Our Bowls Waiting to be Filled

This past Christmas, I was the recipient of two porcelain bowls – gifts from dear friends who don’t know one another and live hundreds of miles apart.

I’m always struck by the serendipity of gift-giving.  Some years, I am drawn to candles as gifts.  Other years, unique soaps, oils, artisanal chocolates from the West Coast of Ireland.  It’s as if we carry inside of ourselves invisible harps.   When the resonance between an object and its intended recipient starts to hum, I know I’ve found my mark – often, when I’m not even looking.

Bowls.  Clay.  Both of these gifts could be used either for display or for purpose.  One is cornflower blue, formed like an open lily, a corolla that opens out – a most welcoming, hospitable bowl.  Too fine for the morning’s cereal, but well-suited to a shared meal of tabouli or hummus.

The other is the color of bone and sprinkled with stars, like the desert at sunrise.  In another life, it could be a bell, it is so suggestive of pristine sound, of ringing, and of beholding.

Two bowls, two faces of our humanity:

The vulnerable, receptive contemplative who long to be touched by truth.

The communal, inclusive selves who are made whole in the sharing.

When I hold these bowls, they remind me in a concrete way of the essential nature of each of these calls.

As February approaches, I have placed the bowl of bone and stars in my writing studio, as I prepare to journey through Lent — alone, and also companioned by a group of fellow seekers who will join together for an hour each Friday on zoom.   The white bowl will be the well from which I draw inspiration and questions for us to consider during our time together.  The cornflower bowl will hold the feast of poems and prompts we will use for short reflective writings, journaling and prayer.

If you would like to join us, you are welcome.  Deadline for registering is February 2.

You can find details here:

https://kathleenhirsch.com/spiritual-writing-creativity-workshops/

Or, you can email me:  Kathleenhirsch2016@gmail.com

Meanwhile, I let the returning light of spring play on the lovely shapes and hollows of these two gifts – empty, waiting to be filled.

Namaste