Today is the first day of Advent, and, for me, the first day of the new year. I observe both this new year and the one where the calendar flips over to 2015, and spend the intervening month reflecting on the year past, and looking forward to the next one.
My Advent practice for 2014 includes the following:
– The Meaning is in the Waiting (Paula Gooder) – a section a day
– A Feast for Advent (Delia Smith, yes, that Delia Smith) – a section a day
– Advent candle (starts, irritatingly, at 1; I have burned the tip of it today, for 30)
– responding to Reverb prompts
– making an O Antiphons calendar (at the moment this consists of 21 purple-painted cardboard circles)
– as much rest as possible
– limiting personal purchases and instead making a daily donation to The Children’s Society
– bringing out one Christmas decoration every day
December is, inevitably, busy, and I’m still not entirely well, so some of these may fall by the wayside as I go through this. That’s normal. I hope, however, to be here almost every day, and deliberately, consciously, with myself every day, too.
Kathleen Jowitt 