Karin Wenger
This month Spirit House Connection was interviewed by Karin Wenger from the Swiss National Public Radio and Television (SRF). The file is in German, so for all you Deutsch speakers, here is a treat for you!
READ MORE
Marisa Cranfill
Craving. We all know it. It’s programmed in our desire to exist, to live, to love and enjoy. The media thrives on our cravings and constantly feeds us more of them to indulge their own. Ultimately it is our choice to consume or live a conscious life. The Buddha described the mess of perpetual desire (tanha in Pali) as a knotted ball of string that keeps us bound up in suffering and rebirth. The way to unravel the string and become enlighte
READ MORE 
Marisa Cranfill
This home-made spirit house has a special name called tat. It is a fusion of ancestor worship, Buddhism and the spirit house tradition. The owner of this property built the tat with his own hands. He says, “The tat comes from ancient times; we build them to honor our ancestors. This one is for my deceased mother and father.” According to Jao Nit, a Lao cultural expert, ancestor worship came to Laos via Chinese culture. But whi
READ MORE 
Marisa Cranfill
For a moment, imagine your great, great, great, great, grandfather going all the way back to the beginning of time. Now do the same on your grandmother’s side. Where did they begin? How many lands did they inhabit? How many languages did they speak? How many houses did they live in? What seeds did they plant? How much pain did they suffer? How many people did they love? How much wisdom did they transform? Connecting to our ancestors is a h
READ MORE 
Marisa Cranfill
I wanted to be surrounded by the spirits, interact with them and capture a moment on film where I become a spirit puppet myself, all the while feeling the glamor and beauty of wish fulfillment. The Burmese puppets in this picture are the personification of nat spirits. They come alive in the opening act of a Burmese marionette opera performance to pay respect to the patron goddess of the theatre and to propitiate Tha-gya-min, King of the panthe
READ MORE 
Marisa Cranfill
Our ferry boat arrives in the lazy afternoon. The air feels pleasantly cooler even though I can still see the high rise jungle of Panama City twelve miles away. At first impression Taboga is a humble and understated island and it is hard to grasp that it has been sought out as a refuge for tourists, US military, artists, pirates and fisherman since the 16th century. But as our golf cart driver takes us through a maze of candy colored houses, typi
READ MORE 
As this is my first blog post for Spirit House Connection, I am starting off with a classic shot. We took this picture at a farm house on a long country road in central Thailand because, like an ‘X marks the spot’, the Thai flag caught my attention. And here we begin! Thailand is known to be the land of a million Buddhist temples, and it is true that every village revolves around their local wat. Yet inside the daily life of the avera
READ MORE 
