Granary God

Our bulol or granary god-- one of a few precious items I managed to take with me when I returned to the U.S. in 1998-- sits on a kitchen window ledge next to a hand-fired oil lamp resting in a bowl (both ceramic pieces made by Lanelle Abueva, with ash from the Mt. Pinatubo eruption in the early nineties).

Out on this part of the east coast where we are, the change of seasons is not so harsh. But the little bit of backyard past the kitchen window has turned stark: today the deck is plastered in fallen leaves, and the earth looks packed and dry.

Very soon Persephone begins her descent into the underworld. Afternoon light seems sharper and clearer, more lucid and austere, just before dark.

The bulol is another of those reminders, at least for me, of the tenuous links of states: fullness and emptiness, the changing seasons, the plenitude we pray will visit our lives more than just fleetingly.