Lady Day: Sunday 25th March 2018

Once upon a time – before the 6^th century, and again between 1155 and 1752 to be exact – today was New Year's Day! But instead of wishing you a Happy New Year, I'll remind you that, nine months from today it'll be Christmas Day. And no, this isn't a prompt to start planning, let alone shopping! But it is a day marked by Christian churches in commemoration of Jesus' conception – whenever and however that actually was. And that conception involves two 'awesome' things: the fact of incarnation in the person of Jesus, fully human, fully divine; and, necessary for that to happen, the 'yes' of Mary.

The story goes that Mary was visited by the angel Gabriel, God's messenger, a spiritual being, one of only two named angels in the Bible (the other is Michael), who stand 'in the presence of the Lord' (Luke 1.19).

For those of us who have been sceptical about the existence of angels, it's worth noting that they make appearances several times in the New Testament:

• Gabriel visits Zechariah (father of John, the Baptist) as well as Mary;
• Joseph is twice visited by angels – regarding his marriage to Mary, and to warn him to flee from Herod;
• angels appear to the shepherds at the time of Jesus' birth;
• an angel ministers to Jesus after his temptation by the devil, and again to strengthen him in the Garden of Gethsemane;
• an angel stirs the waters of the pool of Bethesda, to enable healing;
• there are angels at the empty tomb where Jesus was laid;
• an angel frees the apostles from prison in Jerusalem;
• and finally angels appears to Cornelius, to Peter in prison in Joppa, and to Paul, at sea on one of his missionary voyages.

There are lots of other references to angels throughout the Bible, including Jesus being quoted as saying: '

'Take care that you do not despise one of these little ones; for, I tell you, in heaven their angels continually see the face of my Father in heaven'

(Matthew 18.10).

Whether you sense the presence of angels or not, you might like to celebrate this feast day either with an angel food cake (perhaps baked in a circular bundt or savarin cake tin, as a sign of the circle of the year?) or the classic British Angel Cake: pink, yellow, and plain sponge, sandwiched together with buttercream. Yum. If you're of a Swedish persuasion, make waffles – today is also Vaffeldagen!

         

The Spring Equinox: Wednesday 21st March 2018

Many of us experience a sense of awe at the natural world, and want to mark our connectedness with nature, and express our thanks for its sustaining goodness. Particular points in the turning year may be understood as corresponding with different stages of our lives – which may help us to make some sense of our life experiences, and to go onwards more cheerfully and trustingly.

The Spring Equinox is celebrated around 21^st March in the Northern Hemisphere, and 21^st September in the Southern Hemisphere. This festival of the Sun marks a time of equality of day and night, when light is increasing. We recognise around us signs of Spring, as flowers appear, trees come into leaf, and we sow the seeds for the fruits and plants which will ripen in the summer. It is also a time when we may remember the Spring of our own lives, when we were children, growing, exploring, learning, playing: preparing our bodies, minds, hearts, and souls for adulthood. And we are reminded of the pleasures and responsibilities that adults bear, in nurturing the youngsters who are part of our lives.

The short responsive liturgy, below, is appropriate for use by individuals or by any group of people, especially before sharing a meal together. If possible, sit in a circle. You will need a pile of stones and a container of water (big enough to hold all the stones), and a Loving Cup – a large cup or beaker of wine or juice, enough for everyone present to take a sip of. Everyone is invited to join in saying the words in bold type.

The liturgies, celebrations, ceremonies, prayers, and reflections offered on this blog are the result of my thoughts, reflections, and experiences, woven together using my own words and sometimes adapting the words others have used: I am indebted to their wisdom. Please use these liturgies freely, adapting them as suits your own context. I am always pleased to hear from people who have used them.

The Welcome and Thanksgiving:

Welcome to you all, as we gather today to celebrate the Spring Equinox.

We offer thanks for the arrival of this Spring Equinox,

for the wonder & glory of the life of the world around us,

and for the mysteries, the strengths, and the vulnerabilities of nature:

       We offer thanks!

We offer thanks for our human lives, so full of possibility and potential,

for our own strengths and vulnerabilities,

for all we have experienced thus far,

and for the children, and the child-like, in our lives:

       We offer thanks!

As adults and as children, help us to fulfil our own potential,

to enable others to lead full lives,

and to delight in our world, and in one another:

       We offer thanks for the gift of life,

       and for all the blessings bestowed on us.

A short time of quiet is kept,

to reflect on what we are particularly thankful for,

and what we particularly regret.

The Cleansing:

Within the wonder of human life,

we have the freedom to choose our own actions and words:

       Sometimes we make mistakes

       and do things or say things that we regret.

Sometimes we allow these mistakes and regrets to become burdens:

       Burdens which weigh us down and hold us back.

Here and now, we can choose to release these burdens:

       We are thankful for what they have taught us,

       and have confident hope to move on from them.

If you wish, take a stone,

which represents the burdens of past mistakes and regrets.

Hold the stone until you are ready to let it, and the past, go.

Then release the stone gently into the water.

These stones have represented for us our past mistakes and regrets:

       I have learnt from you and I let you go.

       Be gone and be free.

The Sharing:

Everyday is a new beginning:

       And a new opportunity to share the blessings of life and love.

This Loving Cup is a sign of all that we share together:

       I share with you the Cup of Blessing.

The Loving Cup is passed around the circle for all to drink from.

The Closing:

We have given thanks:

       We have released our burden of regret,

       and we have shared the Cup of Love and Blessing.

Now we lift our future to our Creator's care:

       As we grow in age, may we grow also in grace.

May the sun bring us new energy by day:

       May the moon softly restore us by night.

May the rain wash away our worries:

       May the breeze fill us with new strength.

May we walk gently through the world:

       And may we know its beauty all the days of our lives.

       Amen! So mote it be!

Food for the Feast:

The festival of Nowruz (Persian new year) falls on the same date as the Spring Equinox, and is traditionally celebrated with a special dinner of seven symbolic food dishes each beginning with the letter 'S': sabzeh (sprouted seeds of wheat, barley or lentils), samanu (a wheat pudding), senjed (dried oleaster berries), sīr (garlic), sīb (apples), somaq (sumac berries) and serkeh (vinegar). The feast may also include herby omelettes, rice pilaf, stuffed vine leaves, and various sweet pastries – all sounding very tempting!

Slightly simpler, our own dinner is planned around eggs, seeds, and grains - all significant reminders of new life: frittata, salads and spring greens, seedy bread rolls, buckwheat pilaf, creamy rice pudding, and spicy ginger cake.

Decorative details:

As you would by now expect of me, I could make another wreath for our front door, using some of the whippy green spring growth from our trees, hedges, and shrubs as a base (yellow flowered forsythia would be great for this), and adding in some bright colours using spring flowers, ribbons, and decorative butterflies or birds. But instead I'm going to use an idea I saw on the Country Living website, and hang a pretty semi-closed umbrella on the door by its handle, and fill it with greenery and flowers. Simple! (And it's always handy to have an umbrella at this time of year!)

Indoors, the main decoration will of course be an egg tree, again very simple to make, using a large twig in a jug, and decorated egg shells, either blown or halves (no wonder we want to keep our own chickens!) hung from ribbon or string. (There are lots of illustrations on-line if you're not familiar with egg trees.)

And finally my candle-in-a-pot idea, that I used at the Winter Solstice, will make a re-appearance down the table centre, but this time topping the pots with small stones (like the ones used in the liturgy) rather than moss, and alternating along the plank with pots of spring flowers – whatever has survived this week's snow and is still flowering at the time: crocus, primroses, jonquils, or grape hyacinth.

Ash Wednesday: Wednesday 14th February 2018

Ash Wednesday is a Christian festival marking the first day of Lent, which traditionally is a time of penitence and fasting, leading up to Holy Week and Easter. The name is derived from the practice of blessing ashes, made from the palm branches of the previous year's Palm Sunday, and using them to mark the sign of the cross on people's foreheads, accompanied by the words (based on Genesis 3.19): 'Remember that you are dust and to dust you shall return'. The ashes are a sign both of our mortality and of sorrow for our failings.

The liturgy below is appropriate for use by any group of people. If possible, sit in a circle or round a table. You will need a piece of paper and a pen for each person present, matches, and a fire-proof container to burn the paper in. Please

exercise common sense when using matches, and ensure everyone's safety.

Everyone is invited to join in saying the responsive words in bold type. There may be one leader to say the biddings, or you can take it in turns, round the circle.

The liturgies, celebrations, ceremonies, prayers, and reflections offered on this blog are the result of my thoughts, reflections, and experiences, woven together using my own words and sometimes adapting words others have used: I am indebted to their wisdom. Please use these liturgies freely, developing them as suits your own context – but I would always be pleased to hear from you if you do so.

Opening words:

For everything there is a season,

and a time for every purpose under heaven:

       a time to be born and a time to die;

       a time to mourn and a time to dance. (Ecclesiastes 3.1,2a,4b)

Today is a time to reflect, to clear our minds and spirits

from all that we have cluttered our selves up with,

the many thoughts and feelings that clog up our freedom,

the many regrets that prevent us from moving forwards,

the many fears that make us cling to the life we know:

       Today is a time to rest in the grace of our Creator.

A short time of silence is kept for private reflection

on the preoccupations that we need to release in order to progress

Act of Penitence and Release:

We all need to admit our sorrow for our selfish preoccupations,

for our lack of courage and of trust.

       We all need to admit our shame

       for the things we have said and done that were unloving,

       and for the loving things we have not said or done.

Each person takes a piece of paper,

writes down what they need to say sorry for and to let go of,

scrunches up the paper, and places it in the fire-proof container.

Let us release the things for which we are sorry, and for ever let them go:

       We release for ever our unloving actions and words;

       we release for ever our neediness, our fears, and our anxieties;

       we release for ever our impatience, our pride, our regrets;

       we release for ever our joys and our pains.

       We release for ever all that prevents us

       from being our true selves.

The papers are burnt within the fire-proof container.

Ensure that they have safely turned to ash.

Let us unclench our fists and our hearts:

       May our hands and hearts be open to whatever is ahead.

A short time of silence is again kept for private reflection

Responsive reading: adapted from Psalm 51

Have mercy on us, O God, according to your steadfast love:       Purge us and wash away all we have done wrong.

As you desire truth in the inward being,

therefore teach us wisdom in our secret hearts:

       Let us hear joy and gladness;

       create in us clean hearts,

       and put new and right spirits within us.

Restore to us the joy of knowing your presence,

and sustain within us willing spirits to seek you and to act from love:

       Accept our broken and contrite hearts,

       that we may, from now onwards, live in peace and trust,

       and always respond generously to the needs of others.

Grant us ears to hear the truth that you would speak to us,

and eyes to see the path you would have us take:

       Walk with us on the Lenten journey,

       and until our days end.

Reading: extracts from East Coker by T.S. Eliot

 In my beginning is my end. In succession
 houses rise and fall, crumble, are extended,
 are removed, destroyed, restored, or in their place
 is an open field, or a factory, or a by-pass.
 Old stone to new building, old timber to new fires,
 old fires to ashes, and ashes to the earth
 which is already flesh, fur, and faeces,
 bone of man and beast, cornstalk and leaf.
 Houses live and die: there is a time for building
 and a time for living and for generation
 and a time for the wind to break the loosened pane
 and to shake the wainscot where the field mouse trots
 and to shake the tattered arras woven with a silent motto...
  In my beginning is my end...
  Do not let me hear of the wisdom of old men, 
  but rather of their folly, 
  Their fear of fear and frenzy, their fear of possession,
  of belonging to another, or to others, or to God.
  The only wisdom we can hope to acquire 
  is the wisdom of humility: humility is endless.
  The houses are all gone under the sea.
  The dancers are all gone under the hill... 
  They all go into the dark,
  The vacant interstellar spaces, the vacant into the vacant...
  All go into the dark... 
  And we all go with them...
 I said to my soul, be still, and let the dark come upon you
 which shall be the darkness of God. 
 As, in a theatre, the lights are extinguished, for the scene to be changed
 with a hollow rumble of wings, with a movement of darkness on darkness,
 and we know that the hills and the trees, the distant panorama
 and the bold imposing facade are all being rolled away...
  I said to my soul, be still, and wait without hope,
  for hope would be hope for the wrong thing; 
  wait without love,
  for love would be love of the wrong thing; 
  there is yet faith,
  but the faith and the love and the hope are all in the waiting.
  Wait without thought, for you are not ready for thought:
  so the darkness shall be the light, and the stillness the dancing...
 In order to arrive there,
 to arrive where you are, to get from where you are not,
 you must go by a way wherein there is no ecstasy.
 In order to arrive at what you do not know
 you must go by a way which is the way of ignorance.
 In order to possess what you do not possess
 you must go by the way of dispossession.
 In order to arrive at what you are not
 you must go through the way in which you are not.
 And what you do not know is the only thing you know,
 and what you own is what you do not own,
 and where you are is where you are not...
  Home is where one starts from. 
  As we grow older the world becomes stranger, 
  the pattern more complicated of dead and living. 
  Not the intense moment, isolated, with no before and after,
  but a lifetime burning in every moment
  and not the lifetime of one man only
  but of old stones that cannot be deciphered.
  There is a time for the evening under starlight,
  a time for the evening under lamplight... 
  Love is most nearly itself when here and now cease to matter.
 Old men ought to be explorers;
 here and there does not matter;
 we must be still and still moving into another intensity
 for a further union, a deeper communion
 through the dark cold and empty desolation,
 the wave cry, the wind cry, the vast waters
 of the petrel and the porpoise. 
 In my end is my beginning...

Music: Corala Barbateasca Ortodoxa: Laudati pre Domnul

or another piece of music of your choice

Closing words:

In my beginning is my end:

       In my end is my beginning.

We rest in the grace of our Creator in life and in death:

       There is a time for every purpose,

        and a season for all things;

       a time to mourn and a time to dance,

       a time to be born and a time to die.

Death is the threshold to something new,

something we cannot yet see or hear or imagine:

       We cannot yet cross over that threshold,

       although our lives are brief

       and will one day come to an end.

All matter originated in the burst of heat and light

which created our galaxy billions of years ago:

      We are made of the same stuff

       as the stars, the planets, and this earth itself,

       which we know in this life as our home.

From earth to earth, from ashes to ashes,

from star-dust to star-dust, we shall return.

       We remember that we are star-dust,

       and to star-dust we shall return.

May we, with all creatures, come home at last,

to rest free from illusion, pain, or regret,

and for ever in peace:

       Amen. So may it be.

Candlemas: 1st February

Candlemas: Thursday 1^st February 2018

Different points in the turning year may be understood as corresponding with different stages of our lives – which may help us to make some sense of our life experiences, and to go onwards more cheerfully and with greater trust.

The Feast of Candlemas, appropriated by the Christian Church to celebrate the presentation of the baby Jesus at the Temple and the purification of Mary his mother, was previously a festival in honour both of the Goddess (particularly in the person of Brigid) and of the first stirrings of Spring – snowdrops appearing, snows melting, lambs being born. It is celebrated on the evening of 1^st February (or on the evening of 1st August in the Southern Hemisphere). It is a time of

celebration, of poetry and song; and it is a festival of light, when lamps and candles are lit and placed in the windows of the house as a sign of the

re-awakening of the earth as it shakes off the mantle of the winter sleep.

The short responsive liturgy, below, can be used by individuals, but is especially appropriate for use by groups, perhaps before sharing a meal together. If

possible, sit around a table.

You will need five large candles, a small candle or night-light for each person present, and matches to light them. Please exercise common sense when lighting candles, and do not allow there to be any risk of fire.

Ask everyone who attends to bring with them something they have created: a song, a picture, a poem, a cake, a piece of sewing or knitting, some woodwork...

Everyone is invited to join in saying the responsive words in bold type. There may be one leader to say the biddings, or you can take it in turns, round the circle.

I am posting this early, so that you can make any preparations you need to before Thursday.

The liturgies, celebrations, ceremonies, prayers, and reflections offered on this blog are the result of my thoughts, reflections, and experiences, woven together using my own words and sometimes adapting the words others have used: I am

indebted to their wisdom. Please use these liturgies freely, adapting them as suits your own context. I am always pleased to hear from people who have used them.

The Welcome and Lighting of Candles:

Welcome to you all, as we gather to celebrate Candlemas,

and the first stirrings of Spring.

We give thanks for the signs of the turning of the year,

as the warming rays of the sun thaw the frozen earth:

       It is time to stir from hibernation,

       to awaken from Winter, and be renewed by Spring.

The power to change lies within us all:

       We are responsible for our own destinies.

As the Earth provides all that its creatures need,

so may we find fertile soil within our selves

for new ideas and new possibilities:

       Grant us strong roots and nourishment for growth,

       that we may be both grounded and free.

The first candle is lit

As the invisible Air enables the breath of life,

gently stirring the leaves, and roaring around the globe,

so may our imaginations and our abilities be charged and channelled:

       May we be inspired to soar on the winds of change

       above the confusions of everyday life.

The second candle is lit

As Fire warms, refines, and transforms,

so may our consciences be stirred with creativity and compassion:

       May our actions be dynamic and gentle, generous and just.

The third candle is lit

As Water ebbs and flows, to cleanse and to refresh,

so may our hearts learn to accept the gains and losses of life:

        May we release our selves from the past,

       and be granted the humility to receive as well as to give.

The fourth candle is lit

As sunshine follows shadow, as day follows night, as spring follows winter,

so may we trust in the cycle of life, and know that all our needs are met:

       May our souls be filled with hope and joy,

       and may love shine through us.

The central candle is lit

A time of quiet is now kept while we reflect on

which one facet of our lives is most in need of renewal.

When you are ready, take a small candle

and light it from one of the five large candles, saying:

I light this candle for renewal in my life

and the life of those I love.

The Sharing:

Now is the time to share some of our creations.

Go round the circle, giving everyone the opportunity

to show what they have brought,

and to explain something about it and about how they felt while making it.

When everyone has shared their creation,

this is a good time for a meal, for music and dancing, for poetry and song.

At the close of the evening, please use the following blessing.

The Closing Blessing:

Blesséd is the spring, bright season of re-awakening life:

       Our hearts are gladdened as the earth puts on robes of splendour.

Blesséd is the spring, warming our cold spirits into blossoming:

       In You is the life that will for ever return.

Blesséd is the spring, inviting us to sing new songs and dance new dances:

       You call us to life we have not yet tasted.

Blesséd is the spring, glorious gift of the earth, season of promise and renewal:

       You rise up from darkness and sleep,
       with your wand of many colours,
       working your magic in forgotten corners.

Blesséd is the spring, amazing us each year with the miracle of returning life:

       Blesséd is the spring!

As each person leaves the gathering, they take their candle with them,

to be placed, if it is safe to do so, in one of the windows of their own home

and left to burn down through the night (the candle, not the home!)

Food for the Feast:

Dairy food, bread, and young green vegetables and salads are the traditional fare at this time of year, so our menu will be The William's version of galettes, rolled around what he kindly calls 'Magrat's Magic Mix' of onion, spinach, and mushrooms, and topped with spicy tomato sauce; soft seeded bread rolls, cheeses, salads of whatever greens we can find, and finally coffee and honey cake.

Decorative details:

This is the day for taking down any remaining greenery from the Winter Solstice and Christmas, and putting it (and the green spirits which have been nesting in it) outside, now that the spring is coming, thus returning the fertility to the earth.

Having been quite restrained in December, with the green, red, and gold colour scheme, now is our chance to enjoy silvers and whites, including crystal icicles and snowflakes. I shall be using them to decorate the window sills and frames along with lots of candles and, if I can find any, little pots of snowdrops, which we'll later plant out in the garden. The Brigid's Cross we were given at our betrothal will take pride of place over the hearth.