Month: November 2014

conspire

  Buh-thump, buh-thump, buh-thump go the hearts around the table; each life passing a bowl, taking a spoonful, smiling, nursing a wound. The hearts are strung, however unlikely, together on God's rosary. God prays us as we sit together, Her soft hands caressing us, one human-bead to the next, massaging...

simplicity in food preparation and mindfullness in its eating

(three tea bowls, reduction, cone 10, 2011, LaFond) Mindful Cooking First, consider what meal you are to cook.  Do you have the time?  Rushing will undermine the attentiveness (mindfulness) of the process of cooking.  This is holy work and to be enjoyed. Care for what has been given (purchased) is...

Thanksgiving’s First Evensong

  As we all prepare for Thanksgiving, I am bracing myself for a mild annual confusion which the holiday brings about in me. This dish of black goat-cheese risotto with a seared scallop is one of my favorite dinners.  The risotto is black from the rice used and paired with...

life, medicated with dumplings

Chinese onion and pork dumplings This is a week of rest for me.  I have some chores to do, but they will all be chores I enjoy: pottery, connecting with friends, writing letters to those I love, making Chinese dumplings (potstickers), dancing with Kai, laughing with friends (and crying some...

ego, spirituality and bacon

This funeral jar, from my current show at Edge Gallery (November 7-30) is one of my favorites.  It's sleek, art deco lines and the architecture of the top-stone of quartz studded naturally with pyrite came from a sketch I did years ago and never threw on the wheel. Like all...

a meditation on tenderness

When I arrived home from Prague a few months ago, Kai greeted me after that trip the way he always does after a long trip which is the same way he treats me after a shot trip or even a brief errand to the trash can: he smiles, wags his...

Hilda, saint

Psalm 33 : 20 Our soul waits for the LORD; * he is our help and our shield. If I had to choose one hero or heroine in all of the Christian tradition it would have to be Hilda of Whitby (see http://justus.anglican.org/resources/bio/285.html) She must have been a powerful woman...

guile

  There is no guile upon his tongue; he does no evil to his friend; * he does not heap contempt upon his neighbor. Psalm 15.3 In the psalm for today's minor feast we read these words. As Advent approaches we face not only a season in which we consider...

hot coals

Advent is soon to be upon us and for the upcoming Advent season, I have chosen doorways, windows, and hallways from Saint John's Cathedral and from Prague as my photo-start to the meditation-writing process.  Each morning after meditation practice and thought practice, I wander images I have taken over time...

resting

The hardest thing about having been raised by alcoholics is the hyper-vigilence inherent in daily life.  It is like having a computer program running 24/7 which drains the computer of speed and memory.  Because parenting is not regulated like food and drugs, many people have been raised by people without...