What our members shared about the broken pieces (tesserae) given to create the Tree of Life mosaic:

• This broken pot was a project in the Tree of Life training. We sculpted something we need from our root system. I bring the broken pot with the hope that it becomes part of a communal root system, bringing us healthy nurture from our tradition.
• Shards from my morning coffee cup
• Plate from the old Edy’s restaurant in Berkeley
• Frogs from Thailand, each missing a foot…in remembrance of all the frogs in the world, endangered today
• 80 million year old coral piece found in the ancient seabed of Tugrugiin Shiree in southern Gobi Desert of Mongolia (Tugrugiin Shiree is famous for the discovery of the only intact fighting dinosaurs a Veloceraptor & a Protoceratops that were locked in mortal combat when they were suddenly buried by a collapsing sand due. They remained entombed in the white sandstone cliffs until 1971 when a team of Polish and Mongolian scientists led by a woman, Sophia Killen Javorskaya, unearthed them.)
• Broken porcelain from Pt. Isabel Dog Park
• Broken eyes glasses, seeing clearly how fragile we are
• Vase made by a glass-blower who knew the fragility of her work, but some brokenness in her wouldn’t let the vase go as a gift to someone else.
• Bits and pieces of the ancient inhabitants of the Mediterranean and North Africa
• This unglazed handle is from Ephesus and probably came from the water jug St. Paul used to quench his thirst after he preached to the Ephesians
• This curved, triangular grey mottled piece from behind the big cathedral at Marseilles
• A little dark-green shard from the grounds of an ancient Moroccan mosque. Green is a sacred color in Islam.
• One of a pair of earrings from my mother
• Pieces of love, laughter, happiness
• Pieces from a broken bowl my mother, a life-long potter, made…I eat from her works daily.
• To be able to put the pieces touched by fear, frustration, impatience, disappointment and putting them together in the moment and speak them in love
  A gift from my students
• Broken flaming chalice made by a potter friend of the family from Oklahoma
• An earring from Grandma Marilyn, the other lost
• Pieces from the ocean so dear to us
• Beads from Africa
• A bit of china from a set given to me by my mother-in-law as a wedding present. Broken a I was preparing for my first anniversary party. The party was great. My marriage is lovely.
• Gem-stones represent gifts of love from our children. Now they will forever be tokens of love with & for this congregation.
• The handle is gone and I can’t drink anymore from this cup, this represents my giving up drinking.
• The treasure of memories, love present, love withdrawn, experience, sadness, all these pieces make us deep and gain understanding
• A UUCB church plate rescued from the trash, meals shared here are such an important part of our lives
• Little deer our daughter thought she couldn’t live without, now it is broken and forgotten, but she lives on happy far away in Mexico…
• Pieces from a plate used in family dinners and communions, hand-carried here originally from Jericho
• This glass, once a protector of my eyes to harsh sunlight, did not take away vision of beauty and love
• A piece of myself
• A shard from a pot from my garden
• my favorite three clip on earrings, I’ve given up looking for the mates
• Please break this cup; it was a gift from a dear friend who given her help, and received it in kindness from me. However, the cup has lead in the glaze. Break it, and make this into art – continue the circle of giving and thoughtful while breaking and making whole
• This clasp came from a necklace my ex-fiancé gave to me. I used it for many necklaces without clasps. Now I am done with it.
• The identification tag from my father’s ashes which we scattered in Williams, AZ
• Harry’s pocket watch face
• It makes me look better
• Old tiles from remodeling projects of my life partner who is moving from LA to Berkeley to live with me; my heart has broken open and new life brings spring into retirement and old age
• Pieces from broken teapot, bowls, birdbath from beloved grandparents
• Craft beads, button, broken dishes from my home, all pieces of my life that I want to share with this community in hope and love
• If I could, I would offer myself because I feel broken
• Broken shards of pots from a gardener
• Grandmother Elsie’s plate passed on to me
• A gift from my students
• I bring my heart broken & put back together again
• Bits of who I am or wish I might be
• 70 year old china horses, mother’s toy cup, grandmother’s church
• A fragment of the mother made perfect
• The value of friendship healed over & over
• Great idea making our broken pieces into mosaic tree of life
• Nambe pueblo pottery from my home on ancient Nambe land in New Mexico
• My first Buddhist bracelet – when I was ready to believe in a God of my understanding
• This represents the broken bits of food that together make our Thursday Night Suppers
• May our nation and world prosper
• Tear drops of brokenness
• Sharp words I regret
• Plate from our wedding 16 years ago
• Beads leftover from Mother’s Day necklace
• My heart broken at the time of my husband’s death
• Memories of home and family
• A broken piece of shell – the broken heart is strong
• A piece of a kids’ broken tea set
• My sister-in-law’s chipped Italian saucer representing her adventures and what she wished to do before she left us
• Dishes my wife and I used when we were married
• Vase of relations
• Flame shaped piece found in the dirt in my Berkeley back yard
• Favorite tea cup – one of a pair – wedding gifts
• a piece of broken everyday dishes and a broken shrinky-dink that was well cried over
• I am perfection
• popped off a mug celebrating God’s favorite baseball team
• shells and rocks Dottie, my beloved mom-in-law, collected on NH shoreline
• My Russian tea cup
• Broken blue glass “cobalt” vase, part of a set I will have some day
• Fragments of treasured jewelry
• Shards of vessels which hold the food of our family’s growth
• Shards, or say Bye Bye, wings
• Basketful of stories too many for one piece of paper, happiness in sharing in this project
• Flotsam and jetsam
• Roses opening, torsos broken
• My mother’s glassware
• My dear dog Sadie’s license tag
• A stone from my friend Blake’s memorial service
• A piece of the walkway in front of our house will live on with the UUCB community; it was a source of irritation to us as new homeowners. Now it will be part of something beautiful.
• Items representing hopes, dreams, promises to myself and others, broken – but always a lesson in life
• Pieces well used & loved
• So many pieces make up our lives – this pin represents our connections to Unitarians in Transylvania
• The bluebird of happiness plaque broke!
• I broke my promise to myself. My spirit is mending.
• A broken necklace of my mother’s
• Broken losing sight of our unity, losing touch with the spirit
• Buttons
• Bracelet of friendship
• No on 8 campaign button
• 50 year anniversary marker of the merger of Unitarianism and Universalism
• Thomas Starr King button
• Wedgewood from my family home in Ohio to AZ to LA finally here
• Letting go of “stuff” and being a part of a work of art
• My wedding band perfect circle golden in a velvet lined box
• Shards from my children’s great grandmother’s china
• Pottery animals and playful figures my son and daughter made when they were children
• Shells, rocks, pebbles, beach glass gathered on restorative walks in beauty
• Pieces of abalone and stone and glass
• A piece from my garden pots and the broken top to a crock pot that provided many warm meals
• This little glass box was to be a gift for Mom but the lid broke when accidentally dropped. It’s been used as a container for small treasures. Now open for a new life.
• A teacup my mother used and then I did until I broke it
• Mosaic Poem I began writing almost six years ago when my younger sister passed away
• A key to an old car, a door, my heart?
• Standing on the Side of Love pin
• Give a Damn campaign button to end racism, poverty, and war
• Mom’s pin from 25 years of working in a defense plant, a broken time
• A piece from the Berlin wall, a piece from Auschwitz
• Coins from travels in India and Nepal to Hindu temples, Buddhist pilgrimage sites, ashrams, interfaith house for abandoned women and children, a Unitarian orphanage, Unitarian village schools…
• Coins from travels to Turkey to visit Islamic and Sufi holy sites
• Broken and whole sand dollars – beauty in both
• Beauty in brokenness
• Blue glass to view Matisse Blue Nudes, Yves Klein, cathedral stain glass windows, deep lakes, the sea, the sky
• Green glass to see green grass, forest ferns, green leaves shimmering in sunlight
• Pieces coming together
• Broken open for new life to emerge
• Sunflower gift from my home state of Kansas
• Beach glass from visits to the Sonoma Coast and Monterey; tiles from our remodel
• Broken tiles fallen from my roof which was repaired by my daughter-in-law
• Polished rock slab from all over the western U.S., contributed by the finder/lapidary
• A pot that has no holes for drainage. Please break it and use the colors where they may fit.
• These shards are from my home that burned in October 1991 in the Berkeley Hills Fire. This year is the 20th anniversary of the fire. I feel blessed to have them used in the Tree of Life.
• Pieces from a broken past to rebuild a beautiful future
• Hillary’s grandmother’s china, make something beautiful with this – have fun
• Hand-made pottery from Japan
• When my children were young they gave me inexpensive jewelry for Christmas and birthdays. They did extra chores to earn the money. Please feel free to use any, all or none of this.
• Honoring Animals, a bear and deer to dance on a leaf
• Golden ring – half of a set, half of a pair, what’s left of half a life-time with my husband; amethyst crystal, a piece of a wedding gift; black heart – grief and sadness for a broken marriage; scallop shell – unbroken, the cup for the rest of my life; shards of a coffee cup in which the daily brew, tea in the evening and the healing draught, was shared, then shattered
• Found along the shore at the Albany Bulb
• Found when cleaning out my desk drawer
• I’m giving the community the key to my dream apartment-castle. I lost it when my roommate moved and the new lease was too high to bear. The locks have been changed, so now this is a key to nowhere. I find find another key, another home, another lease. It will be hard to top my castle, but here I am giving this key a new lease as part of this mosaic.
• The plate commemorating my old church has, over the decades, gathered memories of my childhood—all the smells and flavors of Lutheranism, the mentors and events that formed my perspective and the texture of thought