The Cycle Begins Again
with Light in the Darkness
I have been noticing lately how early it is getting dark. We’re still weeks from the solstice and it already feels like time for bed before we’ve even had dinner. The northern hemisphere is slowing down and I can feel it.
We’ve had a glorious fall, full of good things, but full nonetheless. I feel like I have been going non-stop since the second week of September, and a quick flip through my calendar confirms the feeling.
One of the reasons this fall has been as bursting-at-the-seams as it has been is because I have been leaning into some new opportunities to foster community around art and faith in our valley. We’ve been hosting moots (pie moot! fieldmoot! housemoot!) and house concerts, and I’ve been trying to find ways to encourage those who are making art in our community to find opportunities to share it. I’m delighted that our church was able to put together an Advent resource in house this year featuring art, poetry, meditations, and prayers of ten individuals in our congregation. Along with the Advent resource, we have all of the art on display in a gallery at the church for the season. These are new and beautiful expressions of worship in our faith community and they fill my heart with joy.
Now, though, we’ve had two snowfalls in a week and the accumulated snow has introduced a hush inside and out that feels just right. It’s time to slow down, to lean into the quiet, to be held in the darkness. It is, after all, in the darkness that the light is born.
I don’t have a plan for slowing down, but just the fact of having Christmas decorations up makes it more enticing for me to sit in my chair next to the tree and read with a cup of tea. Today I even napped in my chair, which felt like its own gift of sabbath and slowness. What are the ways you slow down? What do the rhythms of this season hold for you?
Advent Poem-a-Day
During the month of November I join with poets around the world, and especially in my poetry community, The Poetry Pub, to write a poem a day. There are prompts we follow and places we post, and it’s always good for me to practicing showing up day after day to this craft of writing poetry. Of course, once we reach the end of November it feels a shame to fall into the inevitable writing lapse immediately, so we continue a poem a day with AdventPAD!
This year, my photographer friend Naomi Klockmann, and I collaborated on some Advent prompts that are visual *and* verbal. If you’d like to join in, use the prompts (posted in the chat) to make a poem, prayer, or some other art form and post it in the comments or on Instagram (tag @punamulta.priory with #AdventPAD). You can pull your inspiration from the image or the word/phrase or both. Whatever helps you lean into slowing down enough to write or paint or pray through the prompts for Advent!
Punamulta Parish: Advent House Concert
We had our first house concert in October with Matthew Clark. It was such a great experience that we’ve got a couple more house concerts lined up! The next one is on October 12 with John Hermanson and Maren Haynes Marchesini. John has composed an Advent series from Isaiah that he and Maren will be performing on guitar, cello, and vocals, and we’d love to have you join us if you can! RSVP and details can be found here: https://forms.gle/ypgrwQFb6JwmgHzu8
