Midsummer Retreating: St. John the Baptist and Interior Hospitality

I'm taking some time this month to reflect this month. Just a week or so to reconnect with God. I'm not going anywhere..I retreat best at home with my elf-child and my inspiring husband (though Luba is sometimes less than retreat worthy). 

It's the season of St. John. The days are long and bright, the moon is our friend and the nights - though brief, are refreshing. The Season of St. John is a woody season, and earth-season, a wild time of transition for many of us..'He must increase, I must decrease'.

The Baptist is the saint of transitions and roles - defined so completely by his place between the Prophets and the Messiah, Old and New - the Forerunner to Christ.

In this retreat time I'm crafting a rule of life: slowly, gently, building Christ more intimately into my days. The first stage belongs especially to St. John - the stage of roles and relationships. 

I am reflecting on my roles, my relationships with others, and the ways in which I can nourish them while nurturing my own interior life as well.

St. John spent his life in the wilderness. The 'Angel of the Desert,' he is nourish on fasting and on the earth and the Sun, only from a life a part can he touch deeply the people he loves and live out his purpose in life.

For me the wilderness - though less vast and less wild - is also a healing place. Mine is fuller, with more companionship, more noise, but still a place that becomes for me a haven of reflection..a place to put down roots and drink in the whispers of God.

Away from Home....

 

 We've moved for a while..While the weather was bitter.

It's still bitter, but better..and we're still not home. It's just so easy here.

Radiators for heat. Hot water. Gas oven. Indoor bathroom.

Plugs everywhere! And wifi..the kind that doesn't limit access to videos.

Yes. We're having so much fun.

I'm just being lazy..resting, sleeping, doing a bit of a cleanse..and baking in the big

gas oven. And now, I'm excited about bringing my refreshed self 

back home again..when this cold snap truly breaks. 

 Until then, I guess we'll just eat..and write..and draw..and watch videos online - because that's fun too. And it's fun to have fun!

Hope you all are as cozy through the winter chill as we are!

Blessings!

Late Summer Spirituality: Dormition Fast in the Dying Season

The leaves are still green and high, the tomatoes are just starting to ripen. The pigs are heavy, muddy beasts -eating and sleeping their days away. I've a screen of herbs drying above the sleeping stove, and sunlight streaming in through every window; but the nights are bright with autumn stars and my bare-feet are unhappy, running through early morning chill to feed the animals. It's a good season for the fast - vegetables everywhere. I can make a meal without leaving the yard, and watching the summer die feels Marian in a way - a bright, perfect passing - beautiful and too soon.

I'm mourning the season early this year, because August tastes like September now, and because my birthday feels momentous this time around. I can't help hovering over all the things I should have done - almost as much as I anticipate the things yet to be, my "memories of the future" that haunt these magic days. August is a month for magic - a month of otherland wanderings and paths that may not come again..paths leading the Virgin each year back to her Son and me to the hidden places of wood and stream where elderberries laugh under the fading light.

Reflections: Gregory of Nyssa's Life of Moses

"..he teaches, I think, by the things he did that the one who is going to associate intimately with God must go beyond all that is visible and..believe that the divine is there where the understanding does not reach."
   ~Gregory of Nyssa

Gregory's life is interesting, there are bits about it that I love - like the above quote, and absolutely dull bits to skim quickly while nursing or half-asleep. I feel as if I'm missing something half the time..and maybe reading half-asleep will do that. But the reminder again and again that Moses saw God in the darkness, that he had to "go beyond all that is visible and..believe that [God] is ..where the understanding does not reach" is the essence of it all for me. Gregory returns often to the darkness which God has made His hiding place and tells me it is "the place where [Moses'] intelligence lets him slip in where God is..the unknown and unseen."

So perhaps it is better I read him in the dark dawn..half-awake and unresisting; with tea in hand and a blanket wrapped around me. With silence, or the soft sounds of sleep bringing the darkness to life. Waiting for the clouds to lift, for the sun to rise and warm the garden, and to "never cease straining toward those things that are still to come." (Phil 3:13) as Gregory encourages in his reflections on the man who approached the dark and returned with a face radiant as the sun.

 

Simple Pleasures on Sunny Days

I spent the afternoon outdoors. Laying out under the sun and trying to keep from burning my new tattoo. The bugs didn’t bother me - I was too well hidden in the tall grass beside our house. Yarrow napped long and peaceful in front of the fan and Seth did practical, Saturday-afternoon projects, but I just worshiped the sun, the warm earth, and the quiet all around. I’m preparing for August. The month I turn thirty and the month I’ve set aside for retreat and reflection.

In preparation, I’m working to get my days running smoothly (smoother anyway). Waking before my alarm most mornings and replacing coffee with tea. I am deciding on a time to be online, a time to be available for texts and calls, I’m deciding on lectio Divina for my early morning hours, weeding and harvesting after breakfast, afternoon walks, focused cleaning, prayers and journaling..in short a spiritual detox. A time to form my flighty self in the imitation of Christ. 

I’m giving myself a good part of Yarrow’s average nap-time for writing. I don’t know if anything will come of it - summer is not my season - but I would like to give myself the opportunity that discipline brings. It will not be journal-writing, nor editing, but writing with form, shape, and direction. I would like to give myself tasks and themes to direct the time. I’m not sure whether I’ll be putting together my own, or if there are helpful tools out there I can absorb..Any suggestions??

Quiet Days

The storm has kept us all home while we wait it out and clean up. Tomorrow, my husband will likely go back to work, and I will settle back into the winter routine. But these couple days are a delightful break in stride..for me anyway, Seth has had to split wood and snowblow yet again. But we are all making pretty project - fabric birds for a baby-shower, a cover for the down comforter from my old silk-skirts, and crayon sketches of ‘pretty’ and ‘wow’ to be admired by all.

Life is good and glad, and joyful, despite a quiets sense of mourning for our beloved Pope, who retreats to well earned quiet today. Our tiny church sends out prayers for him and his successor.

Tea Retreat

Jenna and I are retreating from our discussion for the season. We have plans to pick it up - less often and refreshed, after Christmas. For the rest of this month, I’m pursuing other projects. Christmas is fast approaching - I have a little dress to make, presents to wrap, pork to collect from the butcher, and so many winter plans to bring to fruition. We have an icy layer of snow on the ground, it’s a loud walking under the stars, when everything else is silent.

I’m planning my own retreat from Cyganeria for a week or so, because our last discussion of the distractions inherent in our technological world has reminded me of my own tendency to become absorbed in the world online. So I’ll be writing more, praying more, reading more, and putting my snow-covered yard in order this week, all while hopefully building those daily habits of beauty that I so desire to make a part of every moment.

 

Enjoy a week of tea and reflection, with a good book or two, and some homemade croissants. A delightful accompaniment to snowy afternoon reading is a drink called London Fog: early grey tea, steamed milk (or light cream) and just a hint of vanilla (I like tossing half a vanilla bean in the milk as it heats on the stove). It’s lovely with croissants, or Russian tea cakes (if you don’t put any sugar in your tea).