New Year's Day

Today is the first day of a new year in my part of the world. I celebrate many beginnings throughout my year, but January 1 has emotional importance because it’s the New Year of my childhood.

January gets its name from Janus, the two-faced Roman God of gates and doorways; it's a month to look back with reflection and forward with hope. I stand at the doorway of this coming year with my mind open and curious, without fear or judgment, and with hope for the gifts that the year will deliver.

As I stand here, I remember that not all gifts are rosy. I thank the Creator for the shadows and mysteries, and potent gifts of sadness. When I live in the reality of the moment more than in my hopes and expectations, I can receive the riches that are hidden within my most challenging experiences - the gifts of compassion, self-awareness, creativity, wisdom, patience, love, strength of character, and integrity.

Agenda for today:

1. Set the tone for the New Year

2. Kwanzaa principle

3

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Light an imaginary candle for witness

4. Read "The Creativity Book"

5. Soyal retreat practices for witness

6. Witness brainstorm

7. First bird

8. Pre-K school plans

9. Projects for the week

Maslenitsa

Maslenitsa (масленица) is the oldest of all Russian holidays. It began as a spring equinox festival called Jarilo, named for the Slavic god of the vegetation and spring. Later it became a Christian holiday, starting on the Monday one week before the Eastern Orthodox Lent.

Maslenitsa is the Russian version of Carnival, with eating, drinking, sledding, games, and costume parades. Like many spring festivals it's a melding of Christianity and Earth Religion, and all of its events still focus on driving away the winter and re-awakening nature.

In Russia, Maslenitsa lasts the entire week, and ends with Forgiveness Sunday, the day before the start of Orthodox Lent, on Clean Monday (February 27th this year).

Agenda:

1. Choose a theme for Lent

2. Set intentions for Lent

2. Make an effigy doll

2. Make blini pancakes

Year of Witness

My theme for this year is Witness, and I started off strong in January with that focus, but my attention has wandered. 

Witness (verb): To have personal or direct cognizance of something important or amazing; to see or experience something oneself, and then to testify, make a statement based on that personal knowledge or belief.

In the Bible, “bearing witness,” is when someone sees something important or amazing, and then begins to share what they’ve seen. Quakers call it testimony - the public witness of an inward faith; the consequence of one’s relationship to God and the outworking of that relationship in one’s life. Friends have always believed that what was most important was how you live your faith in the world.

Today I will review my start-of-year intentions, and see if I need to make a change or a recommittal.

Agenda:

1. Review Witness intentions

2. Witness ideas for fall

3. Tiny steps for art as witness

4. Recharge my talisman

Great Saturday Retreat

Today is Great Saturday or Holy Saturday, the day between Jesus' death and his resurrection. In the Church, it's celebrated with watchful expectation and funeral hymns. 

I'm celebrating it with a morning retreat, for reading, writing, and working in the garden!

Agenda Today: 

1. Read "Root and Ritual"

2. Make a talisman

3. Planting

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

Witness for Peace

Quakers are led by Divine guidance to cherish peace, and to testify against all wars and the use of violence.

Our Faith and Practice says: 

"Our peace testimony begins with opposition to war and is a positive affirmation of the power of good to overcome evil. ... We work to change those elements which violate our conviction that there is that of God in everyone."

By testimony we mean a call to bear witness, by our words and actions, to our ideals.

Agenda
1. Journal queries

2. Light a candle for Witness

3. Plan a Quaker Christmas celebration

4. A minute on the Conflict in Gaza

5. Set out more candles