Lately, I’ve been thinking about vessels not as objects that speak, but as objects that listen.

That idea is the basis of my upcoming workshop, The Listening Vessel, which will be released later this month as part of the Objects of Devotion series. I’m right in the middle of filming it. And as usual, there are lots of surprises and revelations.

So with all that on my mind, I asked our recent Enso Circle Continuing Residents a question that seemed simple at first:

If you were a vessel, what kind of vessel would you be?

The answers were thoughtful, surprising, and deeply personal. Here, for example, is one from Ann in California:

• My vessel is a curragh, filled with many burdens, old and new, and lately at risk of sinking entirely.  I have slowly begun to toss things  overboard but then started to realize that some are not burdens at all but, rather, helpers I had been missing. Discernment is key but there is also a sense of urgency. So I turn with hope to the words of John O’Donohue from his longer blessing, Beannacht:
  
• “When the canvas frays
  in the currach of thought
  and a stain of ocean
  blackens beneath you,
  may there come across the waters
  a path of yellow moonlight
  to bring you safely home.”

This one is from Marian in New Zealand – it is incredibly metaphoric, complex and touching:

• I would be my old basketball, given to me as a birthday gift when I was about ten or eleven I think! As new it was shiny brown leather, with a bladder inside that you blew up and then laced up the top with a leather lace. I can still smell the newness of the basketball when I reimagine it now. I polished it with a beeswax polish and carried it with pride, spending many many hours throwing it against our old wooden house and pretending to be the top team player in a tournament. I didn’t care about joining into games at school with this ball as I played cricket and tennis and hockey and some basketball but my games alone with my ball and the fact my mothers sewing room was on the other side of that wall and only once do I remember her coming and saying would I mind stopping for just a little while as she had a headache and had to finish a tricky bit of sewing. Remembering that now I can’t imagine the thump thump thump that she endured countless times without ever complaining.
  I feel overwhelmed by memories of absolute love and care and pride and acceptance within my family and nothing nor no one else mattered to me.
  I guess I pour out stories of a loving cash strapped family, one which cared unconditionally for us and were ever present, and we had a lot of humor and fun and gentle moments together and I always felt it all centered around my fathers absolute love of bees and nature and my mothers love of animals and nurturing of her children even though they lost their first born and struggled to accept the fact in those days that you were not allowed to ever mention that loss again but go home and have more children! They did and ended up with six out of eight children loosing one more later on. . . . The ball now is deflated old but still holding many memories of flying and soaring, bouncing and being carried, still bringing joy seventy plus years later, a sense of achievement, self awareness, at one with the player. A fantasy life as a bird soaring in my own thoughts, content able to roost if it rains in the treetops of nature, coming out to play in the Enso circle and finding the same kind of love and happiness here.

Here’s another from Tracy in Vermont:

• If I were a vessel, I would be a drop of water.  I’d have surface tension to keep things together, yet also infinite elasticity to move where I needed to be, or where I wanted to go. I would nurture others with my life-giving element, yet contain what I need for my own survival. I could join vast expanses of water without losing myself.

Some residents imagined themselves as weathered bowls repaired with care. Others described small boats meant for passage crossings.What moved me most was how naturally everyone understood the metaphor.

A vessel is never just a container. It is something that holds. Something that protects. Something that carries. Something shaped by pressure, heat, use, time, and intention.

We live in a time of tremendous noise, acceleration, uncertainty, and overflow. So many of us are carrying too much information, too many worries, too many unfinished thoughts. In moments like these, the idea of a vessel becomes more than symbolic—it becomes comforting. We long for places of containment. Spaces that allow reflection instead of reaction. Objects that suggest care, listening, shelter, and presence.

For artists, vessels have always carried layered meaning. Ancient jars held grain, water, oil, ashes, offerings, medicines, and sacred texts. Reliquaries held memory and devotion. Small handmade containers protected precious things that could not simply be left exposed to the world

By sharing some of the Enso Residents’ beautiful responses in this post, I invite you to consider the question for yourself:

If you were a vessel, what kind would you be?

A bowl?
A reliquary?
A canoe?
A teacup?
A cracked earthen jar repaired with gold?
A basket woven from many strands?
A tiny pocket vessel for carrying one sacred thing?

The answer may reveal more than you expect!

Stay tuned for The Listening Vessel Workshop – opening next week!