Professor Butter Beard and Illuminated Swirls
“Let us take flight with the passion of our emotions and follow the graceful swirl of the swallows dancing high in the sky” - Erik Pevernagie, Belgian painter and writer
Swirls appear to be the current theme on my journey. As I write this, I hear a chilling wind swirling the falling leaves outside my window in their final ballet. On our recent sunset hikes, Nellie spins in a joyful imitation of the leaves’ dance until she collapses with a grin, silly and dizzy at the same time. My thoughts swirl through seemingly impossible work challenges, the mass of joyful lines to interpret in our latest holiday theater production, the absurdity of students’ increasingly clever excuses for late papers and projects, and emotional adventures as new exciting personal relationships emerge and bloom.
I have learned that the swirls have as much power as you will allow them. I do my best to remember the words of one of my latest literary heroes, Chief Inspector Armand Gamache, when he advises his protégé: “My dear friend, don’t always believe your thoughts.” I also hear my Buddhist mentor Rick reminding me to allow the thoughts swirl through, like the wind through the willows, clearing the path for fresh light.
Art, for me, will also provide a stabilizing hiking stick as I scramble through the swirls. My fingers trace the whirls of Turner’s energetic sea waves, Van Gogh’s dancing light, Durer and Rembrandt’s twirling locks of hair. But when my soul requests a truly submerging art-inspired meditation, I return again to the complex interlacing within the medieval Book of Kells.
The Book of Kells, in my mind, is the most spectacular of a group of illuminated manuscripts created in Ireland and northern Britain between the seventh and tenth centuries. Its earliest history remains controversial, but it was in the keeping of the monastery of Kells, County Meath, for most of the Middle Ages and has been under the care of Trinity College Dublin since the mid-seventeenth century. Primarily, it is an illuminated manuscript Gospel book in Latin, containing the four Gospels of the New Testament together with various prefatory texts and tables. But it is the illustrations (illuminations) and ornamentation of the Book of Kells what calm my soul as I follow the ornate swirling motifs weaving together figures of humans, animals and mythical beasts, Celtic knots and other interlacing vibrantly colored patterns.
Every time I meditate through an illustrated page (or folio), I discover something surprisingly fresh and invigorating and usually beyond my comprehension. Bernard Meehan, Keeper of Manuscripts at Trinity College, writes that “details of the decoration could be understood in the Middle Ages in a way that is no longer possible, though even in the sixth century the Gospels were not expected to yield their meaning readily.” Pope Gregory the Great emphasized this when he commented in the sixth century: “Today we understand more of the sacred text than we did yesterday, and will understand more tomorrow than we did today.”
I trace the complicated weave of a Celtic knot only to find it terminates in the form of a laughing human head, or snarling wolf, or roaring dragon. Snakes weave their way through crosses and borders in their attempt to capture a pair of dancing ducks or leaping rabbits (or each other). A striped cat chases an escaping rat with a communion host clenched in its teeth. Open-mouthed lions guard the entry into Hell, while peacocks and stags emerge from the swirling vines triumphantly pointing our way out of the complex tangles along our journey.
Tracing the illustrated swirls calms and refreshes my mind and soul. Meehan writes, “If you take the trouble to look very closely, and penetrate with your eyes to the secrets of the artistry, you will notice such intricacies, so delicate and subtle, so close together, and well-knitted, so involved and bound together, and so fresh still in their coloring that you will not hesitate to declare that all these things must have been the result of the work, not of men, but of angels.”
This week, I carried this swirling meditation forward into my baking. Tis the season of roasted squash – one of my absolute favorite aromas. The resulting spiced gift can then be incorporated into so many autumnal bakes including scrumptious pies, cheesecakes, custards and breads. But today, I seasoned the roasted squash with cinnamon and ginger and vanilla, swirled it with a dark chocolate batter and baked the combination into a tantalizing breakfast muffin. The resulting colors and patterns return me to the joys and surprises within the Book of Kells and “the graceful swirl of the swallows dancing high in the sky.”
Swirled Roasted Squash and Dark Chocolate Muffins
One dozen muffins (double the recipe – they go that fast!)
1 lb. roasted squash puree (use a digital scale)
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 Tbsp ground cinnamon
2 tsp ground ginger
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp fine sea salt
½ tsp baking soda
1 cup granulated sugar
¾ cup dark brown sugar
½ cup vegetable oil
2 large eggs
½ cup Greek yoghurt
1 tsp vanilla paste
½ cup dark cocoa powder
Additional granulated sugar to sprinkle on the muffins before baking
1) The day before, roast a batch of squash (I suggest three butternut or six mini-butternuts). Split them, remove the seeds and roast in a 375 degree oven, cut side down on an oiled parchment-lined sheet pan, for 30-40 minutes until soft. Let cool, then spoon out the pulp from the skins and mash together with a potato masher. Refrigerate the squash overnight.
2) On baking day, line a muffin tin with paper cups and preheat your oven to 400 degrees.
3) In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, cinnamon and ginger, baking powder and soda, and the salt.
4) In a large bowl, whisk together the sugars to remove any brown sugar clumps. Then whisk in the eggs, 16 ounces of the squash (save the rest for another delicious recipe), the oil, yogurt and vanilla.
5) Fold in the dry mix until just combined and divide the batter in half (returning one half into the smaller bowl). Sift the cocoa over the batter in the larger bowl and fold together until smooth.
6) Add alternating scoops of each batter into the muffin cups. Use a chopstick to gently swirl the batters together. Sprinkle the tops of the muffins with granulated sugar.
7) Bake on the center rack for 20-23 minutes until the top just feels solid. Let the muffins cool in the pan on a wire rack for 10 minutes and then remove them from the pan to cool to room temperature before serving.
