These ponderings originally appeared one per day via MailChimp. This weekly version keeps them in one place for people who missed the daily postings. If you would like to sign up to get them daily, you can do so by filling out the Mailing List Form HERE. Welcome Samhain In the cycle of the ancient …
Yes, Yes. I know it’s Saturday, but this is a Wednesday-type reflection so we are all going to pretend it is Wednesday. Flipping through a magazine in a waiting room recently, I saw an article titled something like, “The Real Science Behind Star Wars”. I didn’t get to read it because my name was …
In light of the events of the past week (month, year, decade, century), I find myself trying to balance between a self-protective human instinct and a deeply held higher value. It is, perhaps, natural to barricade ourselves and our children in the safest place we can find, close our eyes, put our fingers in our …
Samhain is the season of essences, of bones and sinews. Therefore, one of the natural tasks of Samhain is attending to our relationship with our ancestors (the bones and sinews that support our lives), sending our spirit questing deep into our roots, feeling the breadth and flexible strength of our branches. For some of us, …
As Advent is to the church year, so Samhain is to the Celtic year: a new beginning, a doorway opening into infinite possibility. This year, Daylight Savings ends in the United States on 1 November (the first day of Samhain), so we will have a very visible reminder that we are slowing and darkening toward …
Just over a month ago, I turned to my husband and said, “I can’t imagine being part of a religious tradition where thousands of people die on pilgrimage.” The reports from Mecca every year touch a primal fear in me. I hate crowds. Even in high school and college I wouldn’t go to concerts because …
High Holy Days open conversations in paradoxical ways. Sometimes dialogue around the extended family table seems anything but. Often it is a rote repetition of past years, little more than familiar monologues competing for airspace. A neutral observer might wonder if there had been an intervening year, or growth, or change, or world (national, community, …
Christmas Eve is a particularly busy and special time in clergy households. The whole day focuses toward the services that mark this night in a profound and intense way that is hard to explain to others. Everything else becomes peripheral to that worship and the preparation for it. No matter how stressed the days leading …
In the northern hemisphere, the winter solstice is upon us. On December 21 at 4:03 MST, the North Pole reaches the point at which it is tilted furthest – 23.5 degrees – away from the Sun. One breath later, we begin to tilt slowly back toward the light, toward warmth, toward longer days and shorter …
The world has trained us to think that winter (especially December) is about giving. We are all supposed to rush around giving things – preferably lots of things – to one another. There is nothing wrong with giving: the world can certainly use more generosity of heart, spirit, mind, time, love, and money. Moreover, there …