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30

Apr

Healthy Recipes for Your Body and Spirit

by Meredith Mullins on April 30, 2018

A spinach and polenta gratin, one of the healthy recipes from Chef Hubert Hohler, showing a cultural encounter with healthy eating. (Image © Meredith Mullins.)

A tribute to healthy eating: Spinach and polenta gratin

A Cultural Encounter with Healthy Eating

Tell me what you eat, and I will tell you who you are—Brillat-Savarin

Our eating habits and cooking strategies often reveal something about us.

Since I find this revelation to be true for myself, I’m sharing a story about inspiration . . . and how eating and cooking patterns can be influenced after experiencing life-changing OIC moments.

Green wild herb soup with flowers, a soup for healthy eating showing a cultural encounter with healthy recipes. (Image © Meredith Mullins.)

Wild herb soup—made with nettle, dandelion, and wild garlic
© Meredith Mullins

A Fasting Tale

Full disclosure. I am not a cook. I am also not a particularly healthy eater, which I conveniently blame on genetics. However, twice a year I go to the Buchinger-Wilhelmi clinic in Germany for a cleansing fast. (See OIC story.)

I come away with much more than a new lightness of being (physical, mental, and spiritual), a rested digestive tract, and the joy of fasting euphoria (although those treasures alone would be worth the trip). I see my visit as a cultural encounter with good health—in the moment and for the future.

A range of vegetarian healthy recipes, showing the cultural encounter with healthy eating. (Image © Meredith Mullins.)

A variety of choices for healthy eating
© Meredith Mullins

I am inspired to continue the program of healthy eating and to actually take the giant step of preparing some of the recipes that I have been shown. I also look forward to practicing some of the tips introduced in the demonstrations and lectures.

Salad with sprouts and apples, a healthy recipe from Chef Hubert Hohler at Buchinger-Wilhelmi clinic in Germany, showing a cultural encounter with healthy eating. (Image © Meredith Mullins.)

Sprout and apple salad—so fresh, so easy
© Meredith Mullins

First-Time Memories

I pause here to mention that the first time I came to the clinic, I was not especially embracing the idea of fasting. I updated my will before I made the journey and said goodbye to friends and family as if it were the last time I would see them. I was not convinced I would survive.

I had never fasted before, and had visions of hunger, heartburn, and hallucinations. As it turned out, I was pleasantly surprised.

Vegetable soup from chef Hubert Hohler at the Buchinger-Wilhelmi fasting clinic in Germany, a healthy recipe for fasting, showing a cultural encounter with healthy eating. (Image © Meredith Mullins.)

Garden vegetable soup for a fasting dinner (you come to love it!)
© Meredith Mullins

It seems I was a natural. No hunger. No heartburn. And only a few hallucinations on the famous Day 5 of the fast (where they say one often begins to feel the fasting high).

At the clinic, it’s not just about what you are eating (or not eating). It’s about a total reset of your body so that healthy eating becomes a natural rhythm once you return to the outside world.

Chef Hubert Hoholer of Buchinger-Wilhelmi Clinic in Germany, a chef sharing healthy recipes for a cultural encounter with healthy eating. (Image © Meredith Mullins.)

Chef Hubert Hohler explains the reason for minimizing oil in cooking.
© Meredith Mullins

A Spirit Guide with Heart

A large part of that healthy food experience comes from the heart of Chef Hubert Hohler. He has been with the clinic for 25 years and brings passion, exacting standards, and joy to his job.

He also is an expert in plant-based cooking with pure organic materials, and shares his knowledge with clinic guests via twice weekly cooking demonstrations.

Pan with zucchini and rosemary, a healthy recipe from chef Hubert Hohler of the Buchinger-Wilhelmi clinic in Germany, showing a cultural encounter with healthy eating. (Image © Meredith Mullins.)

Chef Hohler’s advice: Sauté with no oil. Just herbs and the natural liquid of the vegetable.
© Meredith Mullins

Chef Hohler is a good role model for clinic guests. He understands the fasting process, as he has fasted every year for the past 30 years. And, most of all, he loves to cook.

He is dedicated to creating delicious healthy organic food—the tasty broths for fasting and the vegetarian meals to lead in and out of the fast or for people who prefer just a low calorie healthy program.

chef Hubert Hohler at the Buchinger-Wilhelmi clinic in Germany, showing a cultural encounter with healthy eating. (Image © Meredith Mullins.)

Making fennel sauce or soup—you can decide after the basic preparation.
© Meredith Mullins

He visits other cultures and brings the best of those worlds to his recipes. He experiments constantly, all with a goal of increasing the health value of the food. And he knows that certain recipes, the ones that long-time guests look forward to, should remain as is. It is not necessary to make them “new.”

Soufflé with vegetables, one of the healthy recipes from Chef Hubert Hohler at the Buchinger-Wilhelmi clinic in Germany, showing a cultural encounter with healthy eating. (Image © Meredith Mullins.)

A favorite: the easy-to-make quinoa or cottage cheese soufflé
© Meredith Mullins

Five Basic Tips for Healthy Eating

Here are five tips I’ve learned at Buchinger-Wilhelmi from Chef Hohler (with a reminder that I’m not a cook, so I have much to learn.) I am happy to report that these have now become a part of my everyday healthy-eating processes.

  1. Control oil (quantity and quality). Sauté vegetables without oil, as the natural liquid in the vegetables is sufficient. Add a touch of oil to your dish at the end to give taste. Make use of a variety of quality oils. For example, use almond oil to sweeten a bitter taste or walnut oil to add astringency to something sweet.
  2. Use natural sweeteners rather than sugar. Ripe fruit serves as a sweetener (bananas, apples, apple juice).
  3. Create salad dressings using blended vegetables (avocado, carrots, tomatoes) to minimize fat and calories. (Try the avocado vinaigrette in the free recipes below.)
Salad with avocado vinaigrette dressing, a healthy recipe from Chef Hubert Hohler, showing a cultural encounter with healthy eating. (Image © Meredith Mullins.)

The avocado vinaigrette dressing with a touch of tomato to change the taste and color
© Meredith Mullins

4. For soup or sauce, start with the basics: onion, potato, and a vegetable. The only difference between soup and sauce is the amount of liquid in relation to the vegetables and the fact that a soup must stand on its own, while a sauce accompanies something to complement it.

5. Use fresh herbs for seasoning rather than salt. As you think about seasoning, taste to see what you’re missing on your tongue’s taste buds (sweet, salt, bitter, sour). In other words, don’t just add salt. Be more creative. Think about what herb or spice can add the missing taste.

OIC invites you to download the special free recipes below for practical ways to use these tips.

A bouquet of wild herbs and flowers to be used in healthy recipes for a cultural encounter in healthy eating. (Image © Meredith Mullins.)

Everything in this bouquet can be used in cooking.
© Meredith Mullins

Beyond Tips and Recipes

In addition to the tips from Chef Hohler, his spirit of cooking organically is everpresent. He is careful about all the products he uses. He knows the producers and what processes they use. And he relies on seasonal products to ensure the freshest of ingredients.

From his time as a teenager helping to harvest his family’s asparagus crop, he has learned to appreciate the work behind products.

White asparagus in a pot, one of the healthy recipes of Chef Hubert Hohler of the Buchinger-Wilhelmi clinic in Germany, showing a cultural encounter with healthy eating. (Image © Meredith Mullins.)

Even though Chef Hohler had to wake up at 5 am to harvest his family’s white asparagus,
he still loves to cook with it.
© Meredith Mullins

He looks for producers who really care about what they’re doing. If something is grown with love, he feels that the love will be noticed. And, then, when the kitchen also prepares the food with love, he believes that combination is a real treasure for those who are eating.

Chef Hubert Hohler at the Buchinger-Wilhelmi clinic in Germany demonstrating healthy recipes for a cultural encounter with healthy eating. (Image © Meredith Mullins.)

A cooking demonstration that tempts all the senses.
© Meredith Mullins

A Change in Everyday Rhythms

Yes, it may be difficult to watch a cooking demonstration when fasting. After all, those wonderfully fresh vegetables and fruits seem very different from the broth for dinner. And the smells from the demo seem to touch all the senses in a cruelly heightened way.

Piece of lavender cake from the healthy recipes of chef Hubert Hohler at the Buchinger-Wilhelmi clinic in Germany, showing a cultural encounter with healthy eating. (Image © Meredith Mullins.)

Yes, desserts are allowed after the fast, so try this lavender cake with a pear topping
© Meredith Mullins

But what this theatre of food preparation is actually doing is providing a look into the future. This is what I’ll be doing when I leave Buchinger-Wilhelmi (albeit not in quite as nice a kitchen).

The sights and sounds and smells have found a way to some deeper place. This cultural encounter with healthy eating will now be a part of my everyday rhythm.

Ready for some easy-to-make, delicious, healthy food?  OIC offers this free download of favorite recipes for healthy eating from Chef Hubert Hohler. 

 

Thank you to the Buchinger-Wilhelmi Clinic for this inspiration for healthy eating.

Comment on this post below, or inspire insight with your own OIC Moment here.

 

 

Cultural Encounters/Germany

09

Apr

Meet the Challenge: Escape Rooms of the World

by Meredith Mullins on April 9, 2018

Detective with magnifying glass, part of the new trend of escape rooms around the world which enable cultural encounters and teach life lessons. (Image © demaerre/iStock.)

Everyone loves a challenge.
© demaerre/iStock

Cultural Encounters, Adrenaline, and Life Lessons—All in a Day’s Fun

I couldn’t help but get excited. Maybe a little nervous. I’d heard about it. I’d read about it. People had described the experience in a way that was seductive and sense-heightening. It was time to go for it. To see for myself.

Of course, I’m talking about escape rooms—the newest game phenomenon taking root around the world and offering cultural encounters of the mind-challenging kind.

Escape rooms are more than just a game, though. They’re theatre, mystery, teamwork, logic, puzzle solving, deciphering, intellectual sport, and, most of all, real-life fun.

Sherlock Holmes violin in the Exodus Escape Room in Monterey, California, one of the escape rooms around the world that offers cultural encounters and life lessons. (Image © Richard Green/Exodus Escape Room.)

Sherlock’s violin sets the stage.
© Richard Green/Exodus Escape Room

You’re Sherlock Holmes, Harry Houdini, Indiana Jones, Nancy Drew, Inspectors Poirot and Clouseau, Columbo, Harry Potter, and Jessica Fletcher all rolled into one.

And, if your main purpose is fun, you are also a child again.

Ladder to an escape opening, not typical of escape rooms around the world where cultural encounters and life lessons abound. (Image © Peshkov/iStock.)

Escape is not this easy in the escape rooms of the world.
© Peshkov/iStock

For those of us who spend too much time in front of a screen of one kind or another, when we step into a world of make believe that actually has tangible elements and human teamwork, it’s a welcome treat. Add to that the challenge of the hunt, and we’re in game heaven.

I was ready. I had trained watching quiz shows like Jeopardy and reality shows like Survivor. I had scored 800 on my math SATs (albeit many years ago). I was a daily sudoku player who was also immersed in a second language (brain activity . . .  check!). And I reveled in detective mysteries.

Bring it on.

Sherlock Holmes study at the Exodus Escape Room in Monterey, California, one of the escape rooms around the world, where cultural encounters and life lessons abound. (Image © Richard Green.)

Sherlock’s Study—the setting for a race against time to escape
© Richard Green/Exodus Escape Room

What is an Escape Room?

An escape room is a kind of physical adventure game where a team of people are locked in a room and have to figure out how to escape within a certain amount of time.

The players must work individually and as a team to discover clues, find hidden objects, solve problems and puzzles, answer riddles, unlock locked safes and boxes, and think creatively and strategically as a team.

Sherlock Holmes items on a desk in the Exodus escape room in Monterey, California, one of the escape rooms around the world that offers cultural encounters and life lessons. (Image © Richard Green/Exodus Escape Room.)

Which of these items has a hidden clue? Perhaps all of them?
© Richard Green/Exodus Escape Room

Since there are more than 3000 escape rooms in the world, they can take many forms. You can escape from a room set in specific time period (Sherlock Holmes, Roaring 20s), or you can escape from a prison or a dungeon or a space station.

You can rob a bank, find a missing person, solve a murder, be an adventurer, defuse a bomb, or capture (or be) a spy. The themes are creative and endless, and, more often than not, fit within the culture of the country.

Casino setting at The Game in Paris, France, one of the escape rooms around the world that offers cultural encounters and life lessons. (Image © The Game/Paris.)

It’s time to rob the Royal Casino. Can you make the heist in the one-hour time limit?
Photo courtesy of The Game/Paris

Cultural Encounters While Escaping

Escape rooms around the world all have different themes—settings and characters that have meaning to the particular country and culture—for example, a metro car, a casino heist, a haunted house, an espionage center, or the catacombs.

Metro car in Paris, one of the escape rooms around the world, where cultural encounters and life lessons abound. (Image © The Game, Paris.)

In Paris, one of the escape rooms is a metro car.
Photo courtesy of The Game/Paris.

In Berlin, you escape to the other side of the wall, and send a message to tear the wall down. In Ontario, Canada, you participate in the Ontario Gold Rush of 1866. In a replica of 18th century Zagreb, you find a passage so you can save an innocent woman accused of witchcraft from burning at the stake. There’s even an escape igloo at a ski resort in Slovenia.

Other cultural adjustments also exist. In the U.S., you can be teamed with strangers. In some other cultures, working with strangers would never be forced.

In all cases, the gamemaster explains the problem to be solved, and what may and may not be touched, lifted, or moved during the experience. (Everything not mentioned is fair game.) The door is locked (well, not in all cases, due to legal liabilities, but you get the idea). And the adrenaline rush begins. The clock is ticking. It’s a race against time.

Catacombs, one of The Game escape rooms in Paris, France, one of the escape rooms around the world that offers cultural encounters and life lessons. (Image © The Game, Paris.)

The Catacombs Escape Room: Dark, dangerous, gloomy and captivating. Enter at your own risk.
Photo courtesy of The Game/Paris

Five Escape Room Life Lessons

What happened to my team in my virgin escape room experience? We had to find a murderer in the era of Sherlock Holmes.

We were a bit timid at first (since we didn’t all know each other and we hadn’t yet figured out how to work as a team), but we fell into the rhythm, used our individual talents wisely, and escaped the room with 15 minutes to spare.

The exhilaration of solving the final clue and finding the key to escape was a proud victory, especially since only 50% of the teams working our room had actually escaped within the time limit. We weren’t on the leader board, but we were in the top 50%.

Can we reveal any secrets? No. Escape room ethics dictate, “What happens in the escape room, stays in the escape room.”

Bookshelf in the Exodus Escape Room in Monterey, California, one of the escape rooms around the world that offers cultural encounters and life lessons. (Image © Richard Green/Exodus Escape Room.)

Look closely. There are at least five clues in plain sight.
© Richard Green/Exodus Escape Room

Aside from having a fun adventure, my real “Oh, I see” moment came when I realized that the five things I learned from the escape room experience were also good life lessons.

  • Appreciate that everyone has unique skills. A great team works well together but also thinks differently, finds unique paths, reaches conclusions in different ways, and thinks outside the box.
  • Divide and conquer, but keep clear lines of communication. Use everyone’s specific skills to benefit of the team and to make effective use of time, but, while working independently, let the team know what clues have been found and what puzzles have been solved.
  • Don’t be afraid to ask for help. (In the escape-room world, the gamemaster is watching and can provide hints if needed to keep the team from getting stuck or frustrated.)
Narrow room with violin case in the Exodus Escape Room, one of the escape rooms around the world that offers cultural encounters and life lessons. (Image © Richard Green/Exodus Escape Room.)

Is there a room behind this room? Only time will tell.
© Richard Green/Exodus Escape Room

  • Don’t stop searching. (Look everywhere for clues. Crawl under things, turn things over, look behind things, empty drawers and pockets. Check and double check.)
  • Enjoy the experience. You don’t have to “win.” (But it would be nice not to be locked in the room forever.)

Am I now an escape room addict (diplomatically called “enthusiast”)? Possibly.

I can imagine a road trip with cultural encounters in Estonia, Hungary, Romania, Cyprus, Japan, Australia, and the Netherlands . . . and all the other countries with growing escape room opportunties.

And, even if I stay home, the escape room life lessons are worth living.

Group including Meredith Mullins, Jerry Fielder, Alexandra Roden, Patricia Roden and others in the Exodus Escape Room in Monterey, California, one of the escape rooms around the world that offers cultural encounters and life lessons. (Image © Exodus Escape Room.)

Our victorious team: Unique skills and teamwork were the key to our success.
Photo courtesy of The Exodus Escape Room

Thank you to the Exodus Escape Room in Monterey, California and The Game in Paris, France. 

Additional information VIA Professor Scott Nicholson.

To find escape rooms near you, here’s a map of worldwide escape rooms.  

Comment on this post below, or inspire insight with your own OIC Moment here.

 

Cultural Encounters/Life Lessons/Worldwide Sites

12

Mar

Resting in Peace at the Paris Pet Cemetery

by Meredith Mullins on March 12, 2018

Tombstone for Keisha, filled with flowers and trinkets, showing the cultural traditions of pet lovers in the Paris pet cemetery. (Image © Meredith Mullins.)

Lamenting an irreplaceable love
© Meredith Mullins

Cultural Traditions that Honor our Best Friends . . . in Surprising Ways

From a distance, this peaceful resting place by the Seine near Paris looks like any other cemetery—a sea of tombstones, some polished and new and some devoured by time.

Paris Pet Cemetery, showing cultural traditions of pet lovers. (Image © Meredith Mullins.)

A resting place to honor our friends
© Meredith Mullins

There are flowers of remembrance (plastic, ceramic, and real), pictures of loved ones, and heartfelt tributes.

Trinkets on the grave of Moustique at the Paris pet cemetery, showing cultural traditions of saying farewell to pets. (Image © Meredith Mullins.)

Many ways to say I love you
© Meredith Mullins

It is only when you move closer that the hints of another world appear.

Dora, Panache, Elvis, Milou, Fleur, Sweety, DouDou, Bijou, Oscar, Spikey, Mitsy, Kiki (lots of Kiki’s), Nanette, Tootsie, Whisky, Faust, Drac, and Poupette.

Tombstone for Elvis at the Paris pet cemetery, showing cultural traditions for pet lovers who have lost their pets. (Image © Meredith Mullins.)

Elvis . . . “Your mother will never forget you.”
© Meredith Mullins

They are all gathered here . . . in one of the oldest pet cemeteries in the world. The Paris Cemetery of Dogs (and other domestic animals) is a dramatic reminder of the cultural traditions that honor our furry, hairy, wooly, and feathered friends—often named our “best friends.”

A carved cat on a tombstone in the Paris pet cemetery, showing cultural traditions of saying farewell to pets. (Image © Meredith Mullins.)

Sleeping in peace
© Meredith Mullins

Oh, I see. The depth of love for pets knows no bounds. This is not news, especially to animal lovers. But the joy of having had a loyal friend and the pain of losing that friend make a visit to this cemetery especially touching. The tributes are consistently emotional. These pets will be remembered forever.

Tombstone for Argos in the Paris pet cemetery, showing cultural traditions for remembering your pets. (Image © Meredith Mullins.)

Argos seems to live on.
© Meredith Mullins

Cimitière des Chiens

The name Cimitière des Chiens is a bit of a misnomer, since the cemetery houses cats, horses, a sheep, a chicken, birds, mice, fish, hamsters, rabbits, and a monkey.

The unofficial “And Other Domestic Animals” was added as a nod to animal equality. The well-kept grounds by the Seine are the final resting place for more than 40,000 pets.

Tombstone with a horseshoe at the Paris pet cemetery, showing cultural traditions for saying farewell to pets. (Image © Meredith Mullins.)

An equal opportunity cemetery
© Meredith Mullins

The land was acquired by journalist Marguerite Durand and attorney Georges Harmois, and the grounds opened in 1899, after a law was introduced in France that prohibited throwing dead animals into the river (or into the trash).

Tombstone with large carved dog at the Paris pet cemetery, showing cultural traditions for saying farewell to pets. (Image © Meredith Mullins.)

A proud history
© Meredith Mullins

Aside from that kind of tragic farewell, pet owners were allowed to bury their pets as long as the grave was 100 meters from the nearest dwelling. But animal advocates Harmois and Durand wanted something more. They wanted a scenic place that would honor pets—such an important part of people’s lives.

Carved dog on tombstone in the Paris pet cemetery, showing cultural traditions for pet lovers. (Image © Meredith Mullins.)

Carved in memory
© Meredith Mullins

Stories of Compassion

The words of the epitaphs, as well as the visuals and objects selected to grace the tombstones, tell the stories of these loyal companions.

Tennis balls on tombstone in the Paris pet cemetery, showing cultural traditions for saying farewell to pets. (Image © Meredith Mullins.)

Arry . . . Enough said
© Meredith Mullins

Tales of love . . .

To our dear adored Emjie, our great love, who gave us joy and happiness with her intelligence, sensibility, and affection. She was a heart covered with fur. Six kilograms of pure love. We will never forget you.

To my affectionate hen, who lived 16 years, faithful inseparable companion mourned by your mistress who remains inconsolable. To you I was attached. You will never be forgotten. Regretfully, R.O.C.

Carved poodle on a tombstone in the Paris pet cemetery, showing cultural traditions for saying farewell to pets. (Image © Meredith Mullins.)

Beloved Bibi—13 years of intimate tenderness
© Meredith Mullins

Poetry and philosophy . . .

For the regal collie, Rigadin de Pechinecha—You have beauty without vanity, strength without insolence, courage without ferocity, intelligence without arrogance, and all the virtues of men without their perversions.

Tombstone for a collie at the Paris pet cemetery, showing cultural traditions for saying farewell to pets. (Image © Meredith Mullins.)

None of the perversions of man
© Meredith Mullins

Practicality and truth . . .

Bijou was not very large but he had good teeth.

Here rests Brother Bill. A true friend. He has many blue ribbons to his credit.

Tombstone with flowers in the Paris pet cemetery, showing cultural traditions for saying farewell to pets. (Image © Meredith Mullins.)

“He loved only me.”
© Meredith Mullins

The pain of death . . .

Here lies Dick, faithful companion in the trenches who was always my only friend. He lived a model life and his leaving plunges me into sadness . . . And so I am all alone, no longer believing in anything.

And a final farewell to Kiki the monkey—Sleep my dear. You were the joy of my life.

Tombstone for Kiki the monkey at the Paris Pet Cemetery, showing cultural traditions for saying farewell to pets. (Image © Meredith Mullins.)

Farewell Kiki
© Meredith Mullins

Some of the stories challenge the far edges of the imagination.

Kinshasa de Cabotcove Coon was a cat with the intelligence of a primate. She could drink with her paw. If you find this hard to believe, there are photos on the tombstone to prove her evolved nature.

Grave of Kinshasa de Cabotcove Coon at the Paris pet cemetery, showing cultural traditions of saying farewell to pets. (Image © Meredith Mullins.)

The intelligence of Kinshasa de Cabotcove Coon
© Meredith Mullins

The celebrities of the cemetery include

  • the original Rin Tin Tin, who was found by an American soldier during WW I in France and who went on to become an American film star (the dog, not the soldier)

    Rin Tin Tin grave at the Paris pet cemetery, showing cultural traditions of saying farewell to pets. (Image © Meredith Mullins.)

    Celebrity sighting: the tomb of film star Rin Tin Tin
    © Meredith Mullins

  • the racehorse Troy Town
  • honored police dogs and military dogs
  • Napoleon’s dog Moustache
  • Drac, the dog of the Princess of Romania from 1941–1953 (Loyal companion during tragic times. Precious friend in exile.)
  • a white horse and a lion (named Tiger) belonging to the founder Marguerite Durand. (Tiger’s naming convention perhaps mirrors the dog named Kitty found a few rows over.)
Statue to Barry the St Bernard at the Paris Pet Cemetery, showing cultural traditions for saying farewell to pets. (Image © Meredith Mullins.)

Barry, the St Bernard hero
© Meredith Mullins

The imposing statue at the cemetery entrance portrays the legendary mountain rescue dog Barry, who, over the period of his life, saved 40 people from blizzards near the St Bernard pass in the Alps of Switzerland.

The memorial says Barry was killed saving the 41st person to be rescued. Although this plotline is a film-worthy story, it is apparently untrue. Barry died a natural death at age 14 . . . always a hero.

Gates to the Paris pet cemetery, showing cultural traditions for saying farewell to pets. (Image © Meredith Mullins.)

Art Nouveau entrance gates to the Paris pet cemetery
© Meredith Mullins

The Art of the Cemetery

The emotional impact of this cemetery is powerful. For me, also, there are several “Oh, I see” artistic moments.

From the Art Nouveau entrance gates to the artfully sculpted likenesses of those buried, leaning in and peering closely at the detail is rewarding.

Two sculpted dogs on a grave in the Paris pet cemetery, showing cultural traditions of saying farewell to pets. (Image © Meredith Mullins.)

Russian royalty dogs—Marquise and Tony
© Meredith Mullins

Many of the tombs are stone doghouses or free-form sculptures.

Doghouse tombstone with cat sculpture at the Paris pet cemetery, showing cultural traditions of saying farewell to pets. (Image © Meredith Mullins.)

Cathouse or doghouse—you be the judge.
© Meredith Mullins

And, as with all art subject to the elements, nature adds some beautiful touches. Names embossed in moss, mosaic deterioration, and carvings changing with time like rocks washed by an ocean.

Cat deteriorating by the elements at the Paris pet cemetery, showing cultural traditions of saying farewell to pets. (Image © Meredith Mullins.)

Worn by time
© Meredith Mullins

After spending a few hours in the emotional arc of this poignant setting, the cultural traditions surrounding pet lovers give good insight into the idea of love.

And it becomes clear that love lives beyond death.

Tombstone honoring Love at the Paris pet cemetery, showing cultural traditions related to pet lovers' farewell to their pets. (Image © Meredith Mullins.)

Love lives on in memory.
© Meredith Mullins

The Cimitière des Chiens is at 4, pont de Clichy, Asnières-sur-Seine.

Comment on this post below, or inspire insight with your own OIC Moment here.

 

Cultural Heritage & Traditions/France (Paris)

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