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Recent Posts
- Psaltery & Lyre’s New Site
- 123 Psaltery & Lyre: “Agricola Dreams of Flying” by J. Rose Lara
- 122 Psaltery & Lyre: “Communion: a love poem (a villanelle)” by Rachel Bollinger
- Book Review: Philip Metres’s Sand Opera
- 121 Psaltery & Lyre: Rachael Matthews, “Horsehead Nebula”
- Book Review: Monica Ong’s Silent Anatomies
- 120 Psaltery & Lyre: Rachael Matthews, “Return, pt. III” and “Gaia”
- Book Review: Claudia Rankine’s Don’t Let Me Be Lonely
- Book Review: Matthea Harvey, If the Tabloids Are True What Are You?
- Book Review: LoterÃa Cards and Fortune Poems: A Book of Lives
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Tag Cloud
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Columns Archive
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30something
Posted on May 20, 2011 | 11 CommentsNo week-long love fest of Tina Fey is complete without a discussion (however incomplete) of her hit-ish show, 30 Rock. I received the first season DVD boxset for Christmas a few years ago. Already a raging fan, I begged my family to watch with me. […] -
You Can Recognize Them by Their Hand-Carved Daggers…
Posted on May 19, 2011 | 36 CommentsI love memoirs. And I love Tina Fey. So I was just salivating as my friends and co-bloggers raved about Bossypants when it came out. Finally, on Mother’s Day, I stuffed myself silly on waffles, settled back in my bed, and […] -
O me, of little Feyth
Posted on May 18, 2011 | 6 CommentsI’m drowning right now. I just finished up the hardest, most wholly unsatisfying and frustrating year of my career. Sure, I should be glad that I work in an air conditioned office (but instead, I’m grousing that I don’t have a window) and that I […] -
All Girls Must Be Everything
Posted on May 17, 2011 | 13 CommentsNow if you're not "hot," you are expected to work on it until you are. -
You’ve Gotta Have Feyth
Posted on May 15, 2011 | 11 CommentsIt started last month. We pre-ordered it on Amazon, ventured into the world of audio books so that we could hear the author telling the jokes in her own voice, or scooped it up at the grocery store — uncharacteristically shelling out for a hardback. […] -
Tina’s Rules for Reducing Belly Fat
Posted on May 15, 2011 | 7 CommentsWelcome to our All Tina, All the Time week here at Doves & Serpents. For an explanation of why we’re examining her new book Bossypants from a variety of angles – parenting, friendship, spirituality, humor and so forth – check out Heidi’s explanation. Technically, the […] -
A System
Posted on May 14, 2011 | 7 CommentsIn the 2000 Christopher Nolan film Memento, the central character (Leonard) has a big problem with his memory. After an accident an indeterminable amount of time ago, he is unable to form new memories, and while he feels he has a good recollection of everything […] -
Diary of a Wimpy Mom
Posted on May 13, 2011 | 21 CommentsA promise is a promise, or so my kids said, even if I really didn’t want to take them to see “Diary of a Wimpy Kid 2: Rodrick Rules” the week it opened in theaters. My kids have been reading the Wimpy Kid graphic novels […] -
Angels with Power Tools
Posted on May 12, 2011 | 9 CommentsWhen you hear the words “Compassionate Service” what comes to mind? This is like one of those word association games- just go with your gut feeling. Macaroni and cheese? Sign up sheets? Relief Society Board Meeting? A calling you hated (or […] -
Parental Involvement: The Gold Standard
Posted on May 11, 2011 | 22 CommentsWe hold these truths to be self-evident-that all good parents are involved in their children’s education. They bring food (homemade . . . that goes without saying) to teacher appreciation breakfasts and lunches. They chaperone field trips. They watch very long spelling bees. They sit […] -
SexRead
Posted on May 10, 2011 | 19 CommentsSince I pretty much like tackling any topic through reading, it should be no surprise that I like reading about sex. -
Sagrada Familia, Barcelona
Posted on May 9, 2011 | 6 CommentsAs we approached the wide junction of Avinguda Diagonal and the street on which our hotel was located, I saw the spires of Sagrada Familia for the first time. The four spires that faced us towered among cranes, with words circling up to heaven in […] -
Ride to Church in Avon & Paradise, Utah
Posted on May 8, 2011 | 12 CommentsCome enjoy Carole’s ride to church in Cache Valley, Utah. Carole lives in Avon and the church building is three miles north, in Paradise. -
Going there
Posted on May 8, 2011 | 6 CommentsVirya is a Sanskrit word that is most often used in spiritual circles to refer to the energetic push or effort it takes a person to progress spiritually. This week, I found a curious new definition for the term virya, it was defined […] -
What Dreams May Come
Posted on May 7, 2011 | 8 CommentsThere are two ways into the world of dreams. The first is to walk in consciously, the second is to achieve consciousness during or after it. These two modes suggest two ways of dealing with the unconscious mind: the largest part of our brain, and the seat of all that we do not understand about ourselves. -
The Saviors of Soul Revisited
Posted on May 6, 2011 | 10 CommentsIn 1997, some twenty years after his notoriously iconoclastic conversion to Christianity, when asked what he then believed, Bob Dylan replied: I find the religiosity and philosophy in the music . . .. I believe the songs. A difficult doctrine to understand? He that […] -
Park it!
Posted on May 5, 2011 | 3 CommentsChildren can only write so many letters to full-time missionaries. Or out-of-state family members. They can only color so many pictures destined for the walls of the local hospital. They usually need a great deal of supervision during large-scale service projects, at least in my […] -
BUTT-erfly T-shirts for Mother’s Day
Posted on May 4, 2011 | 13 CommentsMy first child was born on January 5. The months between her birth and Mother’s Day were, um, let’s just say they were difficult. She cried all day long and into the night. We spent hours pacing the halls with her while she screamed, listening […] -
In the Gut
Posted on May 3, 2011 | 11 Comments"It's not about masculine or feminine. It's about power, and passion, and weirdness" -
“We Did Not Choose This Fight”
Posted on May 2, 2011 | 13 Comments“We did not choose this fight” is uttered from the lips of our leaders as we discuss the war on terrorism, and we heard it again last night. It was a moment that will live on as we ask each other “how did you hear […] -
World Market
Posted on May 1, 2011 | 11 CommentsWhen I need chocolate, and nothing but an enormous brick of Cadbury Dairy Milk or a handful of a Kinder Surprise (those yummy chocolate eggs with little toys inside that my kids love so much) will do, I head to World Market, the big box […] -
Walk to Church in New Orleans
Posted on May 1, 2011 | 8 CommentsIn early April, I had to (got to?) to a conference in New Orleans for work. So on Sunday morning, I threw on my tennis shoes, grabbed my camera, and headed towards St. Louis Cathedral in Jackson Square. As you know if you’ve ever been […] -
Marshmallows, Obedience and You
Posted on April 30, 2011 | 12 CommentsIn the famous Stanford Marshmallow Experiment (1972), Professor Walter Mischel gave four year-old children a marshmallow, and instructed them that if they waited twenty minutes without eating it, they would be given another one. Mischel observed that although some would “cover their eyes with their […] -
Twelfth Lunch
Posted on April 28, 2011 | 3 CommentsNovember 11th, 2010 I gave away the last lunch (somehow, the story of the eleventh lunch was never recorded and has been lost to the mists of time). It had taken me 8 months to distribute them all. I was on the phone chatting […] -
The Joys of Parenthood
Posted on April 27, 2011 | 33 CommentsWhy do we have such a hard time admitting to the realities of parenthood? This morning a dear friend of mine who has just given birth to her second baby posted a question on her Facebook page. She has another child who has just […] -
Get Lost
Posted on April 26, 2011 | 6 CommentsLately, I've been thinking a lot about what we mean when we talk about "losing ourselves in a good book." -
Pausing for a Moment of Silence
Posted on April 25, 2011 | 7 CommentsWhen my children had outgrown their need for a nap, but I had not yet outgrown my need to have them nap, we instituted “quiet time” where they could play quietly by themselves or rest without sleeping. I told myself that they needed this break […] -
Ren’s (former) Ride to the Winter Quarters, Nebraska Temple
Posted on April 24, 2011 | 2 CommentsToday’s Ride to Church post comes from Ren (who now lives in Minnesota): I used to live in Omaha, Nebraska and this is my former ride to the Winter Quarters Temple. I took these photos on a recent visit back. I like Omaha because […] -
Earn This
Posted on April 24, 2011 | 6 CommentsBy Dan A long favorite movie scene of mine comes near the close of “Saving Private Ryan.” Capt. John Miller, the character played by Tom Hanks, lies dying in the street, having just held off a German onslaught on a small French town. He pulls […] -
The Good Book
Posted on April 23, 2011 | 3 CommentsI love getting books in the mail. No seriously: I feel like no one could possibly understand how much I love it. It doesn’t happen often enough, but when we returned home from a recent trip out of town, there was a lovely hardback book […] -
A Spoonful of Sugar
Posted on April 22, 2011 | 7 CommentsOr how the ‘Making of Mary Poppins’ documentary included on the 25th Anniversary DVD restored my hope and sweetened my attitude toward life in general. A few years ago, my daughter received a Mary Poppins Barbie doll for Christmas. It came dressed in that flowing […] -
Emergency: Lunches 9 and 10
Posted on April 21, 2011 | 1 CommentOn a drizzly day last fall, at the familiar corner near the Carter Center where I gave away the very first lunch, lunches #9 and #10 found homes with two homeless men. One was soliciting while the other laid under a tree nearby appearing […] -
Book Worm Love
Posted on April 19, 2011 | 14 CommentsThe books people love and the way they talk about them can be quite revealing about the way they view the world. Or not. -
Worshipping WITH the World
Posted on April 18, 2011 | 4 CommentsLast Sunday I was in New Orleans for a conference. As much as I love the volunteer work I do every Sunday as the primary chorister (children’s music leader, for those of you who don’t speak Mormonese), I love the 3-4 times a year that […] -
Surely We Were Blessed
Posted on April 17, 2011 | 1 CommentWe were a wreck. The basses and tenors were supposed to be singing a unison line-yet I kept hearing a variety of notes, none of them correct. I’d moved two altos and myself to the tenor line. Though the range was low, the tenor line […] -
Paula’s Prius Ride to Church
Posted on April 17, 2011 | 17 CommentsToday’s Ride to Church hails from Paula in Encinitas, California. ; The LDS Chapel on Lake Street in Encinitas, CA is our destination today. Encinitas is a town of 65,000 or so, 25 miles north of downtown San Diego, on the legendary Highway 101. […] -
“Come to Zion”
Posted on April 16, 2011 | 10 Comments‘Zion’ has become a dirty word in our world: now it is shorthand for the displacement of native peoples from their homelands, and a justification for the flexing of military power for scriptural causes. I’m not sure that when my people sing songs about ‘Zion’ […] -
Before Sunset
Posted on April 15, 2011 | 9 CommentsFor Jesse and Céline these questions are embodied in a single night and in each other. But the question of how we balance our passion, our need to continue living fully with the realities of daily living can come to us in many guises. -
Find Your Tribe
Posted on April 14, 2011 | 4 CommentsOver a decade ago I read this article in Mothering Magazine about a woman who is far from family and friends and meets up with another woman to share household projects and childcare over the course of a day several times a week, alternating households. […] -
The Grass is Always Greener
Posted on April 13, 2011 | 12 CommentsI just got back from a fancy schmantzy conference for educational researchers in New Orleans. I submit proposals every year and hope to get one in-even though I know I’m out of my league. Whenever I’m lucky enough to get to go, I experience an […] -
Just Too Good to be True
Posted on April 12, 2011 | 3 CommentsContext can be everything in art. Hearing those songs again, in a fresh context, I was actually listening to them for the first time. -
Cafeteria Style
Posted on April 10, 2011 | 30 CommentsIn last week’s LDS General Conference session. Elder Nelson, a prominent priesthood leader, said,“ Teach of faith to keep all the commandments of God, knowing that they are given to bless His children and bring them joy. Warn them that they will encounter people who […] -
Sterling’s Taiwanese Ride to Church
Posted on April 10, 2011 | 7 CommentsToday’s Ride to Church comes to us from Sterling Swallow–all the way from Taiwan. Sterling writes: Taoyuan, Taiwan is not only the site of three LDS wards, but it’s also the actual home of the Chiang Kai Shek/Taipei International Airport. It is just south of […] -
Time’s Fractal Line
Posted on April 9, 2011 | 4 Comments‘I wish I had more time in my life.’ A friend wrote this on his Facebook wall yesterday. It’s a problem I can certainly relate to: I often feel the sands of time slipping through some cosmic hourglass, with too few of the things I […] -
Before Sunrise
Posted on April 8, 2011 | 24 CommentsAn American man meets a French woman on a train in Europe. They connect and get off together in Vienna where they spend the night walking around the city and talking, making love hours before each is scheduled to depart for home. With that framework, […] -
An Unlikely Prayer of Thanksgiving
Posted on April 6, 2011 | 9 CommentsLast summer, Brent and Stuart went to get a haircut. While there, the stylist discovered that Stuart had lice (gasp!). We soon discovered that Marin also had it (double gasp!). Kennedy managed to escape unscathed. From my perspective growing up, it seemed like the only […] -
Bicycle Playlist
Posted on April 5, 2011 | 1 Comment"Bicycles move with the flow of the earth ..." -
Cleared for Take Off
Posted on April 4, 2011 | 6 Comments“Does anyone smell smoke?” Not exactly the words you want to hear at 36,000 feet in the air halfway through a cross-country flight. Shortly after the flight attendant asked us to take our shoes off to feel for heat (read: fire) below us, our plane […] -
James’ Bike Ride to Church in Suffolk and Essex
Posted on April 3, 2011 | 6 CommentsCome see James’ bike ride to his favourite church just outside Suffolk, England, where James grew up and now works as a primary school teacher. This is not the Quaker church that James attends most Sundays, but a small village church that sits atop a […] -
Reach Out and Touch Someone
Posted on April 3, 2011 | 7 CommentsHe blazed up the wide middle aisle of our repurposed Presbyterian sanctuary, passing the stained glass depictions of Biblical scenes on his way to the pulpit to speak at the open mic of our LDS fast and testimony meeting. He looked a bit like Samson, […] -
The West
Posted on April 2, 2011 | 3 CommentsYesterday on ‘Rogue Cinema’ I wrote about one of my Granddad’s favourite films, the 1955 version of Oklahoma!, and pondered how this representation of the American West appealed to his personal psychology. He was a man with an abundance of energy, who loved amateur dramatics, […] -
Oklahoma!
Posted on April 1, 2011 | 8 CommentsThe first part of a two-post analysis of the dream of the American West, through a particularly successful 1955 movie adaptation of the Broadway hit. Six years ago, my paternal grandfather, Dennis, died of Motor Neurone (Lou Gehrig's) disease. -
Kids and Calamities
Posted on March 31, 2011 | 12 CommentsI watched the Twin Towers fall on TV, my oldest child safely ensconced in her kindergarten class. My toddler was playing with blocks nearby…. building towers and knocking them down. “Mommy, why does your face look like this?” she asked, mimicking my […] -
Fancy
Posted on March 30, 2011 | 15 CommentsThe willingness to spend tons of money and time grooming or getting surgery is born of a desire to control outcomes, to dictate the potentially unpredictable vicissitudes of desire and power associated with beauty in our culture. -
I’m Not Fancy
Posted on March 29, 2011 | 52 Comments; “At fifty, every man has the face he deserves. To erase the lines and change the contours of one’s face is a way of obliterating one’s history.” –George Orwell ; When Kennedy was about 9, I started a mother/daughter book club. At the […] -
Pay to Pray: Going Green for God
Posted on March 28, 2011 | 10 CommentsThe flickering of the candles drew me in as if they were the wish at end of a birthday celebration. . . when I found out that money was tied to offering these prayers, I felt a bit angry and self righteous. At MY church you could pray for free, God didn't "charge" to hear your pleas. -
As is the atom, so is the universe…
Posted on March 27, 2011 | 5 CommentsPart 1: My poor kids have a Yogi-Buddhist-Pacifist (and Christian leaning) Mom. This does not bode well if you are a 15-year old boy who loves video games. Have you ever tried to find non-violent video games for your kids? There are not a lot […] -
Let’s Walk Together
Posted on March 26, 2011 | 4 CommentsIt’s easy to be unconscious about our consciousness. The stories that we tell ourselves make up our world, but it’s natural to be unaware of the huge potential power that lies in exploring and examining the processes that form these stories. ‘Life is what you […] -
My Oldest Possession
Posted on March 25, 2011 | 9 CommentsForty years ago today I received a gift, an item I've owned longer, and used more often, than any other possession -
Parallel Journeys
Posted on March 24, 2011 | 20 CommentsBy Claudia On my personal blog, I am known as “The Faithful Dissident.” For the past three years, I’ve been hiding behind that alias. Afraid of what, I’m not exactly sure, but some of my experiences during the past yearhave made me realize that I’m […]