Tag Archives: prosphora

Be glad, make ready, rejoice!

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We Orthodox Christians begin our Advent, our Nativity Fast, in November, because our Advent is 40 days long. So whether we celebrate Christmas on December 25th or January 7th, we’re ahead of western Advent. My parish is of the December 25th, and today was our first day of the fast.

It was the coldest day yet in my garden, and my fountain had a layer of ice on it. The water level was also a bit low so I poured a few pitchers of tepid water in there, and pulled redwood needles out of the filter to get it going again. Then I spent the rest of the morning at church, baking Communion bread with other women. With three ovens going at once, we got the kitchen quite toasty!

I drove straight from there to pick up my friend Mother S. who is in town visiting family for Thanksgiving. She loves the beach, so we drove out to Jenner-by-the-Sea, where the Russian River flows into the Pacific. I took very few pictures this time, but it was a perfect day, not a cloud in the sky, 60 degrees and sunny! We parked in the lot down near the beach, after taking pictures from this spot on a hill, from which you can see where the river comes in. I squished my bare feet into the sand, but didn’t walk out into the surf.

It was a lot of driving, but well worth it. By the time I got Mother S. home again, I barely had time to get to the service I was aiming for, back at church. It was a combination of a Paraklesis for Advent and the Blessing of Water. I had left my phone in the car so I didn’t take pictures of the small church lit only by candles.

I think it was good for me to not have that option of taking pictures, because when I eliminated the role of observer, I could be fully present and participating, not standing apart in my mind, so to speak, distracted by photographic possibilities. I was just being me, in church, praying.

It might have been for that reason that I was able to pay attention and be deeply affected by the prayers and hymns that were specific to this day and these services. They were metaphorically super-rich, and many of them were in the form of exhortations and expressions of wonder from us or from the Virgin, on the subject of the Incarnation. We were giving commands to rejoice, to get ready, to glorify God — to the universe, to the cave, to Zion, even to our mortal nature.

I’ve transcribed a few of the verses below:

O Bethlehem, receive Christ: for, made flesh, he comes to dwell in thee, opening Eden to me. Make ready, O Cave, to behold most strangely contained in thee, him who cannot be contained, who now is made poor in the wealth of his tender mercies.

Christ comes to be born, granting in his goodness a strange rebirth to those sprung from Adam. Be glad, the whole nature of mortal man, thou that art barren and bearest not: the master has come to make thee a mother of many children.

Rejoice exceedingly, O Zion: make ready, O Bethlehem. The Upholder of all things, sending a star before him, has made known his condescension without measure. He before whom the heavenly powers tremble, our only God, without change is born in very truth from the Virgin.

Today the Virgin cometh to the cave to give birth in an ineffable manner to the pre-eternal Word. Rejoice, therefore, O universe, when thou hearest, and glorify with the angels and shepherds him who shall appear by his own will as a new child, the pre-eternal God.

It was a glorious beginning to Advent. I feel that I’ve gotten a boost of expectation that will help keep my heart tuned to the upcoming joyous Feast of the Nativity of Christ.

Shopping, cooking, and singing.

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This week I’ve been blessed to have several days when I was able to stay home all day. I have a big sorting-and-organizing project upstairs, figuring out how to use my new closets and cabinets, and deciding what things to throw out because I begrudge them the space. But I didn’t end up spending much time on that.

One day I was on the prosphora baking team at church…

… and since that got me out of the house in the morning, I just kept going and did a lot of grocery shopping in the afternoon, five stores. First I went to the Thai market, where it’s fun to see what exotic snacks and goodies they have in stock. Often it’s a mochi type of treat that I try out, and this time I found these, chewy with a black sesame paste filling.

I enjoyed them very much, but the ingredients label made me resolve to make my own mochi again, at home. I already have mochi flour (mochiko) that I also buy at the Thai market. My friend Elsie brought me a mochi cookbook from Hawaii one time and I have been wanting to try out some more recipes from it again.

I bought Asian yams, green onions, and several pounds of ginger root at that market. It was time to make a big batch of ginger broth.

As I drove around to the other less interesting stores I listened to music in the car. Gordon Bok was singing one of his sailor songs, and though I am not a sailor I love to hear him sing about anything, his voice is so rich; it is a feast for my ears. Here he is in a sample I found: Sailor’s Prayer by Gordon Bok

It was 90 degrees that afternoon when I brought home my bags of groceries, and it would be hotter still the next day, when I had to wait at least until the evening to cook, so that the heat could go out the windows when we open them at sundown. It was supposed to be cooler the following day. I did start my ginger broth and roast a couple of pans of onions that evening — oh, and two pans of Brussels sprouts.

The next day, which was this morning, I thought I would just bottle up the broth and put it in the freezer, and get on with my sorting project. But one thing led to another…. I needed to wash the big pots and my breakfast dishes, of course. The cooked ginger went into the food processor, because I can’t bear to throw it out, but always use it to make puddings or breads. I decided to make bread with my ginger paste right then, so I found a recipe for zucchini bread to work from, and substituted ginger for zucchini.

The roofers were working in the morning, and they finished by early afternoon. It is such a weight off my mind to have a new roof, my whole body felt lighter and ready for more work. The bread went into the oven and I washed more dishes, and Aaron came to work on my garage project. I was happy to send him home with a loaf of bread, because I’m realizing that I like cooking too much for one person. When I start cooking I just do not want to stop.

The weather really cooled off today, so I am hopeful that my sweet peas will grow longer stems again for a week or two before they expire from heat. I had to hunt down shorter vases and bottles to put them in the last few days. This one color is my favorite this year, and I was able to make a whole little bouquet of them, which will be my closing image here, as I’ve cleaned up the kitchen for the last time and am going up to bed. Good night!

Mostly agricultural and culinary.

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My parish has a team of bakers who prepare not only the loaves that eventually go into the cup of Holy Communion, but two other forms used in other ways in the services. There are several people who take turns making the dough in the church kitchen early in the morning on baking days, and different people who finish the process, shaping, baking, bagging and finally storing the loaves in a freezer. These top two pictures are of some exemplary loaves we’ve made recently.

This morning I was on the baking team, and when I turned the dough out of its big stainless steel bowl and began to handle it, right away it seemed to me that it had already been kneaded too much. Those of you who make bread know that kneading develops the gluten and makes the dough stretchy; but did you know that if you go on working the dough too long, the molecules of gluten get damaged, and there is no repairing them? The dough begins to tear instead of stretching, and the resulting loaves do not look smooth but rather lumpy.

I don’t recall how the texture of the baked bread is affected by this problem. I read that the loaves will be heavy and dense, but my finished loaves didn’t seem to be much smaller than usual; we don’t sample them, but we can get reports from the priest as to the quality when he cuts it in the altar, and I will be sure to do that next week.

When I was finished with baking for the morning, it was lunchtime, and I stayed on the property to eat the food I had brought to sustain me during the afternoon when I needed to run several more errands. The air was cool and still; I sat at a table in the garden and read the story of St. Gabriel of Georgia who was commemorated today.

I admired the layout of the fruit trees and ground cover that have replaced the lawn. Roses and other flowers had been drizzled on for a few days and were sparkly, especially when the sun came out from behind the clouds, just as I was leaving.

Two of my afternoon stops were at friends’ houses. First my godmother, who with her husband plants a huge garden every year, and they wanted to share their harvest of pie pumpkins, since I didn’t manage to get any from my own garden this year. If it hadn’t been so muddy from the heavy rains we got, I’d have wanted to walk up and down the rows there, because I know it smelled good; instead, I stood gazing out over the landscape of soggy tomatoes fallen from their vines, spied the remains of the pumpkin patch in the distance (all the fruits had been removed), and passed through a field of tiny green blades of freesia sprouts.

From there, I drove west to where my friends Mr. and Mrs. Bread live and keep a charming homestead that my late husband used to say evoked a French country garden. Mrs. Bread and I have traded many plants over the years, sometimes things that we have grown or propagated ourselves. Lately she has grown apricot trees from pits, and she gave me one of those, and a Meyer lemon tree she started!

I feel lucky that the trees do not need to go into the ground soon, though one of them might benefit from a larger pot. The fact is, it will be a squeeze to fit them in here, but I know I can do it if I have a year to figure out the puzzle challenge. I’ll have to show you a picture of my new little trees later; it’s dark now, and my day is coming to an end. It was a little bit of commercial, but that was of relatively little interest. The agricultural and culinary aspects of the day were the fun and satisfying parts — and I was glad for the hagiographical introduction to Fool-for-Christ Gabriel, too. Glory to God for all things!

Not random but various.

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Not infrequently the feeling of unreality comes upon me: It doesn’t compute that I am living a full life without my husband. He has not lent his strength to the shovel, or played music while I made dinner, or given me an opinion about one single thing. For three years. Really?? My mind does its best to go along with my body as it sleeps alone, and wakes up alone, walks alone, and makes always unilateral decisions. But occasionally it says, “Wait a minute! I’m confused… Who are we…? I don’t like change!”

I think that’s part of the reason I act as though every little thing I think and do must be documented here or in my bullet journal, or my garden journal, or a letter to someone. I am watching myself, noticing that this strange woman does get up every day so far, and worships, and comes up with new ideas for the garden; she has friends who act as though she is as normal a person as can be.

Of course I mostly go with that assessment without thinking about it. My, do I have friends! They are the greatest. Since Mr. and Mrs. Bread gave me a new Chapel Birdfeeder for my birthday, I also have blue jays enjoying my garden like never before.

Book friends! Several women readers at church have started a reading group. They read Jane Eyre first, but I didn’t join their ranks until this spring when they are giving themselves six weeks to read Work by Louisa May Alcott, a book I’d never heard of. How can I even finish Middlemarch and write about it, much less finish Work? It does seem that I am testing the limits of this new life I am creating, and I act at times like a silly crazy woman. Would I rather spend time on Work or housework? I don’t even know!

My friend “Mr. Greenjeans” and his wife gave me a tour of their garden the other day, and quiche afterward. He is an encyclopedia of plants and loves to experiment with exotic seeds in his greenhouse. This year he has potato towers that have an upper storey that will be for melons!

I was interested in his mystery tree, which he thinks sprouted from one of the seeds in a packet that was a South American mixture. I was thinking “Africa” when I went home and searched online for some tree from that part of the world that had these green-tipped narrow trumpet flowers, and the same kind of leaves. I couldn’t find anything. (My friend Father C. in Kenya said they have this tree, but he doesn’t know the name, and his pictures didn’t look very similar.)

Soon Mrs. Greenjeans clarified that the source was likely South America, not Africa.

Update: Lucky for me Anna in Mexico saw my post and in her comment below she identified it as nicotiana glauca or Tree Tobacco, originating in Argentina.

My farmer friend has also been successful in growing several seedling trees of Red Mahogany Eucalyptus, which makes great lumber, and the Australian Tea Tree, which puts on a gorgeous display of white blooms, and from which he explained how I could make tea tree oil, if I would accept one of the trees he was offering me. But I took home a lovely columbine instead, which I know can find a small place in my garden.

Mr. Greenjeans also makes dough at least half the time for our Communion bread baking teams at church. For some months I have tried to pick tiny pink specks out of the dough as I am rolling it; today I heard that they are from Himalayan salt that he uses! So now I am happy to see them.

I was able to do all these kneading-rolling-cutting things because my sprained finger is finally better! Here is our team leader putting some prosphora into the oven this morning:

Team Leader and my friend (Nun) Mother S. have invited me to go walking or hiking a few times lately. Once we went to the same park I last visited the day of Jamie’s birth, the day after my husband’s funeral! Because of a downed tree blocking the trail …

 

… we weren’t able to take the shady route by the creek, and the sun was hot, so I lent Mother S. my hat.

Not as many wildflowers caught our attention in May as three years ago in March, but I did find a few.

Back home in my garden, the red poppies have opened, later than the pale yellow by a month. My skirt blew into the frame for contrast.

 

The last time I walked by the creek – at least a week ago! – I cut these roses, which because of the way they naturally fall over a fence are curved all funny and do not work very well in a vase, unless you put them on the top of the hutch the way I did, so that they hang down above my head as I sit here at the computer. Sweet things!

Last weekend son Soldier and his family were here, which made for a splendid couple of days. Liam is nearly six years old. He reads everything, and I saw him poring over a few books from my shelf…. That was a new thing, and a little sad, because he never asked me to read to him, but he did help me cut up my snowball clippings. He is good with the loppers or rose pruners.

P1000485Tomorrow I’m showing one elderly lady from church my India pictures. The next day I’m visiting my friend E. who is 102 now and who gave me the knitting needles that her mother-in-law gave her when she got married! This weekend my friend O. has engaged me to feed his cat Felafel while he is on a trip, and give him thyroid pills in tasty pill pouches. I met Felafel tonight and he is very friendly and agreeable.

For Soul Saturday I’ll make a koliva because my goddaughter Kathie’s 3-year memorial is near. And Holy Spirit Day, the day after Pentecost, is the same as Memorial Day this year; we have a prayer service at a cemetery. It’s quite a week, busy with various good things. And this is really me!