The Ghosts of Home

My father began asking me to go home sometime in August. He started with subtle hints – the aroma of freshly brewed coffee, random old music, and snapshots of shared memories. But I should mention that no embodied being in my home drinks coffee, and my dad left this realm 16 years ago.

Joe Louis, Max Schmeling, and the Wizard in the Forest

As we perform the enchantment of mythicization on our world, we lift people, places, and things from the mundane to the meaningful. The trivial becomes tremendous and the ephemeral becomes enduring. Myth, regardless of veracity, can have more power than any truth. This power is not always used for positive ends.

Agents of Faith: an Exhibition

Votive offerings are a universal phenomenon that help define sacred space. In many ways, they are irreligious, focused within an emotional moment followed by supplication or remembrance. They are acts of promise or faith that maintain a connection to a person or an event. While they sometimes anticipatory in nature and offered in the hopes a request to be fulfilled, they are typically constructed and offered after the fact. Indeed, the word votive in English derives from the Latin votivus, meaning “vow.”