Ash Wednesday and Valentine's Day!

Ash Wednesday is the first day of Lent, a 46-day period of preparation for the joyful Easter celebration. The word lent comes from the Anglo Saxon word lencten, which means "lengthen"; it refers to the longer days of spring. 

Lent is about mortality and transformation; death and rebirth. Marcus Borg says, "It means dying to an old way of being, and being born into a new way of being, a way of being centered once again in God."

Quakers don't traditionally celebrate Lent because we live every day being born again, centered in God. Still - I will always jump at a chance for a period of reflection.

Today is also Valentine's Day! Saint Valentine was a third-century Roman Christian who died on February 14. The poet Geoffrey Chaucer and his circle probably invented many of the romantic legends about Saint Valentine, in the fourteenth century.

Valentine made by a student of mine.

After that, it became a custom for a man to write a romantic poem to send to his beloved on St. Valentine's Day. Very fancy paper cards, with lace and ribbons, became popular in the 1840's, and that custom expanded into sending cards to Mom and Dad, and friends of all kinds.

Agenda:

1. Read "Lessons for Simple Living"

2. Simple Steps for this week

3. Make Valentines

4. Begin fasting

5. Hang up the Lent Lady

1. Read "Lessons for Simple Living": 

One of my intentions for Lent this year is to dive into various web sites that offer information on simple living themes. The first I chose is 8 Key Lessons for Living a Simple Life, by Leo Babauta (Zen Habits).

The lesson I found most useful was:

"Create space between things. Add padding to everything. Do half of what you imagine you can do. We tend to cram as much as possible into our days. And this becomes stressful, because we always underestimate how long things will take, and we forget about maintenance tasks like putting on clothes and brushing teeth and preparing meals. We never feel like we have enough time because we try to do too much. But what would it be like if we did less? What would it be like if we padded how long things took, so that we have the space to actually do them well, with full attention? What would it be like if we took a few minutes’ pause between tasks, to savor the accomplishment of the last task, to savor the space between things, to savor being alive?"

2. Simple Steps for this week: 

Another of my intentions is to set myself some simple living steps for growth each week to be more down-to-earth. It's important to me that these don't become just more things for me to do! So this week:

1. Deliberately reduce the number of tasks on my to-do list by one quarter.
2. Remember to engage my grandsons in daily simple-living tasks in our home and garden.
3. Visit my garden for 15-minutes every day, without fail.

3. Make Valentines:

I like to make fancy valentines (instructions here), but his year I made simple valentines with Grandson #1:

1. We cut hearts out of watercolor paper, folded in half. My 3-year-old was amazed by the revelation - "Look- it's a heart!".

2. We dripped some spots of red and white tempera paint over the opened hearts.

3. We folded the hearts back in half, pressed, then opened them to reveal a mirror-image print design.

5. Today we will "write" love notes and put the valentines into envelopes.

4. Fasting: 

This year for Lent I'm going to fast from meat and dairy at least a couple days a week. I don't do all the cooking in our house, and will not restrict my partner, so I'm probably not going to start today, except to plan meals for tomorrow.

5. Hang up the Lady Lent:

Greek children make a paper doll for Lent, called Kyra Sarakosti (Lady Lent). The Kyra always folds her hands in prayer, and she has no mouth because she is fasting. Also, she has seven legs, representing the number of weeks in Lent. Each Saturday, the children fold back a leg as they count down the weeks.

I made a Lady Lent a couple years ago that I can use each year- Now she hangs in my living room as a visual reminder of the countdown to Easter. The instructions are here.