First Quarter Moon of Advent

Tonight is the First Quarter Moon; we are one-quarter of the way through the moon cycle. The moon is waxing - getting larger - until it's full again. Now is the time to remain flexible, use my obstacles as fuel for growth, and show full effort for priorities.

This dark season puts limits on our lives. Chinese philosophy says winter 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 - 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. Prayer for the Light

2. Journal queries

3. Make a full effort plan

4. Write a mission haiku

Advent Earthcare

Exploring the Amazon, looking for birds.

 My theme for this first week of Advent is "Cherish and care for the earth". I express my unity with nature at Advent in two main ways:

• by offering small gifts of love and attention in recognition of all I receive from the earth
• and by finding joy and fulfillment in simply being alive, instead of in an excess of buying, eating, using, and wasting.

Agenda Today:

1. Journal queries
2. Define my work for earth care
3. Feed the birds
4. Make bird feeder pine cones

Advent Nativity Fast

This first week of advent my theme is to "Cherish and care for the earth". A vegetarian diet is better over-all for the planet, so this week I've started a Nativity Fast.

The Nativity Fast is the Orthodox Christian way to experience the waiting which is Advent. Instead of “pre-celebrating” Christmas, they have a 40-day period of fasting, beginning on November 15th (but I wait until AFTER Thanksgiving!)

Besides fasting, the practice includes also prayer, alms-giving, and love. 

Agenda Today:
1. Advent Prayer

2. Mini-Nativity Fast
3. Make Revithia Soupa (Chickpea Soup)
4. Love

5. Alms-giving

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.

The advent season is a time of expectant waiting. We look forward with excitement to the celebration of Christmas; we wait for the return of longer days after the solstice; and we anticipate the arrival of grace in our hearts.

Grace is a state of being - at peace, free, filled with love & light.

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. Plan activities to express my unity with nature
3. Advent wreath ceremony

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 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

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 about half of my holiday gifts, and usually spend this free day at home, working on projects.

Agenda:

1. Compile a family wish list

2. Creativity retreat

Thanksgiving Day of Retreat

It's Thanksgiving Day, and normally I would be up early to cook a turkey, and finish preparing a feast, but the last few years of quarantine have caused a shift for my family. A combination of work schedule, cold weather, ambivalence towards a mythical Pilgrim narrative, and just plain exhaustion have created an opening for something new this year.

I've made pies to share, and sent out my Thanksgiving cards. Today will NOT be all about family togetherness, but a quiet day for me be grounded and thankful, and do some introspective writing.

Agenda:

1. Write about my pilgrim ancestors

2. Write about the Wampanoag people
3. Honor the Day of Mourning
4. Read from "Grateful"

New White Moon

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

The new moon is the start of the lunar cycle, a time of high energy and clear thinking. Historically, the new moon is when women took time to be alone; it's a time to retreat, set intentions, and initiate something new.

Agenda Today:

1. Retreat Day

2. Choose a month theme

3. Set intentions

4. New moon altar and meditation

5. Plant paper white bulbs

The Transformative Power of Giving Thanks

Giving thanks does not come naturally for me; I do have feelings of gratitude, but I just find it hard to express them without sounding awkward or insincere - even in my head. 

Noticing my feelings of abundance is a good first step, though - When I notice how blessed I am, I become more optimistic and peaceful; my impatience decreases and I realize how satisfied and fulfilled I am. 

Also, noticing feelings of gratitude helps to keep me humble. I depend on the love, kindness, and support of others at all times, and on the bounty and generosity of nature. All that I have comes from others, just as I contribute to the lives of others in many ways. The exchange is continuous.

Gratitude is a fundamental feeling. When I think about gratitude as an essential part of love it becomes easier to remember to express it.

1. Read "Grateful"

2. Make Thanksgiving cards

3. Make pies

4. Daily Hours of prayer

5. Blessings Walks

6. Examen

Stir Up Sunday

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.

At least, it used to be the traditional day; apparently most families buy a pudding in a tin now. What a shame! As I am mostly of British descent (and also fond of brandy) I think it's worth the effort. And the flaming pudding is an exciting end to Christmas dinner!

This Sunday is when I begin to prepare for the start of advent, a month when we sink into darkness, then return slowly to the light. Many people are rebounding fast from the pandemic, but we are protecting a vulnerable mom-with-child. I plan to use this day to center myself for a holiday that will be prudent and insulated: I want to stir up my feelings about tradition, expectation, love, and family, and come to terms with a low-key holiday season, which will still be 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- Start the Christmas Pudding

4- Collect greens

My Experience

I'm reading a Pendle Hill pamphlet called Marking the Quaker Path: Seven Key Words Plus One, by Robert Griswold. This speaks to the condition of many Friends in my Meeting, who are ready to go deeper on this journey, and a large group of us are studying this booklet together this year.

Griswold uses seven key words that come to us from our Quaker history, that were developed to help us sense where we are on the Quaker path, and where we are going. He says these words will help us all to see how the Quaker path unfolds - but only if we "bring them into our experience so they are sealed in our hearts ... Friends from George Fox on have sought to avoid a faith that is notional, that is, just based on imagined or abstract thinking. So it is vital that we come to own these words through experiencing them in our lives".

We should consider these words more as growth markers than as concepts, as part of a sequence. I wrote about My Condition last month.

1. Word #2 - Experience

2. My Earth-Quaker path

3. Next steps

November Third Quarter Moon

Today's waning third quarter moon energy is yin - quiet, internal, heart-driven, intentional Being-ness. At this phase we can ease off a bit on actively pursuing goals, slow down, go within, and attend to inner work, renewal, and self-care.

Agenda today:

1. Renewal plan for next month

2. Evaluation House

3. Read "The Earth Path"

4. Monthly journal brainstorm

5. Surrender, rest, recuperate

Observing November

November is colder and wetter, drawing me deeper towards winter. This is a month when I celebrate the final fruits of summer’s work, and remember to express my gratitude.

Blótmónað is the word for November in Old English; it means Sacrifice Month, but the sacrifice is joyful, as Persephone goes peacefully down to the underworld every year. Peace is the fruit of total acceptance. In November I see the circle of life in all its full roundness - as it blossomed in spring and as it dies in fall.

This is a time to purge, to give or throw away things I don’t need, give up habits I don’t want, and pare down my activities to make time for introspection.

Agenda:

1. Read "The Earth Path"

2. Ground and Expand

3. Name and Journal

4. Simple life

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)

Full Frost Moon and Xia Yuan Jie

 

Today is Xia Yuan Jie (pronounced "Shaw you-an Jee-a") -- Lower Primordial Festival -- a Chinese festival that falls on the 15th day of the 10th lunar month, usually the full moon of November. 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 Frost Moon, called that 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.

This moon is also known as the Alangitapi moon - the Moving-Inside-for-Winter moon, by the Kalapuya people of my valley.

We are now at the peak of the strong-energy yang phase of the waxing moon, and will soon begin the quiet-energy yin time of the waning moon. But today it's time to CELEBRATE! 

Agenda:
1. Take a vision walk
2. Celebrate abundance

3. Cook the pumpkins
4. Hold the world in the light

Day of the Dead and First Quarter Moon of November

Dia de los Muertos - the Day of the Dead - 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.

And this is the First Quarter Moon; we are one-quarter of the way through the moon cycle. The moon is waxing - getting larger - until it's full again. Now is the time to remain flexible, use my obstacles as fuel for growth, and show full effort for priorities.

Agenda Today:

1. Journal queries

2. Make a full effort plan

3. Write a mission haiku

4. Set up an ofrenda
5. Make paper banners
6. Make skeletons
7. Make sugar skulls