Category: Religion

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Reading And Cooking Liver While Several Species Of Small, Furry Animals Gather Together In A Cave And Groove With A Pict.

Liver has pride of place in the human body in ancient texts as a producer of blood and a source of life.  The Etruscan bronze liver above with its inscriptions guides the reader of entrails through a large, meaty organ considered the basis of life.  The ancient Greek term is hēpatoskōpia, which means to examine the liver. … Continue reading Reading And Cooking Liver While Several Species Of Small, Furry Animals Gather Together In A Cave And Groove With A Pict.

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What Is Really In My Mouth? The Case For Cypher Over Socrates.

The Magician (1952) by Rene Magritte where the fantasy of a human with four arms navigating table to mouth contains a question for our senses–is taste, along with our other senses, a fantasy, an illusion?  This steak may not be a steak. We are familiar with questions about the veracity of our senses.  They’ve been … Continue reading What Is Really In My Mouth? The Case For Cypher Over Socrates.

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Broth Of A Forest Floor: Walking On Storön.

Midsummer in the Stockholm Archipelago and I’ve finally become accustomed to falling asleep in daylight.  Important to blanket windows, shut eyes tightly, and dream about water and land washing, breaking each other.  It’s about four in the morning when I wake to light and silhouette, and what can I do, emerging colors call me out … Continue reading Broth Of A Forest Floor: Walking On Storön.

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There’s An Island In The Baltic Sea

After a forty-five minute bus ride out of Stockholm, the road ends at Stavsnäs with a pier jutting out into the water, pointing toward an archipelago, a labyrinth of islands we’ll navigate on our way to a greeting and hospitality.  This is Tomas Tranströmer’s realm as translated into another island language by Robin Fulton, a place of sky … Continue reading There’s An Island In The Baltic Sea

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Happy July 4th! Some Thoughts on Cannibalism For North Carolina.

Our collective human memory reaches far back through many doors, many hallways and rooms, and alway we find, though never that first room, a place to cook and a place to sit down and eat with each other.  In Homer’s the Odyssey, Odysseus portrays this action and place as the best life has to offer. … Continue reading Happy July 4th! Some Thoughts on Cannibalism For North Carolina.

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Night Thoughts For North Carolina

It’s a dinner party.  Wine passed down the table.  Angels have appeared at Abraham and Sarah’s door, and as good hosts the old couple provide food and drink. And the LORD appeared unto him by the terebinths of Mamre, as he sat in the tent door in the heat of the day; and he lifted … Continue reading Night Thoughts For North Carolina

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Thinking About Who’s Sitting Down To Dinner In North Carolina

The first thing you notice about Pieter Aretsen’s painting A Meat Stall With The Holy Family Giving Alms (1551) is all the meat–an ox head with eyes staring at us, pig trotters on a cabbage leaf, whole side of a slaughtered pig split cleanly down the spine, a large ham shank, sausage, smoked fish, herring; … Continue reading Thinking About Who’s Sitting Down To Dinner In North Carolina

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Thoughts Toward A Lecture In North Carolina: A Swan, Bride, And Fatal Banquet.

The old stories tell of a bride . . . and then a war, and as always, banquet after banquet. Remember Helen?  Daughter of Zeus and Leda. In this Peter Paul Rubens’ version (there are two) Leda and the Swan (aka Zeus) may share a kiss or you could also interpret that she’s asleep, either … Continue reading Thoughts Toward A Lecture In North Carolina: A Swan, Bride, And Fatal Banquet.

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The Anatomical Theater: The Anatomist And The Butcher.

I’m working on two lectures I’ll give next week on Mary Shelley’s 1818 novel, Frankenstein. Much to offer.  I could focus upon the sublime views of nature such as Victor Frankenstein contemplates just before he meets his creation high in the Alps. I resolved to go alone to the summit of Montanvert.  I remembered the … Continue reading The Anatomical Theater: The Anatomist And The Butcher.

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The Anatomical Theater: Heart and Blood

This beautiful looking cow heart you’re gazing at appears courtesy of Regula Ysewijn, who blogs under the title Miss Foodwise.  Stuffed with kale, bacon and mushrooms this hearty repast reminds us that any body part in a human we probably dine on when it comes from an animal.  More about this fabulous dish later, for … Continue reading The Anatomical Theater: Heart and Blood