The Theft of the Spirit

Kay and I went to Walpi, maybe the oldest continuous inhabited village on the continent... Near a stole altar lives an ancient great-grandmother, over a hundred years old, some say. She asked us to come in. Her hands are arthritic but she is a working potter. She not only throws the pots, but paints them afterward. I asked her how she manages to do it, since her knuckles are knotted by arthritis and she is nearly blind with cataracts.

She said, "It's not my hands that make the pot, it's my spirit. My hands are broken by my potteries hold my soul, and that's whole."