First Week of Advent

Cherish and care for the earth.

Advent is important to me, and I have so many ideas to share. This week most of my projects are ways to "Cherish and care for the earth" - my theme for the week:

• Spend time outdoors to get in touch with the season and climate. Walk or bike to get places. Visit a wild area. Rake leaves, or turn the compost.
• Pay attention to the weather, the outdoor temperature, the birds, the sky, the leaves, the moon cycle.
• Learn more about the wildlife that lives in our area in the winter; find out what they eat. Learn the names of the trees in the neighborhood. Learn the names of the clouds.
• Give care to the plants and animals. Feed the wild birds.
• Bring nature indoors- collect greens, pine cones, straw, and other natural materials. Use natural materials to make gifts and decorations.

As we approach the Solstice, the days get shorter and the nights longer. This cold, wet season puts limits on our lives; it's natural to slow down, keep warm, be content at home, stay quiet, and sleep well. 

Luckily, advent is four weeks long, allowing us to grow slowly and steadily towards the light. Let yourself go inward now, at the start of advent; be like the bear in her cave, saving your strength and relishing the darkness. Don't celebrate Christmas too soon; allow yourself to experience the darkness of winter, against which it shines. 

Agenda This Week:

1. Make Luminaries:

One way to experience the darkness of the season is to go without electric lights as much as possible. Use candlelight or one small electric light in the evening. Light a single luminary outside to be a beacon in the night.

Later on in the Advent season, we will add Christmas tree lights and more candles around the house to symbolically experience the growth into light.




Supplies:

• glass jar with straight sides- peanut butter jars work well
• scraps of tissue paper in many colors
• watered white glue or acrylic medium (I used acrylic medium because I had a big bottle of it.)
• glue brush
• waxed paper or freezer paper

1. Tear the tissue paper into the shapes you want. I used strips.

2. Set your jar on waxed paper so it won't stick. Brush glue in one area and cover with tissue. Leave a bit of tissue at the top to fold over the rim. 

Keep brushing more glue and adding more strips, overlapping each by a little, and folding the tops over the rim. (This is a good chance to talk about additive color, since the two colors that overlap will create a third color.)




3. Gently brush more glue over the top of the tissue. Don't worry about the extra at the bottom- you can trim that off later.











4. Let the glue dry, and add a tea light or a small candle, using melted wax to stand it up in the bottom of the jar.

5. Evening Meditation: Light your luminary candle and set it outside, where you can see it from a window. Settle into silence, and focus your attention on the darkness and the small flickering light.

• Breath in the calm darkness from the depth of the earth. 
• Breath out the rainbow light of the Spirit of Love.

2. Plant paper white bulbs:
Seeds and bulbs are a fitting symbol of expectant waiting at Advent. Like the bulbs in the ground and all of nature in the winter, let your energy grow gradually within you so it may be born anew when the time is right.

Plant paper white bulbs now to (hopefully) bloom indoors at Christmas (about 4-6 weeks), another way to witness the nurturing darkness:

Supplies:

• pretty rocks and glass pebbles
• a glass or pottery bowl
• paper white bulbs
• paper bag

1. Collect pretty rocks and glass pebbles of different sizes, and clean them.

2. Fill a bowl partway with the rocks, and nestle the bulbs on top, close together but not touching each other. Wedge more rocks in around them to hold them in place.

3. Add water to the bowl, up to the bottom of the bulbs. Wrap the bowl in newspapers and place in a brown paper bag.

4. Put the bag in a dark, cold place, like the cellar or refrigerator. Water the bulbs every week if needed, and check for top growth.

5. When the roots begin to take hold and the shoots are 2 to 4 inches tall ( in 2-3 weeks), take the bowl into a cool room with indirect light.

6. When the leaves are well formed and the flower buds are showing, move the bowl to a warm, brightly lit room to encourage the buds to open.

3. Journal:

What are the most wasteful things I do at advent?
What can I change to show solidarity with the poor, respect for the earth, and a desire to live more simply?

My aim this advent is to celebrate simply and consume less. The modern way of observing the winter holidays supports an increase in waste; one statistic says that Americans throw away 25% more trash– an additional 5 million tons- between Thanksgiving and New Year's Eve. A fun holiday season doesn't have to be a wasteful one!

Simple Holiday Tips:

• Simplify my expectations. Think about which traditions are most important to me. Find meaning and fulfillment in spirituality, and my relationships with my family and friends.
• Be frugal and spend less money this year; reduce my purchasing of wants.
• Make my own gifts or buy simple, durable gifts; avoid the latest fad; buy gifts made locally and made from recycled materials.
• Use cloth napkins and reusable plates and cups for holiday parties.
• Make reusable bags out of pretty fabric to use as gift-wraps for family; they can save the bags to wrap their own gifts next year. Make tags from last year’s Christmas cards.

4. Make fabric bags:

Each year I make a few more reusable fabric bags to hold gifts. I think everyone appreciates my wish to conserve paper, and they can save the bags to wrap their own gifts next year.

I've been using a stockpile of Christmas fabric I found at our local recycled art supplies store, but any pretty cloth will do.

Materials:

• colorful 1/2” ribbon
• pretty fabric scraps

1. Fold a piece of fabric in half, and cut it so that it‘s the size you want, plus 1-inch on all sides for the hem. (For example, for a 12” x 12” bag, cut fabric to 14”x 26”.)





2. Hem the top and bottom edge of the bag, either by hand or with a sewing machine.

3. Fold the good side of the fabric to the inside, and pin the edges. Stitch the two side seams and turn right-side out.














4. Cut a ribbon at least 12" long. Stitch the middle of the ribbon to the bag at the seam, about four or five inches from the bag opening.

5. Bird food pine cones:
Right now, because of the cold, the wild birds are looking for high energy foods. Peanut butter is high in fat and full of protein, and could be considered the perfect bird food. Be sure to get natural, no-sugar peanut butter, or use vegetable shortening as an alternative.












Supplies:

• 1 c. peanut butter or shortening, or a combination
• 1 c. oatmeal or cornmeal
• pine cones
• bird seed
• yarn or string

Yield: Makes 2 bird cones-

1- Mix equal parts peanut butter or shortening with oatmeal or cornmeal until well blended. (I used half a cup of each and it just covered this one medium-sized cone.)



2- Choose a pine cone. Cut a long length of string to hang the bird feeder, and tie around the pine cone near the top (about 3 sections down).

3- Use a butter knife to spread peanut butter inside the pine cone and around the edges.

4- Fill a pie plate with birdseed. Roll the pine cone in the birdseed. 

Go out and hang it in a tree where you can watch from a window.

6. Go for a longer walk:
I walk a mile or more every day, but this week I have challenged myself to walk further, and especially to visit the creek path to watch for birds.