“All work is empty save when there is love.”  Gibran

When we work on something, we make it ours. Not that it belongs to us exclusively; we become part of it and it a part of us. When we work on a car, a house, a yard, a piece of fabric, we bind ourselves to it.

Never was this more apparent to me than when I “worked” as a potter. As I was working with the clay on a wheel, my breath, my body oil and moisture became part and parcel of the clay vessel and the clay clung to me. Earth, water, motion, vision — all whirled in my hands and were joined. In a world that is becoming more and more virtual, this may be less apparent but certainly no less true.

When you work you bind and mix yourself with your work, you deepen your own experience and you join with the others with whom you work. What does it mean to be fully conscious of this?

To build a table is to build a treasured piece as if it will live in your own house or in the house of those you love. To write a computer program is to work with ease and empathy as if your son or daughter will use that program in what they do. To work on a farm or in a food store is to pay loving attention to the food as if it will go into the bodies of your own family. To weave a scarf is to weave with caring hands as if the wool will warm the neck of your beloved.

In all of the things you fashion and in each day you work, you act with the breath and energy of your own spirit. Otherwise your work is hollow.

John Wood, with gratitude to Gibran