Exploring the Sacredness of Winter
Winter is a sacred time that offers us particular challenges. Winter nights are long and cold. Nature slows down. The trees are bare, their sap running thick and slow and creatures hibernate and live off of the abundance of summer. We usually gather together during the long evenings and restore ourselves with celebrations of light and gatherings with loved ones. This series of virtual gatherings in the time of Covid is intended to help participants embrace winter and all that it offers us.
This series is designed as a gentle, loving and sacred container for exploring our relationship to the Divine in places we normally would not seek or recognize it. Expanding our capacity to hold the sacredness of all that winter brings - isolation, limited resources, cold and discomfort for example - is part of our work to weave the fabric of a beloved community that cares and tends for all.
Participants are welcome to drop in and out of the series. While the sessions build on each other, they are also designed so that each individual can participate at whatever level they choose.
Saturday December 19th, 10 am-noon: Preparing for Winter: Setting up a Sacred Space and Prayer Life
Over centuries and in every faith, prayer has been a conduit for connecting to the Divine/Spirit/God. Yet in our contemporary lives, understanding how to pray or what it means to pray can be confusing and elusive. During this workshop, participants will explore the meaning of prayer; the diversity of what prayer can look like; what their own style of prayer might be and/or how to deepen the prayer life they already have.
Personal sacred spaces and altars help remind and open us to the Divine as we understand it. They can be as simple as candles on a window sill or a few stones on top of a dresser, or they can be an entire meditation nook, complete with cushion and wall hangings. After exploring what prayer might look like for them, participants will also be invited to begin the process of setting up a sacred space in their home to help facilitate their prayers.
Monday December 21st 7:30-8:30pm: Celebrating the Fertile Night of Solstice
Solstice marks the first day of winter and longest night of the year. We will gather to recognize this evening with a celebration of the gifts that come to us after the sun has set and the sense of shadow within us. Bulbs are waiting patiently under frozen ground for their time to bloom in the spring thaw and summer sun. What can we learn from the fertility of the longest night? What do we need to release? What is growing within us? This hour long celebration will include time for individual and group reflection, worship and prayer.
Friday January 1st 1-2pm Releasing 2020 and Welcoming in the New Year
2020 has been a year like no other. From the vantage point between the two years, still in the middle of a pandemic, and still in transition between two presidents, let us gather on the first day of the New Year. This will be a worshipful and interactive time for us to reflect both individually and collectively. We will consider the challenges and surprising gifts of 2020 and look towards what we are being called to next. What needs to be released? What lamentation is left to be honored? What do we need in this moment? What can we celebrate? How are we part of the movement towards a more just society? What shall we call forth for 2021?
