As punishment for refusing to abandon her Christian faith, Catherine was sentenced to die at the breaking wheel. As soon as it touched her, the wheel unraveled and fell apart. Several people over my lifetime who have glanced at the spelling of my name have ended up calling me Kathryn Wheeler, and it is currently happening a lot in Ireland. The legacy of Catherine as martyr and saint is strong through history. Here in the British Isles, the legacy has even taken a delicious candy form.
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29 days of self-portraits in the advent of Leap Day
“When you go out into the woods, and you look at trees, you see all these different trees. And some of them are bent, and some of them are straight, and some of them are evergreens, and some of them are whatever. And you look at the tree and you allow it. You see why it is the way it is. You sort of understand that it didn’t get enough light, and so it turned that way. And you don’t get all emotional about it. You just allow it. You appreciate the tree. The minute you get near humans, you lose all that. And you are constantly saying ‘You are too this, or I’m too this.’ That judgment mind comes in. And so I practice turning people into trees. Which means appreciating them just the way they are.” -Ram Dass
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29 days of self-portraits in the advent of Leap Day