The Clay Series
One pot, three women, eight hundred years
Beneath the massive towers of Great-Grandfather Mountain, Ha-wani, following traditions handed down since before there was remembering, crafts an ordinary clay pot, singing her spirit into the clay as she works it. It is a simple act, but one that will have far-reaching consequences even after she has gone from this place.
The Clay Remembers
Anna’s story:
Archaeologist Anna Robinson, on the run from an abusive husband, finds the broken pieces of the pot and reconstructs it in the lab even as she reconstructs her life.
Her spiritual nature opens her to the secrets and songs in the potsherds, and she finds a kinship with a woman who lived on the site in the nineteenth century, as well as with the woman who made the pot centuries before.
The eternal story of a woman struggling to find her voice and power, The Clay Remembers unearths the legacy of the past, deepening and enriching life in the present.
The Clay Endures
Esperanza’s story
Esperanza Ramirez ventures beyond the Santa Catalina Mountains in 1865 with her husband to start a cattle ranch. She struggles to hold on to their dream in spite of loneliness and the threat of marauding Apaches. She finds the ancient pot which offers the companionship and courage of a woman who lived and struggled here centuries before.
But will it be enough when she delivers her stillborn child all alone, when outlaws attack her, and when the mysterious Apache who watches from a distance makes his move?
Esperanza’s is a story that remains in that scrap of desert for others to find.
The Clay Sustains
Ha-wani’s story
It is a time of struggle for Ha-wani and her people. Her village, once an extensive, thriving, open community has evolved into a closed community within a cobble-walled compound.
The village shaman encourages the People to believe the gods have abandoned them and that only he can guide them back to plenty. He is determined, not just to control the village, but to capture Ha-wani’s spirit for himself, a spirit he knows is blessed with special gifts.
But has he underestimated the strength and spiritual power this simple woman brings to their conflict?
Inspiration from When Clay Sings
Byrd Baylor
1972, First Aladdin Paperbacks
Reprinted by permission of Marian Reiner Literary Agency
There are desert hillsides where ancient Indian
pottery still lies half buried in the sand and lizards blink at other dusty lizards that were painted on those pots a thousand years ago. . . .
They say that every piece of clay is a piece of someone’s life.
They even say it has its own small voice and sings in its own way. . . .
Hands that shape the earth this way have time to know the cool touch of the sand.
Women must have spoken to the earth as they took its clay.
They must have sung special songs for shaping the bowl, for polishing it, for baking it so it would be strong enough to last long after the tribe was gone.
Indians who find this pottery today say that everything has its own spirit–even a broken pot.
They say the clay remembers the hands that made it.