Art & resources for seasonal living through the liturgical year

ORDINARY TIME II

Looking with wonder at the sacred world

Welcome! I’m Kristin Haakenson, an artist & farmer in the Pacific Northwest. I create art & resources for seasonal living through the liturgical year – art that looks with wonder at the sacred world.

In life on our farm in the Pacific Northwest, I lean into the agrarian roots & rhythms of the liturgical calendar. My artwork uses flora, fauna, and heritage traditions of bygone days to reflect on these ancient rhythms of the Church year, and my hope is that these resources would help to enrich your own journeys through the calendar, making the fruits of ancient traditions present in our modern lives.

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LATEST POSTS

  • Bartlemas: watermelon festival, bun run, & mead blessing
    Happy Lammas, friends! This is the time of year when I can really start to feel the turn toward Autumn. Each month, I’m trying to focus on one particular holiday to really dive deeply into, and I’ve been learning so much. For August, I chose St. Bartholomew’s Day – or, Bartlemas (Bartholomew’s Mass), celebrated on […]
  • A St. James’ Day celebration
    We had a really lovely community celebration for St. James’ Day, and I thought I’d share it with you lovely folks! I was new to this feast day, so it was really fun & illuminating to dive down the rabbit-hole into traditions shared by generations in celebration of St. James. We’ve been exploring the liturgical […]
  • St. James’ Day
    I hope you’re finding beauty and abundance in these summer days! Though the liturgical season in which we find ourselves during the summer – Ordinary Time – doesn’t have rhythms as dramatic as those at Easter & Christmas, it’s honestly my favorite season in the Church year. Like will-o-whisps illuminating a path, beautiful feasts & […]

“For Cecilia, the natural cycles of the year – light and dark, warm and cold, work and leisure – were strongly echoed in the ritual calendar. For many of us, religious rituals are comforting but somewhat distant from our everyday lives. For Cecilia, they often spoke not only about holy events and holy persons but also about her own life and her own experiences…”

Judith M. Bennett, “A Medieval Life: Cecilia Penifader of Brigstock, c. 1295-1344

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I am going to my own hearth-stone,
Bosomed in yon green hills alone, —
A secret nook in a pleasant land,
Whose groves the frolic fairies planned;
Where arches green, the livelong day,
Echo the blackbird’s roundelay,
And vulgar feet have never trod
A spot that is sacred to thought and God.

RALPH WALDO EMERSON, “GOOD-BYE”
🌻Free paper scene printable!🌻 Another beautiful Bartlemas tradition is the Bun Run in England! A hospital was founded in 1190 in Sandwich, with St. Bartholomew’s chapel being added in 1217. On Bartlemas, after a service in this ancient chapel, children race around the exterior and receive a currant bun when they finish (mimicking pilgrims receiving food along the journey). 🍪 Adults receive a St. Bart’s biscuit, stamped with the town arms. This tradition seems to have replaced an earlier one, when visiting children would receive “St. Bartholomew’s Dole” – bread, cheese, and beer. This, in turn, had represented the Wayfarers’ Dole – food offerings given to pilgrims on their way to Canterbury. "And yet anon, the full Sunflowre blew, and became a starre for Bartholomew." Just when you thought I'd pushed the limits of "stuff in antlers", I come bearing a woodland watermelon vendor 😂... A watermelon festival was held annually in Rome on Bartlemas (August 24) at a basilica dedicated to St. Bartholomew: the San Bartolomeo all’Isola (on an island in the middle of the Tiber River). 🍉 Vendors set up beautifully decorated displays of watermelon, held games, and more. As is so often the case, a connection was made between a holy day, the rhythms of nature & the agrarian year, and folk customs. Time for #libraryfriday 📚 This reprint of Richard Folkard's 1884 book is one I've leaned on heavily over the years. It's separated into two parts - the first, delving into botanical lore and legends by subject/tradition, and the second, an encyclopedia of plants. The sections on Flowers of the Saints and Flowers of the Church's Festivals share some beautiful insights, helpful information, and gorgeous botanical calendar poems that have really fueled my imagination. Swipe for some photos of the interior! ➡️ In exploring the calendar, I think it's crucial to ask: what does the local, regional instantiation of liturgical celebration look like? The importance of blending the traditions of the liturgical calendar (built in a European context & its native plants, food, etc) with one's own local environment and tradition. Madonna of the Peaches 🍑 Peaches sometimes replaced apples in the symbolism of iconography. It's a language unto itself!

ABOUT HEARTHSTONE FABLES

Art & resources inspired by sacred time & sacred place

Welcome! I’m Kristin Haakenson, an artist & farmer in the Pacific Northwest. I create art & resources for seasonal living through the liturgical year.

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