Goddess Inspired Advent
If you have been looking for a meaning-full way to celebrate the season of Light with your family, perhaps the Goddess Inspired Advent could be the tool for you.
It's a weekly story of the advent, juxtaposed with the Rhythm of Life.
I've been writing ritual and performing ceremony from a Goddess perspective for many years. It has always felt important that I celebrate social times with customs that are meaningful now, in this lifetime, on this land, in this culture. There are plenty of customs that are alive in the mainstream culture I grew up in that had no meaning and never made sense to me.
When my children came along, that need for authentic customs became even more apparent. Some customs we threw away entirely. Others we rewrote for authenticity of living now.Santa Claus didn't suit our Southern Hemisphere summer time needs, so I introduced the Christmas Faerie, who comes a few days after Midsummer to give gratitude for the gifts that were set out for her and her friends at the solstice. We've never done the Christian thing, but I've always been fascinated by the idea of the Christ child, made of heavens and earth who's story reminds us that we all have potential and that anything is possible.
We were celebrating our own version of Xmas, so still relatives would send "christmassy" kinds of gifts, and every year we received a chocolate advent calendar. I like the idea of counting down, but there was no meaning in opening a window and finding cheap gross confectionery on the other side.
Meanwhile, I was exploring Waldorf approaches to ceremony. I love the way in which this system is able to bring the sacred into so many aspects of everyday for children and families. But the Steiner cult is no more for me than Christianity. Hence, I wrote my own advent.
The Goddess Inspired Advent draws on the elements : Air, Water, Fire and Earth to tell the story of what happens when the Sun and Moon give birth to new life. For four Mondays (moon-days) leading up to Xmas or the Solstice, another layer of the story is shared.
While the Moon Priestess and the Sun Priest journey to the Sacred Place of their vision to birth their child, we also witness three great Medicine People on journeys of their own. Traveling from the farthest corners of the Earth, each Shaman is following her/his wisdom of a prophecy that says that the greatest time in Earth's herstory is about to come.
Of course, you know how the story ends… or do you?
Here is the story, the storybook images and activities we've used in our family to celebrate the Goddess Inspired Advent. You will receive six emails over five weeks which include :
- A short herstory of advent
- 5 audio chapters of the Goddess Inspired Advent story
- 3 storybook photos for each chapter
- ideas for exploring and celebrating each week's theme
For an indepth discussion on advent see the article On how Goddess Inspired Advent came to be... and what it could become in your house.
Email Delivery Schedule :
#1 : Advent and You#2 : Chapter One Goddess Inspired Advent#3 : Chapter Two Goddess Inspired Advent#4 : Chapter Three Goddess Inspired Advent#5 : Chapter Four Goddess Inspired Advent#5B : Chapter Five Goddess Inspired Advent : the conclusion
.Chapters are delivered daily for 5 daysChapters are designed to be shared with your family each Monday for the 4 weeks before Xmas. You can use them whenever you like though. And once you've had them the first year, you can use them again and again in future years! [product sku="GIA"] Here is what Catherine said after her family used the Goddess Inspired Advent story :
What was the best part of having a Goddess Inspired Advent? It helped me create our path.
If you did something special for advent will you share what happened in your house? We focused inwardly, and chose to have a simple quiet Christmas day rather than process it. We donated clothes to vinnies... we made special hats to wear at xmas lunch...we decorated our tree with our memory/symbolic items...we put up fairy lights and a fun colour changing light...we painted a mural together...
Will you use it again next year? I can see myself using it differently, more deeply, with more preparation.
For an indepth discussion on advent see the article On how Goddess Inspired Advent came to be... and what it could become in your house. May your awareness in the light grow in the most joy-full ways!
View on Instagram : #goddessinspiredadvent
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