Mother's Day Rogation Sunday

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

And it's also Rogation-tide, beginning on the Sunday five weeks after Easter and continuing 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.

Agenda Today:

1. Journal query

2. Mother Meditation

3. Monthly journal brainstorm

4. Brainstorm my summer

5. Cleansing 

6. Beat the bounds

7. Bless my garden

8. Make Rammalation Bisquits

Retreat for Home and Garden

Today I have an entire day alone! I get to read, write, take a webinar, go for a walk, and paint some butterflies in the bathroom.

I've been pretty focused and effective this week, except with housework. In fact, I've been putting things off all month. It's time for a reset, and some earnest time with housekeeping and order.

Agenda:

1. Read "The Art of Simple Living"

2. Discard what I don't need

3. Today's housecleaning catch-up

4. House blessing ceremony 

New Year Perspective

We're a week into the New Year, and a lot has already happened. I've studied and talked and written about positivity and a new perspective, and then Ice Agents shot a Mom in her car.

My neighbor asked me, what do we do? I said, we do what we can - write letters, work at legislation, talk to people, but I understand how she feels. The events are too heavy for us to carry. How often can we rise up in grief and protest, and put our own lives at risk? 

Agenda:

1. Read "Perspective"

2. Identify a past failure

3. Inner peace practice

4. Kitchen blessing

Rogation Sunday

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.

Agenda Today:

1. Read "Everyday Simplicity"

2. Beat the bounds

2. Bless my garden

3. Make Rammalation Bisquits

Prepare for Imbalc

Imbalc is in a week and I have a few practical and contemplative preparations to make - mostly I need to slow down to watch as the wheel of the year shifts. 

We still have a month of winter left, but my thoughts are turning outward, to the garden, our neighborhood, and my community.

Agenda:

1. Practice a Reverent Way of Being

2. Read "The Creativity Book"

3. Make a Creativity Altar

4. Write about my seeds of inspiration

5. Simple projects list

6. Plan a party

7. Bless the bathroom

Retreat for Inspiration

Saturdays are usually my day of retreat, and on this third Saturday of the new year I plan to be quiet, and open myself to inspiration. Winter is a time of expectation and quiet growth, contemplation of the deep questions of life, and listening for leadings and new ideas; it's essential that I take time to give attention to my Inner Guide.

My query today is, "What are the essential projects I'm led to create this winter?"

Agenda:

1. Retreat day plans

2. Love meditation

3. Read "The Creativity Book"

4. Brainstorm and simple project list

5. Print an inspiration page
6. Living room blessing

Creativity in the New Year

Creativity is one of my leadings: I’m always hungry to get to work on a project. I feel restless, anxious, and eager to make something- a painting, or embroidery, or anything- just to have busy hands and feel productive and creative. 

And I want to express myself, though that which I want to express is often a mystery- it’s the shadowy and bright life inside me; it’s the big truths and the fleeting feelings of the moment.

I want to be more attentive and intentional about my art-making process and my product; more devoted, thoughtful, open, real, original, and honest. And so I hush and wait for ideas. I hold my heart like an empty bowl, waiting for it to be filled. I let the need to create grow and become an obsession, let myself be anxious, and feel happy for this ravenous feeling! As Eric Maisel says, "Both creating and not creating make me anxious, and I choose the anxiety of creating." I choose to have the anxiety of wanting so badly to make art that I must do it every day.

Agenda Today:
1. Review the Divine Laws
2. Prayer candle ceremony
3. Read "The Creativity Book"
4. Brainstorm and simple project list

6. Practice visualization
7. Kitchen blessing

Imbalc

Today is Imbalc (pronounced Im-molc), the Celtic Sabbat that falls between the winter solstice and the spring equinox. It's celebrated sometime around the first of February, as the "beginning of the end" of winter.

Imbalc means "surrounding belly" - the Earth Mother’s womb; soon the seeds in the womb of the earth will begin to swell and creative forces will begin to come alive in the world.

Imbalc is sacred to Brigid, the European and Celtic goddess of healing, crops, poetry, and creativity. As a sun goddess her powers are light, fire, inspiration, and vital energy: Wow! She’s one of my favorite images of the Spirit.

Brigid is the maiden aspect of the Great Goddess and so her color is white; her symbols are a sun-wheel, Brigid's cross, snake, and cock (herald of the new day). 

Agenda for today: 

1. Look for signs of the end of winter

2. Make a Brigid's Cross

2. Make Irish seed cake

3. Seed blessing ceremony

4. Have a fire

Retreat for Discernment

I'm having my New Moon retreat day this weekend, a couple of days to be unsocial, and give attention to my theme for the month, which is discernment. As luck would have it, we had a serious ice storm yesterday, and the whole town is shut down. All of my responsibilities have evaporated!

I've chosen the theme of discernment for this month, because I have so much figuring out going on. Today I will sink in to the quiet of the winter and open to leadings of the spirit.

Agenda:
1. Read "A Comfort of Crows"

2. Bird watching

3. Garden plans

4. Living room blessing

Plow Monday

Plow Monday, the first Monday after Epiphany, is the traditional day in Europe for farmers to restart their farm work. Our garden isn't large, but, with the ducks, it's like a miniature farm. Normally, it's too wet at this time in the Pacific Northwest to do any digging, but many other tasks are possible, and it's good motivation for me to have this set date each year to start my “farm work”.

I got a lot of good permaculture information from Amy of the Ten-Acre Farm.  Amy says,

"January is one of my favorite times of year because I love the opportunity to start anew, make new agreements with myself about how I will spend time in the garden, and determine what kinds of experiments I will run to continue learning and improving."

Agenda for today & this week: 

1. Journal query

2. Tool blessing ceremony

3. January harvest

4. Garden planing

5. Daily garden visits

6. Make Plough Pudding or Homity Pie

Sabbath for Epiphany

January 6th is Epiphany, the final day of the Christmas season. This was the day when the three Magi arrived in Bethlehem to see the baby Jesus, and recognized that he would grow up to be a great helper of people.

Epiphany comes from the Greek epiphania, meaning manifestation, or moment of recognition. The Magi had an epiphany - a moment of recognition, when the truth became clear through something simple and striking.

The one is the way to the many; the specific is the way to the spacious; the now is the way to the always; the here is the way to the everywhere; the material is the way to the spiritual; the visible is the way to the invisible. When we see contemplatively, we know that we live in a fully sacramental universe, where everything is an epiphany. 

—Richard Rohr 

Agenda for today:

1. Epiphany meditation

2. Year of Witness

3. Witness practices for January

4. Make a resolutions postcard

5. Bake a King's cake and make a crown

6. Kitchen blessing

Plow Monday

Plow Monday, the first Monday after Epiphany, is the traditional day in Europe for farmers to restart their farm work. 

Our garden isn't large, but I think of it as my miniature farm. Normally, it's too wet at this time in the Pacific Northwest to do any digging, but many other tasks are possible, and it's good motivation for me to have this set date each year to start my “farm work”.

I got a lot of good permaculture information from Amy of the Ten-Acre Farm.  Amy says,

"January is one of my favorite times of year because I love the opportunity to start anew, make new agreements with myself about how I will spend time in the garden, and determine what kinds of experiments I will run to continue learning and improving."

 

Agenda for today & this week: 

1. Journal query

2. Tool blessing ceremony

3. January harvest

4. Garden planing

5. Daily garden visits

6. Make plough pudding

Distaff Day

Woman with distaff in left hand, and spindle in right hand.

Distaff Day (January7) is named for the distaff, the stick-like tool that held fibers while a woman used a drop spindle to spin thread.

Spinning and weaving were never-ending chores for pre-industrial women; most women and girls would spin thread while also cooking, caring for children, or minding the sheep. Because women were seen always with a distaff in hand, it became the symbol of “women’s work”. 

But during the Christmas season women took a break from spinning. January 7th was the traditional day for women to start back to work, and so was called Distaff Day.

Agenda:
1. Journal queries and spindle meditation

2. Start a fiber project

3. Household order

4. Kitchen blessing

5. Kitchen Blessing Prayer