Part 2: Recenter

When making pottery, centering is the process a potter uses to align the lump of clay so that the shape is balanced on the potter’s wheel. This process creates alignment through actively using the hands to push the hands towards the center. For Potter Richards (1964), centering is a way to “bring the universe into a personal wholeness,” a way of contemplation. She asserts that, “life leads us at a certain moment to step beyond the dualisms to which we have been educated: primitive and civilized, chaos and order, abnormal and normal, private and public, verbal and non-verbal, conventional and far-out, good and bad.” Through centering, we “resolve the oppositions,” stepping towards new ways of seeing, thinking, and being.