Sabbath for Synergy

Today is my sabbath, a day to step out of the fray, and regroup. My perfect sabbath is a celebration, a holiday. I keep it holy with my attitude: I don't rush, complain, or worry. Everything I do has a flavor of peace. I schedule some work, but it's work I find fulfilling, or uplifting. Simple is a great word to describe my ideal activities for the sabbath: Simple tasks, simple foods, and an undemanding schedule.

I'm celebrating synergy today - the ability to seek unity, embrace teamwork, live holistically, and work tirelessly towards a better end. Synergy is the eternally active primal force of creation: No matter what the conditions are, they will change.

Stephen Covey says, "Fulfilling the four needs [spiritual, mental, physical, social] in an integrated way is like combining elements in chemistry. When we reach a "critical mass" of integration, we experience spontaneous combustion -- an explosion of inner synergy that ignites the fire within and gives vision, passion, and a spirit of adventure to life." 

I'm going to create some synergy today, here at home, all by myself.

Agenda

1. Read Kurashi at Home

2. Create inner synergy for paper

3. Engage my mind

4. Engage my heart

5. Engage my body

6. Engage my spirit

7. Light a fire

First Quarter Moon in May

Tonight is the First Quarter Moon; we are one-quarter of the way through the moon cycle. The moon is waxing - growing in light and energy, creating a time for decisive action. I use this end-of-May quarter moon's energy to create synergy with all my partners, and spark synergy within myself.

Agenda Today:

1. Journal queries
2. Make a full effort plan
3. Write a leadership manifesto
4. Read the Creativity Book

New Peony Moon

Beautiful peonies growing in my neighborhood.

The new moon rises today; the Chinese call the fourth new moon the Peony Moon. Peonies are the flower of riches, romance, and honor, called sho yu in Chinese, which means "most beautiful." Their lush blooms are an omen of good fortune, and also foretell a happy marriage.

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:

1. Retreat Day

2. Journal queries

3. Choose a month theme

4. Goals and intentions

5. New moon altar and meditation

Joy of Tidying

I've recently re-organized my study so that my desk looks out onto the backyard instead of the neighbor's house. I swapped my desk and books with my sewing machine and all my sewing supplies; this shift took a few weeks and required a longer power strip.

I'm in the phase now of finding final homes for knick-knacks, odds and ends, and lots of papers. In fact, I've got a problem with notebooks, folders, and binders - like an addiction - they are everywhere! and it's making me itch. I want to find a new way to approach this situation that doesn't make so anxious.

1. Read "Kurashi at Home"

2. Read "Happier at Home"

3. Create a shrine to paper

Rogation Sunday and Mother's Day

Rogation-tide begins on the Sunday five weeks after Easter and continues for four more days, through Ascension Day on Thursday. 

Rogation is an early Christian tradition of singing psalms and chanting prayers of petition for God's protection on crops, beasts and people. Since medieval days, parishioners in Britain would walk around the parish boundaries, bearing a cross and banners, and asking for God to bless the crops, livestock, and fishing holes. The procession was called 'beating the bounds'; it helped everyone to remember the parish boundaries, in the time before maps were commonplace.

These boundary walks were also known as ‘gang days’ from the Anglo Saxon word ‘gangen’- to go. The parish would bond together as a community, offer charity to poor people they met along the way, and the priest would stop to preach at each prominent tree or landmark.

Now Rogation-tide is celebrated more as a time to honor the gift of creation of the land and waters, to offer thanksgiving for the labors on land and water that feed us, and to pray for stewardship of the earth.

Today is also Mother's Day, and a low-key time for me now that my daughter is a mother and I am a grandmother!

Agenda Today:

1. Journal query

2. Beat the bounds

3. Bless my garden

4. Make Rammalation Bisquits

5. Call my Mom 

Sabbath for Sanctuary

A sanctuary is a sanctum, a sacred and protected place of beauty, grace and refuge. Our home and garden is a sanctuary for body and soul; it embraces us and brings us back to center. When we take sanctuary, even for brief moments, we are re-created, recharged, healed, soothed, comforted and at peace.

One of my New Year's resolutions is: 

Sanctuary: I intend to care for my land with discipline and ritual, and create a home that is a peaceful and well-ordered sanctuary for those I love, because maintaining my land in good order is the honorable and sustainable thing to do, and is one way that I show reverence for the Earth and for God.

What I like about this resolution is that it encompasses my home, my land, my family and friends, the Earth and God. It helps me to de-compartmentalize my life and see it as a whole.

I hope to continue to define and upgrade our sanctum, an ongoing discipline of inner work (seeking inspiration, and upgrading my habits) and projects (creating a place of peace that expresses who we are).

Agenda:

1. Read Happier at Home

2. Spring tidying

3. Spring cleaning

4. Spring gardening

Third Quarter Moon in May

Photo by Alan Gillespie

Today is the Third Quarter Moon: This waning 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 and self-care.

Agenda today:

1. Read The Creativity Book

2. Renewal plan

3. Evaluation House

4. Monthly journal brainstorm

5. Surrender, rest, recuperate

May Joy Sabbath

Today is my Sabbath. It's been a few weeks since I last had an entire day that was unscheduled. In the best world, everyone would have one whole day each week to spend as we want; to stay in bed, read a good book, take a slow walk or do a crossword; one whole day to do no work, run no errands, send no emails, and clean no toilets.

My weekends often get scheduled with wonderful events (an Earth Day rally, all day service field trip, and a birthday party), but today my schedule is clear, and I'm going to give attention to joy, contentment, self expression and play. 

Joy is a deep feeling, maybe too much to expect, a little over the top; most days I'm satisfied to feel calm and grounded, perhaps even mostly happy. But I think when we open to the possibility of feeling joyful we set the tone of the day to one of playful expectation.

Agenda this Month:

1. Read the Creativity Book

2. Craft a ceremony

3. Express myself

Full Flower Moon and Wesak

This morning is the full moon called atantal, the "camas blooming time", by the Kalapuya of our area, and the Flower Moon by others, because - well - May flowers! The full Flower Moon is a good time to think about joy, contentment, play, and blossoming into our full potential.

The flowers in my garden are a delicate reminder to me to project a gentle, honest spirit (less cactus, more columbine).

We are now at the peak of the strong-energy yang phase of the waxing moon, and will soon begin the shift to the quiet-energy yin time of the waning moon.

Today is also Wesak (pronounced way-sak). The full moon in May is the day that Buddhists honor the birth of Gautama Buddha in Lumbini, Nepal, in 623 BCE, and also honor his enlightenment and death. Buddhists all over the world celebrate this day by pausing to remember the Buddha's virtues, expressing their gratitude and appreciation for his teachings, and by finding ways to be more Buddha-like.

Agenda Today: 

1. Take a vision walk

2. Celebrate joy

3. Read (and Practice) the Happiness Habit

4. Find ways to be more Buddha-like

5. Make a lantern
6. Cook Hath Maaluwa (Seven Vegetables Curry)

The May Garden

The May garden is exciting but demanding, especially this year. We had a very cold, very wet spring; the seeds we planted simply did not come up. And now the soil is finally warm enough to plant, and we have so many seedlings to put in the ground! Some of my plants expired with the wait, but some are going to make it.

And the joy of this spring is that the work we did last year (to re-design and re-build the vegetable garden in the back yard, and build a new raised garden and patio in the front yard) is paying dividends now. We spend sunny mornings sitting on the patio looking at tulips, and use minimal effort to prepare beds for planting.

Agenda:

1. May permaculture plan

2. May planting tips

May Day

May Day, on May 1st, is a spring celebration of the blooming flowers.

It's an ancient holiday that originated with the festival of Floralia which honored Flora, the Flourishing One, the Roman goddess of spring. Flora is a bright nature goddess who makes trees bloom- she is a “lady of pleasure", but also a symbol of motherhood. She wears a garland of flowers in her hair, and in her right hand she holds a columbine, for fertility. In England a young woman is still chosen as May Queen, representing Flora, and is crowned with hawthorn blossoms. She is often accompanied by a May King.

 

Maying is what we call the things we do to celebrate this beautiful month-- going on picnics, picking flowers, dancing around a maypole, and sharing our love.

Agenda:
1. Prepare a Beltane fire
2. Bring in the May
3. May baskets
4. Make Tippaleivät (Finnish May Day Fritters)
5. Maypole Dances