Meditation

The Euphoria of Returning Home

October 20, 2019 By Allison

I am just back from a brief business trip to France and basking in the glory of home. My days in Nantes passed in a flash—meetings, a bit of research, a few get-togethers with friends, and inordinate amounts of bread, cheese, and Muscadet. Then… poof! The week was over and I was headed home.

Leaving France is always bittersweet. This particular trip was chock-full, but I returned to Kentucky feeling energized and happy. Coming and going allows me to see how much I value my space—a small house bursting with books and decorated with meaningful objects I have collected over the years. Travel makes me love home all the more.

But what is home? And why are homecomings euphoric? I’ve moved enough times to understand that for me, home is not architectural and not even geographic. I carry the idea of home inside me. It’s an evolving, comforting feeling that grounds me and reminds me of who I am. Home is supple, nebulous, and affirming.

Coming home is a euphoric return to my center. I take up my daily rituals and reunite with those who are dear to me. I reengage in work. I undertake creative projects, many fed by my travels. The intense excitement of homecomings doesn’t last… and it shouldn’t. It is healthy that we fall back into the comforting, ho-hum daily routines that give structure to our days.

Inspirations

Morning tea meditation

Beauty in Grief

Colors of the Soul

Extreme Rest

September 28, 2019 By Allison

Every so often I take a day or two to engage in extreme rest. I have created a structured life for myself, so it is never convenient, never easy to drop everything in favor of rest. But I’ve found that stillness staves off burnout. Letting my thoughts fall away energizes me. And successive naps in the span of a few days reengage my creativity, helping me to maintain levity and optimism.

So what does extreme rest involve? It is boring! My quiet interludes are lazy. I can hardly read a page without dozing off. I find it difficult to get lost in a series on Netflix. I putter, I take walks, I do a little yoga. I may try a new recipe, but I am more likely to live on avocado toast and eggs. I always sip tea. I always put the phone away. I never push myself. I am unambitious.

Life has its glamorous moments—trips abroad, professional achievements, family milestones—and those events should be celebrated. I propose that we also honor downtime. Occasional spans of extreme rest are necessary parts of my self-care. Taking care of oneself goes beyond massages, manicures, and a night out with the girls. For me, self-care is a harmonious blend of the sense of purpose I find in work and family, carefree escapes from my responsibilities, and the diligent, daily work that involves rest, nourishment, and exercise. Extreme rest is incompatible with Instagram and against the ethos of Twitter. Yet, for me, it is a delicious, indulgent, and necessary element of life.

Inspirations

Luxurious Boredom

Light and Sky

Hygge for One

Reading Serendipitously: De l’âme

June 7, 2019 By Allison

Spearing the kangaroo, Tommy Mcrae (detail)

Try this. Pull a book from the shelf, open it at random, and let your eyes fall where they will. What words jump out at you? Do they hold wisdom, hope, or even an answer to a question you’ve been pondering?

I often find unexpected messages in this way. It’s always a surprise when a seemingly random chain of words speaks to something that’s been on my mind. The Improvised Life blog features this practice in its Opened at Random posts. In his book on creativity, Phil Cousineau writes about engaging in bibliomancy in a Galway bookstore in hopes of finding inspiration. When messages leap from the page to my heart, I call this reading serendipitously.

As spring was about to emerge, I was yearning to re-ground myself in nature, but it was still too cold to spend much time outside. François Cheng’s meditation on the soul, De l’âme, spoke to my need to reconnect with the outdoors.

“Le lien entre l’arbre et les oiseaux semble naturel. Mais l’alliance de l’arbre avec les hommes est-elle assez prise en compte par nous ? Sommes-nous conscients que nous ne pouvons trouver dans la nature compagnon plus fiable et plus durable ? Cet être debout comme nous, qui depuis les profondeurs du sol tend résolument vers le haut, nous rappelle que notre être tient tout autant de la terre que du ciel” (118-119).

“The connection between tree and birds seems natural. But the union of tree with man, do we consider it enough? Are we aware that we can find no more reliable and durable companion? Like us, this upright being, who, from the depths of the soil stretches resolutely upwards, reminds us that our being holds just as much from the earth as from the sky.”

What lasts from generation to generation?

April 20, 2019 By Allison

This week’s flames at Notre-Dame de Paris sunk us into collective grief and then unified us in hope, as we learned that much of the structure and most of the art had been saved. Many Gothic cathedrals have been lost to flames, but in their grace we forget their fragility.

Notre-Dame has stood on Paris’ Île de la Cité for the better part of 1,000 years. Having almost lost her, it is both sobering and gratifying to consider the cultural artifacts that last from generation to generation. So little survives: works of literature (many of them fragments), examples of religious sculpture, a little music, sacred buildings in varying states of disrepair. We hold on to these traces of western cultures, but to what end? Might it be better for us to loosen our grip on these tangible bits of our heritage?

Like many other French cathedrals, Notre-Dame de Paris honors the Virgin Mary. The most venerated feminine figure in the Christian tradition, she symbolizes a compassionate feminine power. Divine figures of other traditions represent this same quality—Guanyin and Tara in Buddhism and the goddess Kali in Hinduism, to name but a few. The sacred spaces we erect in their honor frame and focus the universal energy that we attribute to the divine, feminine figures. Sacred spaces help us to access these figures and the invisible power we’ve given to them.

Their energy is eternal though intangible. Do we even need to honor Mary, Kali, Guanyin, and other feminine figures with special spaces? Of course we do. But let us embrace the constantly changing nature of scared spaces. Cathedrals will crumble or burn. The generative emptiness they leave will make way for new or altered sacred structures.

And let’s remember that although places like Notre-Dame de Paris can change the course of our spiritual lives, the protective power of the Virgin Mary is by no means contained within a building. The knowledge that moves from generation to generation is indiscernible to the eye and revealed in the soul. Having grown up Catholic, I have always felt connected to Mary, but not because of a church. The rose is my most personal, profound reminder of Mary. Her flower is recalled in cathedrals’ rose windows, but for me the rose is entwined with family, with a Catholic upbringing, and with womanhood. I see roses everywhere, and Mary’s flower is always sure to unlock the healing, compassionate energy she embodies.

Inspirations

Another magnificent cathedral: Notre-Dame de Chartres

Clearing Space and evening walks

Rewriting a Symphony in Stone, by Summer Brennan

Recent Reads

March 16, 2019 By Allison

These days, I’m living my best book life. I have short, precarious stacks of books all over the house: travel guides, novels, poetry, cookbooks. I love my books, but I am hard on them. I make copious notations, I stash them in my bag when I’m on the go, and if I sense someone needs my book more than I do, I give it away.

Our winter wasn’t as cold and snowy as some, but it was grey and damp. I spent those months dabbling, skipping from book to book, and rereading a few favorites. If I begin reading a book and I’m not hooked after a few chapters, I set it aside. I spent ten years as a student of literature, and I always read what I was instructed to read. Now I’m more reckless. Sometimes I purchase a book simply because it has a pretty cover. I read more in English. Unfinished books linger. It’s glorious to flit between subjects and genres and to touch so many different books in one sitting.

For this post, I gathered a selection of some recent and favorite reads that might lead you to your next book. Dainin Katagiri’s The Light That Shines Through Infinity has been a steady, insightful spiritual companion that I have already gifted to a friend and that I will reread multiple times. Michelin’s guide to Brittany has had me dreaming about France’s rugged coasts, and Alexandre Maral’s Versailles: côté ville, côté jardin has furthered my research on the Royal City. My cookbook collection is unmanageable, but Emeril Lagasse’s review of Bottom of the Pot made Naz Deravian’s new book on Persian cuisine irresistible.

A few months ago, I embarked on a poetry project with a friend. Each month, we read one poem by Irish poet Eavan Boland. We stay with that poem for a whole month, and then we each compose our own poem that is inspired by and seems to grow from the month’s poem. Writing and sharing poetry terrifies me, but our Eavan Boland project has helped me to go deeper with poetry and to feel brave enough to write my own poems.

If English is my first and most comfortable language, French is my chosen and beloved language. My French winter reads were delightful. I’ve been enjoying random selections of François Cheng’s De l’âme (About the Soul). He unfailingly brings me beauty as he bridges philosophies of the East and the West. In Le camélia de ma mère (My Mother’s Camellia), Alain Baraton, the head gardener at the Château de Versailles, sings the beauty of his mother’s favorite flower. And after teaching L’Elégance du hérisson (The Elegance of the Hedgehog), last spring, I am treating myself to a third or fourth reading of Muriel Barbery’s novel on the beauty of friendship.

Inspirations

Discovering Daphne du Maurier’s Rebecca

Thoughts on beauty and grief

Love Musings

February 16, 2019 By Allison

Photo courtesy of Shelley Richardson

Those who love use their imagination to discover solutions where others see only problems. Those who love help others according to their needs and with creativity, not according to preconceived ideas or common conceptions.
–Pope Francis

Valentine’s Day can be fraught. Although I see the holiday as a sweet reminder to celebrate all kinds of love, I understand the loneliness that can accompany this overwhelming greeting card day. It is difficult to be alone on Valentine’s Day when you feel like everyone you know is sharing a cozy dinner with their sweetheart. I have been in that sad emotional space, but several years ago, I released those feelings of inadequate solitude because they were holding me back.

Love is so much more than chocolate, flowers, and candle-lit meals! We have a responsibility to inhabit love—to be love—each day. Love is a powerfully creative act: “Those who love help others according to their needs and with creativity.” It is a dynamic, ever-evolving energy that moves us through our days. Love involves interplay, cooperation, and patience. It is neither formulaic nor superficial. It is practical, messy, and beautiful. As I have written before, love is our duty and our pleasure.

Love is too abundant, too expansive to be contained in one grey February day. Maybe it is a bit silly to dedicate one day of the year to a concept that is so vast yet so vague, but I am content to embrace Valentine’s Day as a moment to celebrate love and to reevaluate my thoughts on love. This year, I recommit to allowing the energy of love, whatever unexpected or unconventional form it may take.

Tiny Tea Set, Lively Energy of Life

February 8, 2019 By Allison

In the realm of space, your life is nothing but the lively energy of life, interconnecting with everything.
–Dainin Katagiri

Every so often, I spread the pieces of my childhood tea set on my bed. It’s in pitiful shape—broken, glued, re-broken, re-glued. I love that I played so hard with these tiny, clumsy cups and plates. I almost remember my gracious, chubby fingers pouring imaginary tea as I brushed wisps of long, brown hair out of my eyes. I can almost see myself breaking piece after piece in my basement playroom.

No one in my family drank tea, so I must have created my own imaginary tea stories. I don’t recall my solo tea parties, yet when I lay my hands on the shards, I access the lively energy of life that children incarnate. This cherished energy still resides deep inside me. Light, open, and expansive, this part of me responds to people who are patient and curious. Sometimes I forget the connections that defy time and geography, but the energy of this homely wabi-sabi children’s tea set transcends place, space, and culture. Through it, I recall that it was a gift from Grandma Rose Mary. She couldn’t have known that tea would become my language and my passion. In this sense, her gift of imaginary tea was prophetic. Grandma’s gift allowed me to create my first tea rituals and to explore what it might mean to share tea with others. My tea rituals have evolved, but I embrace the awkwardness of human connection as it plays out over shared tea moments.

In the realm of space, my life is nothing but the lively energy of life, interconnecting with everything.

Colors of the Soul

July 19, 2018 By Allison

The soul becomes dyed with the color of its thoughts.
–Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book 5, v. 16

Thanks to my Instagram habit, much of my mental space is occupied by squares. Within the limits of a square, I sense the freedom to share without words. I envision a clear, thoughtful grid connecting experiences and exuding harmony. Imagine my delight when I recently stepped into a contemporary stained glass exhibit that was dominated by square panels!

My first thought was that much like me, the artists were under the spell of Instagram. But then I thought of the stained glass windows in Chartres Cathedral, a few steps from the museum. Some of the windows are 900 years old, and most are arranged in circles, squares, and rectangles. Each window is its own medieval grid, to be read from bottom to top. So, placing a story in the bounds of a square is nothing new, but the immediacy and reach of Instagram is.

The contemporary pieces at the International Stained Glass Centre do not invite a bottom to top reading, but rather offer a sampling of work from artists all over the world, exploring the theme “the search for the light of the world.” I treat the works as impressions rather than narratives. My eye goes straight to the tight, bursting center of Shinique Smith’s untitled 2016 panel. Her energetic swirls are reminiscent of dragon flies that skip across lakes in the summer and remind me of the fairy parties I organize for my nieces and nephew. Much like the medieval panels in the cathedral across the way, color and light cultivate wonder. Her work brings forth an inner light that radiates, undulates, and eventually flows from the frame. Here, the multicolored lumière du monde grows from a dense, interior space of possibility–patterns, shapes and colors in evolution, expressing the harmonious contrasts of the soul.

Keyhole

April 28, 2018 By Allison

...everything is already present, though hidden.
–Hildegard of Bingen

We’re drawn to the grandeur of Gothic cathedrals—height, history, stained glass, light. So old! So holy! So overwhelming!

I’ve made my way to Chartres Cathedral several times in the last twenty years, and each visit allows me to know the space more intimately. With each day spent wandering the Cathedral, its light, colors, and shapes become more deeply rooted in my internal landscape. Likewise, I think that through my thought and presence, I become part of the very long history of Notre-Dame de Chartres. I believe that different versions of myself linger in the transepts, the ambulatories, and on the 13^th century labyrinth.

During my last visit to Chartres, the Cathedral was cold and hushed. More than usual, I absorbed detail. A small, dried bouquet tacked to a column, a group of women praying the rosary at the foot of a statue of the Virgin Mary, a tunic-shaped keyhole on the North Porch of the church. The decoration had been already present, though hidden to me, lost among the statues of Old Testament figures. The minute detail announces that Notre-Dame de Chartres houses the Sancta Camisia, a veil that is believed to have been worn by the Virgin Mary. A sacred relic, the garment was given to Chartres in 876 by Charlemagne’s grandson, Charles the Bald. The Sancta Camisia has been credited with protecting the Cathedral over the centuries, and it is still an object of devotion for pilgrims.

Each of my occasional Chartres pilgrimages helps me to unlock present-hidden parts of myself. The knowledge doesn’t reside in the Cathedral like I once thought. Rather, I believe that sacred places emanate a peaceful beauty that enables us to access the wisdom we already possess.

I Lost the Art of Letter Writing

February 24, 2018 By Allison

When I was eight, my grandmother gifted me my first diary. She must have ordered it from the Lillian Vernon Catalog. It was bright pink with tiny yellow and purple hearts. It had a lock and key. I was tickled.

I began writing in my diary on January 1, 1987. Since I hated boys and didn’t have any secrets to record, I wrote about my days. Math class-basketball practice-sleepover. Reading class-basketball practice-dinner with the neighbors. Math class-basketball practice-Connect Four with Beej and Trish. After a month, I realized that my third grade life lacked variety. My diary had become repetitive, so I set it aside.

In middle school the expected intrigues sprouted, so I began to journal. At about the same time, I became a prolific letter writer. For almost two decades, I penned three and four page letters on fine paper with fancy pens provided by my father. During those formative years, I filled pages and sent them to friends around the world. I loved the tactile experience of putting words to the page, of embroidering my stories on paper.

Several years ago, I abruptly stopped writing letters. I still have an abundance of beautiful stationery, and I sign important documents with Dad’s Waterman pens. Why did I abandon a beloved and soothing activity? I often hear people say that they just don’t have time to write letters, and although time is a consideration, I don’t really buy that explanation. We choose how to spend our precious time—with family, in front of Netflix, at the gym, or hard at work. Although I am nostalgic for the ambitious letter-writing me, I choose to use my leisure time differently. I want to take walks with my friends, and I want to share meals with them. For now, face-to-face exchanges with loved ones take precedent over letters.

Yet the blank page still calls to me. Its emptiness is an inspiring, potential space of creation. When I sit down in front of a blank piece of paper or a white computer screen, ideas shoot through me and chains of words form in my mind’s eye. Some of them make their way to this blog—a crisscrossed echo of the journaling and letter-writing I left behind. Happily, I am still “embroidering”.

Inspriations

My lovely friend Dana is a talented letter writer who blogs about all things mail on Save Snail Mail.

Thomas Mallon’s book Yours Ever investigates letter writing in the western world.

I once visited the delightful Musée des Lettes et Manuscrits where I saw several of Matisse and Picasso’s letters. Sadly, the museum closed in 2010.

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