a little drunk on text

My next tallit is a great thing for a text geek like me. The stripes are being made up of ( hopefully) most of Psalm 104.

The Psalm is one of the ones which talks about the glory of nature expressing the divine. Both the language and the imagery are fabulous. My client is a serious bird watcher. My client has unfortunately been struck with a bad case of Lyme Disease which keeps her close to home.

As I calligraph the text I keep thinking about how these verses send my client's imagination outside of her four walls and out into the universe. These strips are 5 inches tall by 54 inches wide. Each strip will be folded in half. The tallit will be 27 inches wide.

We recite this Psalm at the end of services at the New Moon. By the time you get to this great Psalms though, you are so ready to go home, entirely sick of services. I try to pay close attention to the words, but other folks at morning services are late for work, so inevitably, we rush through the Psalm. It's nice to be able to slow down and pay attention to each and every word.

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sarah in nyc

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