Full Frost Moon and Xia Yuan Jie

Today is Xia Yuan Jie-- Lower Primordial Festival-- a Chinese festival that falls on the 15th day of the 10th lunar month. It’s the third of a trio of Taoist holidays that honor three Taoist gods, called the Three Great Emperor Officials:

• Tian-Guan, the Heaven Official, gives happiness, and rules over the first 6 months of the year (the yang part), beginning on the 15th day of the 1st lunar month, at the Lantern Festival.
• Di-Guan, the Earth Official, forgives sins and guilt, and rules over the next 3 months (the yin part), beginning on the 15th day of the 8th lunar month, at the Ghost Festival.
• Shui-Guan, the Water Official, rules over the last 3 months of the year (also yin), starting today.

And tonight we see the full moon, called the Frost Moon because now is when the first hoarfrost might appear - that white frost that makes walking crunchy, and that requires scraping of windshields. Frost is a reminder that winter is coming, and we all need to finish our outdoor chores and close up the storm windows.

Agenda:
1. Update my altar
2. Practice at my theme of Synergy
3. Hold the world in the light

4. Walk down the Amazon Creek

First Sunday of Advent

Today is the first Sunday of Advent!

ad•vent (ad’ vent) n. The coming or arrival, especially of something extremely important.

I'll fill the next weeks with decorating, baking, buying gifts, and singing songs...

but enfolding the busyness is the simple, deep peace and love of advent. I wait, anticipate, and learn again that transformation is a slow process.

Agenda today:
1. Journal queries
2. Advent wreath ceremony
3. Plan activities to express my unity with nature

Day before Advent

Tomorrow is the first Sunday of Advent. Advent is a time of expectant waiting, and today I will actively prepare to wait. I will get my house and my heart ready for this (even more than usual) complicated winter season of holidays.

Agenda:
1. Open-Heart Meditation
2. Journal queries
3. Space clearing
4. Simplify & slow down
5. Make an Advent Wreath

Simple Gifts for Black Friday

Black Friday sales are an abomination! 

All I want to do on the day after Thanksgiving is eat pie and whip cream, and think about Advent. I make most of my holiday gifts, and usually spend this free day at home, working on projects. 

And this year, since we decided not to meet for a big meal on Thanksgiving, we are all getting together outside to share desert!

Agenda:

1. Compile a family wish list
2. Make simple gifts
3. Dessert gathering

Thanksgiving Day

Today is Thanksgiving. It's not that hard to find things to be thankful for this year: I'm grateful my house did not burn up, the fire and smoke season is over, that my family is healthy and financially secure, and that I get to play with my new grandson every week!

Agenda:
1. Thanksgiving Meditation for Peace & Abundance
2. Community zoom worship
3. Finish the food
5. Give thanks

Prepare for Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving is tomorrow, and I'm trying to be positive. My family has decided to be safe and stay each in our own homes; we are not even going to try to eat and zoom together. 

So, I'm focusing attention on myself and W, thinking of ways to make the day special and joyful. We will cook together - a roast chicken and stuffing - and sit down in our newly tiled kitchen (with our new flat top stove), and talk about the good things that have happened this year.

And we'll get together on the next day, Black Friday, with all four of our kids and our grandson, for dessert, outdoors. Yay, pumpkin pie!

Agenda:
1. Make a thank-you card and hand it out
2. Cook the pumpkins
3. Make pies

Stir up Sunday (Prepare for Advent)

Today is Stir Up Sunday, the last Sunday before Advent. This is the traditional day in Britain to make the Christmas pudding, and set it aside for Christmas Day so the flavors have a month to develop.

But I'm not making a pudding this year, for several reasons that all make me sad.

Instead, I plan to use this day to center myself for a holiday that will be different: I want to stir up my feelings about tradition, expectation, love, and family, and come to terms with a low key quarantine holiday season. 

And I want to prepare myself for an advent that will be perhaps a little sad, but in many ways deep and satisfying. Advent is a time of expectant waiting - for grace, and the joy of the returning Light - and this week I will actively prepare to wait.

Agenda for today:
1- Journal queries

2- Prayer
3- Collect greens

4- Plan a Christmas card

Sabbath Abundance

Today is Sunday, which I celebrate as my Sabbath, meaning that I keep it simple, slow-paced, and peaceful. 

Autumn Flowers- acrylic on board

It’s not possible for me to do NO work on the Sabbath, but I schedule very little work, and my work has a different focus and flavor. I take time out from busy-ness so I can practice deepening my inner life-- how I feel, how I behave, and how I express myself.

My theme this month is abundance, and I've decided to visualize abundance all day long - a picture in my heart of abundant peace in the world, equality, order, respect - all the best things growing to enfold us all.

Sabbath Plan:
1. All day Abundance meditation
2. Journal queries
3. Creativity practice

Diwali and New Kindly Moon

Tonight is the night of the new moon. The Chinese call this tenth new moon the Kindly Moon. In China, this is the season for winter crop planting, and this month brings the first “little snow” which gently (and kindly) moistens the winter wheat seedlings. We don't have snow yet, but we've had some heavy rains.

This is also the start of the Hindu Festival of Diwali, which falls on the new moon of late October or early November, and lasts for five days. 

Diwali is the festival of good luck and prosperity- one of the most important festivals of the year for Hindus. On Diwali, people wear new clothes, clean and decorate their homes, go to fairs with music, dancing, fireworks, jugglers and snake charmers, and give gifts to each other.

Agenda Today:
1- Journal queries

2- Set intentions
3- Make diya lamps

4- New moon meditation and puja for prosperity

5- Make almond katli

Martinstag

Martinstag, November 11, is the day of St. Martin of Tours, patron saint of beggars, soldiers, and conscientious objectors.

Martin was born in Hungary in 316 A.D. As a teenager, he joined the Roman army, becoming a soldier like his father, and traveled to what is now Italy and France.

The most famous legend of St. Martin is of his time as a soldier: One snowy winter evening, Martin and the other soldiers were returning on horseback to Amiens. A freezing beggar was sitting at the city gate. Martin didn't have any money or food to give him, so he used his sword to cut his heavy red soldier’s cloak in half, and gave half to the beggar. That night Martin dreamt that Jesus thanked him for giving Him his cloak. This dream convinced Martin to become a Christian and be baptized. 

Martin remained in the army for two more years, but then he decided that his faith prohibited him from fighting, and he was jailed as a coward. He was eventually released from prison and from military service, and went on to become the bishop of Tours in France. He died peacefully on November 8, 397 A.D., and was buried on November 11, among the first non-martyrs to be venerated as a saint.

Originally Martinstag was celebrated only in the Catholic areas of Germany, Austria, Flanders, Netherlands, and Portugal, but it has now spread to Protestant areas as well.

Agenda:

1. Journal queries
2. Gift list brainstorm
3. Make a lantern
4. Bake Weckmänner (Bun Men)

Election Day Vigil

Election Day this year is fraught with angst. We are all anxious, no matter who we support. The national tension is palpable.

My Quaker community is approaching it from two sides: Many of us plan to meet on zoom to worship together today and every night this week, to hold the nation in our hearts and the Light. 

Others of us have a Rally for Democracy planned tomorrow at the Federal Building in support of a peaceful transfer of power.

Day of the Dead

 The Day of the Dead- Dia de los Muertos - is a holiday observed in Mexico on November 2. It’s a family time for remembering and honoring dead friends and relatives - a period when the souls of the dead can return for a visit. It’s celebrated with humor, not sadness.

Agenda:
1. Set up an ofrenda
2. Make paper banners
3. Make Pan de Muertos (Bread of the Dead)
4. Make skeletons
5. Make sugar skulls