses do exist today with potters. There are few wood or gas kilns fired without little creatures bedecking the tops that are kiln gods and goddesses, put there for successful firings. These little dieties are asked to watch over the process of earth turning into stone in intentional shapes...and I'm not sure how many of the little goddesses and gods ever get fired themselves. They probably do, because older kilns often have a dozen of them perched on top. Well, that was once the case. I don't know this is a fact, because I've only seen about a dozen kilns in my limited travels. How about you? Do you know?

I'll let you know who may be the pottery goddess later this week. I just finished forming Bridget, and have Inana waiting to be made. She needs to definitely have some Cuneiform writing around her skirt, since her name comes to us thanks to writing in clay!

goddesses and flowers

The dogwood blossoms were beautiful a couple of weeks ago...

I don't know what kind of tree this is...but it was so bountiful it made me smile.

An experimental glaze came out with great motling in dark green. I'm going to use it again! Vase is about 6" tall.

This mama vessel has front and backsides...rather Rubenesque you might say, or well endowed by another expression. I choose to call it "the goddess of not-a-size-1"

The glaze is a gift from my friend Karen's explorations...clear under nutmeg, and a bit of Matt Bronze Green around the top. (about 9" tall)

One of the male potters called this a belly pot...mmm.

About 7 inches tall, a small vase with accents in red. Thanks, Maureen, for showing me the fun of Amber with Matt Bronze Green over it!

This little violet pot is now sitting on my patio with an herb growing in it...

Peonies...

The first to finally burst out of the pod-buds of Peonies.

The mountains are strung with spring greenery, Rhododendrons bursting out all over as Azaleas drop their delicate but garish blossoms. What is with this fuscia color here in Apalachia?

Beltane comes to Black Mountain

April 7, it snowed day and night for 24 hours...and the cherry blossoms were falling along with the snow.

This is the last picture of my little darling, who was named Keptain Panther of the USS Kitty-pride. He lived 19 years with me and my son, as well as numerous other cats. He was loved.

A bit more than a week after losing Keptain, I travelled with a friend, Carol W. back to Hooker Falls to see how the increased rain had added to its abundance.

The lovely cold water tumbled down the cliff.

Carol and I stopped and let some Okies (people from Oklahoma?) take our picture for us.

I asked the butterfly to come over and be still so I could take it's picture.

It landed very close to me and complied with my camera. I didn't ask for it to fan its wings out though.

At my house, the Azaleas have become their garish fuchsia selves. Light itself has changed color.

This is the path to my front door from the parking lot.

Looking back toward the parking lot.

I love velvety purple petunias.

Yesterday, Carol B. and Arline tried the sounds of the cello. Yes there were stained glass windows all over the Abby, where Linda Metzner led our "Bring Forth Your Soul's Voice" workshop.

Carol C. and I enjoyed the bliss of making rain forest sounds with rain sticks and rattles.

I'm a proud mom of my first tomatoes. This year I've got little cherry ones. Faster to ripen I hope...but only one biteful at a time!

I'm pottery making again, at the Black Mountain Clay Studio.

From the BMCA studio blog, I clipped this picture of Cassie's piece.

I'm even going to take a class in hand-building from a guest artist. Cassie Ryalls. I like her feeling of forms. And it will be different to work in red clay again.

I signed up at the studio because I had to get away from my house which is full of reminders of my recently departed cat friend. I'm now able to focus on creating. I've also worked at my job more lately, and spent a little time doing different things.

I've avoided more and more TV, and finally I've decided to disconnect from it...literally. The cable guy will keep my internet going, and turn off the TV. This should be an interesting experiment in a simple lifestyle.

But other attempts at distraction from the sense of loss have included reading, listening to all forms of music, either by the radio stations on the net, or live broadcast. I seldom turn on the local stations at home on my various radios...unfortunately when I'm in the car they are the only choices. Oops, I don't mean they aren't good stations, just in the car I frequently round a mountain pass and there's no more station there at all. I am fortunate to receive 2 stations with PBS on them here, one more classical, one more folk type music.

Yesterday however, I not only sang along with some music, then I discovered how bad my memory is when I tried to remember the name of the artist, or even the lyrics after repeatedly singing them for 3 mintues. A half hour later I had only the first name of the Conga player...and no idea of the singer. But fortunately a day later, searching playlists from the live-broadcast station on my computer, I was able to write myself a note on email to keep track of Daniel Sandownick, the song being "Steady" on the abulm "There will be a Day". It wasn't only "steady, my love," that caught my attention, but the phrase, "For you have already seen the face of god," that I loved.

Then I spent the rest of the day enjoying music in a way I never have before. Study, learning, and experimenting with instruments, sounds, modes and melodies. I even shared my little poem about the Cherry Blossoms in the snow, which is the most creative I've been able to channel into my grief so far. But I enjoyed my own "Butterfly by the waterfall" piece, which was a kind of fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants piece, just using a wood tonal drum with a couple of soft mallets. The drum was a box of special woods which are cut into different shaped pieces on the flat top, and each finger of wood gives a different note.

Right now my seedlings are demanding to get put into dirt. They are very old volunteer seeds from zennias and marigolds, so I started them in wet paper towels in a pan inside. Quite a few sprouted, but it's less than 25% in actuallity. I'm glad this way I can now put the good ones into pots. I still don't put seedlings into the ground where my friendly hungry moles and voles live.

I enjoyed dinner last night with my youngest son and a friend from Penland. We had good Mexican food and talk about all kinds of things from pottery, to travel, the grad schools which my son will be visiting soon, and some of my "ancient history" from the 70's. Well, that's when I started so many different pursuits...clay, yoga, Tai Chi, alternative healing arts...and so on. Some continue, some I've let go of.

Tai, my son, left seven of his latest sculptures here. I think I can call this his gallery for now. It's so awesome!

Today at church my friend, Byron Ballard gave a good program on Beltane...the coming of summer. And it's here for sure...with lots of warm sunshine for the last 2 days. Ah.

I'm quite sorry that this is a dis-jointed posting. I can't edit what I write by cutting and pasting...so the pictures are in one part, and the writing in another. I hope blogspot gets this fixed soon. It's frustrating as hell!

Now I must be off outside where it's 80 degrees! Whoo-wah!