Republic of letters

My colleagues know I'm at a conference but not where it's being held...

San Marco

Inspired by my patron saint's style

Fall's creeping up on us

Hail Mary pass

We sang two pieces by Francis Poulenc in church today. One of them, "Salve Regina," I remembered from the first time I encountered Poulenc's sacred music (in a Nacht der Musik performance in a neogothic church in Braunschweig years ago!), and its weird loveliness floored me again. 

But singing it today I was overwhelmed in a different way, too. Many of us have been seeking ways to challenge the demonic machismo of white Christian nationalism. This isn't the God of the Bible, we cry, not how Jesus lived. Having moved from the Roman Catholic to the Episcopal Church, however it hadn't occurred to me that what we needed - who we need - is Mary. Protestantism's discomfort with the feminine (including the femininity of God and Jesus) is part of the problem... 

Fun fact: The motet is dated "Noizay mai 1941," the very time at which Poulenc helped found the anti-fascist Front National des Musiciens.

Early autumn bouquet

Drawing ritual

What have we been up to this week? Can you guess?

Down

Sometimes I really don't know which team we're playing on any more, or even what game...

Morning shadow play

Storm-tossed

Nor'easter!

Having fun yet?

Hooked!

Can't really show you a picture of it, but "Religion of Trees" became a carpentry workshop today! My friend and colleague O, a Swedish design provocateur, led us in in a whittling workshop that ended up producing a piece of usable furniture - a coat rack, just in time for the colder weather. O had scouted a freshly fallen branch from Prospect Park and cut it into small enough pieces that each students was charged with whittling down one "hook." All of them were ultimately power-screwed to a stand assembled (also in class) of pieces of leftover wood from the wood shop. Here it is as you'll never see it, posed in an empty hallway without any coats or bags hanging from it. 

It was a deeply satisfying community activity. I'm hoping our hands-on work cutting the flesh of a tree (nice that it was from a fallen branch rather than a cut one) in making something of human use will also deepen our discussions of trees as what Roland Ennos calls "partners in life."