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This weeks writing challenge is: "It was a trite platitude, but that didn't make it any less accurate."

Among the Ancient Greek peoples, they say that the gods have only one unforgivable sin; and that the only sin unforgivable is: Hubris.

Please, Good Gentle, you asked me a question, "Why is there a ding or blemish on each pot, clearly put there intentionally by someone?"

My bone fides: I was a good well behaved pup, was schooled, apprenticed here in the midlands. I am a potter, I have a pottery, though I can neither aver nor avow the small details, I have a story to tell about a potter of great renoun; my Master, a leopard born "Restive and Carries a Ball," who signed her pots Lurie.

Lurie was apprenticed at an early age, as punishment for not being like her sisters. They were both dainty, demure, and quiet, as befits daughters of a leopard of rank; State's Counselor to the King. Lurie was the opposite; a wild cub, active and impulsive as a raccoon! Always too curious, always trying to understand, always asking questions -- some "Indelicate." In frustration Lurie's father took her away, and sold her as apprentice to a Master Potter.

She learned too well, instead of six years making Journier, she learned everything in three, hmmm, maybe four. Instead of four years as Journier she finished, some say in two, others say she was already a master potter before finishing her apprenticeship. With no proof either way; those with love say 'yes,' those with envy say 'no,' those who both love and envy her are potters today.

Lurie made pots, lots of them. Before her elevation to Master of Pottery she was already teaching at a university in the Midlands. Customers waited two years for affordable pottery -- not pottery made by Lurie, herself, --but from us: her Assistants and Journiers. The pottery she made was bought at prices unheard of. Museums would beg her for, "A thing, just a thing, any pot at all that you have made, that we might display?"

And that was it, you see? She kept improving, struggling toward perfection. She refined building kilns, compounding new glazes, she fired the kiln keeping the greens bright and vibrant and the reds not bleached by over-firing. And that's very difficult.

She yearned- burned- for perfection. We all marveled, "She will make the perfect pot," we said to ourselves.

Some say, "It was pride, or "It was revenge." I think that, hmm, maybe she was trying to work off some Kharmic debt? She was our Master but her creativity was beyond our understanding. We all marveled at her vision and it's forms.

That led to trouble.

She worked impossibly hard at her wheel, was driven to. We took over her teaching, for her to invent, develop her skill, -- still she strove for the perfect form, the most perfect pot. Working all day and then late into the night.

Her pottery was fabulous, we could look at a piece, stare at it, trying to understand it. Why did it draw one's heart so? It was magical! Whatever she had - it was past our ability to copy. Then the glass blowers and the tilers guilds' Journiers started to come to her. And the other Masters were so angry, having their students come to her for knowledge... There was 'talk'.

And still she drove herself. One day at work, wedging clay together I asked, "Master, why do you strive so hard? There is nothing your pottery's equal. They are perfect?" She answered me, "Not perfect, yet, but I will create perfect pot." She turned away, going to her wheel, skipping lunch, working until late. As that story got around, two students; a Darwist, the other a Satyrist, got into it -- teeth and nails -- arguing about mans' and gods' perfection. And if the search for perfection would offend them, or not.

We had made pots to fire, but I had earned a pause to go visit my father who was ill, as the oldest child ought to. So I was away when it happened, but I was told this by my comrades when I returned:

Lurie came in before lunch one day, and announced, "Oh, rejoice, I have thrown the perfect pot. Not even the gods could make a pot this perfect. We will not fire the kiln until it is ready." So they waited for her -- the kiln was loaded, full, and ready. But a place was cleared for her near the top center, for the pot. She went into her studio asking for water and fruit. Then taking some, she locked her door. For a day and a half no sound was heard but the grinding of the muller and splashes of water. Apprentices posted by her door say there was no word until noon the next day. She came out bringing the pot - carefully carried, and loaded it into the top of the kiln herself, and bricked the door closed sealing it off with clay. She placed little clay dragons atop the kiln to watch over the firing. Then she started the fire, standing there, and loading wood.

She stood, or sat, or ate watching, until it was finished firing and left to cool. She went to bed then, and slept late the next morning. She stood so proudly, to know that it would be perfect, for she ordered a large display pedestal; gilded and painted. They say it was magnificent, all celadon green and gilt, -- but she waited on opening the kiln, first putting her ear against it, then muttering. When the time was right, she opened the kiln smiling. Remember, this is the story as I was told, for I was away and so I missed unloading the kiln.

They babbled, "It was magnificent,... magical," describing it to me! They look far away into the distance, close their mouths and smile quietly. Then say, "It was Perfect, just ... beautiful."

She unloaded the kiln, herself. Apprentices were stunned, Jouniers speechless! She held the most perfect pot up over her head, then cradling it in her arms carried it into her shop. She carefully placed it on the pedestal in the middle of the studio. Plopping herself down, the apprentices likewise sat down around her and marveled. Though some of the apprentices said it was an "affront to the Greenman" to make something so perfect, still they sat wondering at its beauty.

The day turning into evening, the apprentices' tummies all growling, like bears, she declared a party, commanding short beer for the apprentices, ale for the Journiers, rum for herself, leading the singing and dancing into the early hours.

Dawn was bright and hot in a clear sky, when suddenly screams from apprentices and cries from the Jouniers, "Fire! Fire," pointing to the smoke billowing from the studio and sheds, scurrying, running for buckets of water. The assistants went in dragging her from her room sleepy and unsteady on her feet. The older ones still trying to put the fire out, and failing it was so hot and well underway, they stood shaking, crying, watching their workshop burning to the ground. As it burned the sides gave way, the huge ridge pole crashed down across the conflagration. Soon only hot ash was left, blowing in swirls. She never sat at the wheel again, but taught her classes using the assistants and Jouniers.

The fire "cleansed her arrogance," say those that envied her, "She offended the gods - only the gods may create something that perfect and they were angered."

Those who loved her say, "No. The gods loved her. The smoke rising from the devastation carried off her spark..."

But those who know, know that she grieved the loss of the studio that was as her child, it was not the loss of the pot that hurt her so. For she knew what she had made, and knew that it was perfect.

Still, just in case her detractors were correct, I carefully put a little ding or dent in each pot, to insure that it is not quite perfect.