St. Nicholas Day and New White Moon

Today is St. Nicholas Day, and tonight is the new moon. The Chinese call the eleventh new moon the White Moon, perhaps because it brings the snow, or perhaps because it's a yin time of year. 

This season puts limits on our lives. Chinese philosophy says the winter season is a time of conservation and storage; the night, the feminine, water, and cold is dominant. We slow down, go inward, and spend more time on quiet, yin activities.

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 Today:
1. Advent Prayer

2. Journal queries
3. Kindness meditation
4. Make luminaries

1. Advent Prayer:
   O Saint of love,
   be a guide for us in our lives, we pray,
   that we may create joy for each other,
   as you have done for so many.

   From St. Nikola an der Donau, Austria

2. Kindness Meditation:
St. Nicholas Day is a perfect time to think about kindness, and ways to be kinder. Kindness is simple, honest, peaceful, and joyful, and it leads to generosity, patience, integrity, and unity. This week I intend to-

• Practice holding my tongue (including inside-my-head-talk); less snapping at people!
• Try to follow through with any strong, generous impulse that comes into my heart- if it is mostly reasonable.
• When I am impatient, unkind, or clumsy, just take a breathe, accept myself as I am, apologize, and gather my resolve to begin again.

Each morning this week I'll light a white moon candle, feel myself fill with thankfulness for all I have now in my life, and re-affirm my intention to be kind, to others and to myself.

3. Journal queries:

The new moon is my monthly time for “seeding” intentions. Having this regular time each month to focus my goals has helped to give me clarity of purpose.

This is the last new moon before the new year, so I have a lot to consider. Today I will look forward into the future (with a feeling of hope) and write about what I want to do with myself in 2019.

What is my inner Guide leading me towards?

What might give my life more wholeness?

What do I need to testify to and act on in 2019?

List the possibilities in these areas-

Self, Friends and Family, Teaching, Artwork, Writing, Home and Garden, Work/Business, and Volunteer work.

4. 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.

And - yes- this is another craft made from recycled materials!

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 watered-down glue on the outside of the jar, in one area, and cover with tissue. Leave a bit of tissue at the top to fold over the rim. 

3. Keep brushing more glue and adding more strips, overlapping each by a little, and folding the tops over the rim. 

(If your doing this project with children, this is a good chance to talk about additive color, since the two colors that overlap will create a third color.)


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

5. 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.