The last installment of posts about the Hermit Songs ends with a huge party, but not before study time… There used to be subject GRE tests (the test you take as a college senior that helps place you in graduate school). I took the music GRE, and one of the…
Today is my father’s Jahrzeit (the anniversary of his death). My usual commemoration takes the form of an outdoor adventure, honoring the curiosity about the natural world that he passed down to me. But recently I’ve been spending time communing with him – through his writing – about something else…
“… the light birds, with no soul but air …” 11th century, translated by W. H. Auden I am a serious birder. (I call my hobby “birdlookingfor” rather than “birdwatching” because often I’m just staring at a tree.) When people start talking about sports statistics or videogames or however else…
SEPTEMBER 21, 2019 WASHINGTON, DC Three billion – the number of birds lost in North America over the past 50 years, according to a study released last week – isn’t a number that I find possible to grasp. Rather, as a lifelong bird observer, I encounter each bird as an…
As many pixels as there are on the internet dedicated to cats – and cat-a-day calendars before that – I’ve always been surprised at the lack of songs about them. I am intimately familiar with the kind of companionship that this monk feels with his white cat, Pangur (though I’ve…
APRIL 11, 2020 I’m a classically trained professional singer. The church where I work – as a choral section leader and soloist – has continued to pay me through the pandemic-related closures. For that I am so thankful: not every institution can afford to keep paying musicians in this time…
The Hermit Songs are spiritual without being liturgical. One of the most peculiar is “St. Ita’s Vision.” I don’t know much about St. Ita, but at least in this snippet of her life, she feels that she has been put on this earth in order to physically nurse the infant…
“But not a tear can I squeeze from my eyes…” 13th Century, trans. Sean O’Faolain, from “At Saint Patrick’s Purgatory“ In January of 2016, I cancelled all my commitments and stayed for a week at The Hermitage, a tiny house on the grounds of the Franciscan Monastery in Washington, DC….
Or zucchini flowers. Whatever you call them, they are the best treat of summer! You need squash/zucchini blossoms butter cheese (I like cheddar) a skillet (nonstick is best) a fork toasted bread (optional – but it’s a nice vector for eating the blossoms!) Harvest your blossoms as early in the…
Ah! To be all alone, in a little cell, with nobody near me…” from “The Desire for Hermitage,” tenth of the Hermit Songs. Words 8th-9th century, trans. Sean O’Faolain Isolation and solitude and loneliness seem to be the buzzwords of the COVID-19 pandemic, but those words describe the opposite of…
