Ascending Hero Mountain
top of page
indian paintbrush art & design
Beauty is the battlefield where God and the Devil war for the soul of man. - Fyodor Dostoevsky
read
thoughts on art, faith, literature, culture, travel, adoption, and more
Search
When I taught English in China, we were in a filthy, rat-infested village, crawling with giant cockroaches and shrouded in a pervasive...
Lara Neri
- Apr 19, 2019
- 6 min
By death He trampled death
I love Easter so much that it is hard to write about it. I cry thinking about it. It is the most full of true joy, the most expressive of...
143 views2 comments
Lara Neri
- Apr 11, 2019
- 5 min
Flowery Sunday in Constantinople
Flowery (Palm) Sunday began to be celebrated in Constantinople by the fifth century - a couple centuries after it began in Jerusalem and...
48 views0 comments
Lara Neri
- Feb 28, 2019
- 3 min
Will "Beauty save the world"?
I have often heard or seen Dostoevsky quoted, “Beauty will save the world.” It is attributed to him as if it were his personal...
127 views0 comments
Lara Neri
- Feb 21, 2019
- 4 min
Approaching Great Lent: all are responsible for all
Several years ago, after very emotional struggles with infertility and two heartbreaking miscarriages, we began our first adoption. It...
351 views4 comments
Lara Neri
- Feb 14, 2019
- 3 min
St. Valentine: active love is labor and fortitude
In our family, we have four very intense children, two adopted with trauma histories, one with secondary trauma, one with a missing...
35 views0 comments
Lara Neri
- Feb 7, 2019
- 3 min
St. Scholastica & the loving fatherhood of God
I have a hard time relating to the saints who knew they were going to be nuns from the time they were six - those saints who wanted to do...
159 views0 comments
Lara Neri
- Feb 1, 2019
- 2 min
Suffering & Softening
The feast of the Presentation of Our Lord in the Temple (2 February) is one of the Twelve Major Feast Days in the Eastern Church, also...
24 views0 comments
Lara Neri
- Jul 26, 2016
- 2 min
art camps: pursuing Beauty together
Two intensive weeks of art camps have come to an end, and I am thankful for the experience. I kept enrollment to four students per camp...
5 views0 comments
Lara Neri
- Jul 5, 2016
- 2 min
iconography: window to the Divine
I have just returned from a beautiful, powerful, intense experience where art and prayer were indistinguishable. I have come away with a...
6 views0 comments
Lara Neri
- Jun 21, 2016
- 1 min
rebirth & regeneration: the image of the snake
Today in our third Tuesday of elementary art camp, we read Mufaro’s Beautiful Daughters, an African fairytale about a prince who...
32 views0 comments
Lara Neri
- May 6, 2016
- 2 min
the feast of the Ascension
I love this quiet, mid-week feast day celebrating Christ's rising up to Heaven in His resurrected body. He leaves us with the commission...
2 views0 comments
Lara Neri
- May 5, 2016
- 1 min
the feast of St. George
St. George is a popular saint, renowned for slaying a dragon and saving a princess. He is venerated as a vanquisher of evil and knight of...
0 views0 comments
Lara Neri
- May 2, 2016
- 3 min
doing shots for the saints
The first time I met Babushka, my friend Ira’s 76 year old grandmother, she appeared as a tiny speck in a row boat across the water. As...
6 views0 comments
Lara Neri
- Apr 26, 2016
- 2 min
creating a sacred space in the home
When I was living in St. Petersburg, I rented a small, airy room in a sunny, high-ceilinged apartment on the corner of Dostoevsky Street...
6 views0 comments
Lara Neri
- Apr 3, 2016
- 1 min
Christ is risen! Indeed He is risen!
Pascha is my favorite time of the year! I love the joy of this season, the hope of rebirth and resurrection! We celebrate this day with...
2 views0 comments
Lara Neri
- Feb 11, 2016
- 2 min
Why come to an Akathist Art Girls' Night Out workshop?
In these times, in our country, many women live isolated lives. Mothers feel societal pressure to do everything themselves - the cooking,...
5 views0 comments
Original Art. Education. Catholic Resources.
bottom of page