Wonder and Preparation
An “Advent” series for the Winter Solstice Season
It can be hard to enter the long nights of Winter.
Dominant culture pretends that it has conquered nature,
forgetting age-old wisdom about entering the cold.
Join us in re-engaging with this Season - so simple! -
through sound and song and sharing - and learning from our fellow creatures!
You are welcome to join one or any of our three online sessions.
December 3, December 10, December 17
Wednesdays, 3:30 to 4:30 pm ET
Sliding Scale Price:
Single Session: $10 – $35
Three-Session Bundle: $30 – $100
The dark is not an end. It’s a door. It’s the way a new beginning comes.
This anticipatory moment leading up to Winter Solstice does not have to be so rushed and ‘crazy’. Or so lonely.
Even amongst social pressures to “finish the year strong” and “do all the things before the end of the year,” there is a deeper truth. A truth our ancestors and our relatives in still-intact cultures and our more-than-human kin still ReMember.
For this is also a time of wonder and preparation, as the nights lengthen and the days become shorter, as the temperature drops and the stars become more brilliant in the crisp night air. It is a time of waiting and watching, of listening to stories and lighting candles and singing together. It is a time of decorating with evergreens, gathering around the fire, sharing meals, entering the holy darkness. It is a time of rest, of going inward, too. It is a time for curling into warm blankets and around the known and unknown seeds that are planted in our souls, germinating while waiting for the arrival of spring.
Within the Christian advent practice of anticipating the birth of the divine in the form of a human child is an older, ecologically-orientated practice of witnessing the growth of the dark, the swelling of night, and then those long solstice nights, when the sun stands still, before the sun begins her movement once again.
We invite you to deepen into your kin-ship with the wintering of the world.
“I really appreciate this opportunity to come together and steep into what this season invites with you all. I loved taking this course last year. Gathering with you all once a week was such a great rhythm. So when this invitation came back this year, I was an immediate yes!”
We gather at sunset.
Sharing witness to the waning of the light.
Each week, we read a story about how different woodland creatures prepare for Winter from Gayle Boss’ lyrical book, “All Creation Waits.” This award-winning children’s story is not just for children. And your young people are welcome to join us!
We learn from and alongside the survival and flourishing capacities of our fellow creatures.
Animal stories are not
just for children!
Gather. Listen. Witness.
In each online gathering, we will open with sound and come together around a story from our woodland relatives. In doing so we come closer to our more-than-human kin, to feel into our creatureliness and our soft, vulnerable animal skins. To lean into what is cozy, homey, and supportive; into a time of dreaming and being dreamed.
Then there will be a collective reflection to share how we are noticing the season. Questions may include:
How are you entering/deepening into the dark? Is there grief, fear, or delight? How is it for you to have fewer and fewer hours of daylight each day? How are you affected by the cold? The longer nights? What are the seeds that may germinate within you over winter?
What emerges from this particular animal’s preparation process? What stirs for yourself from considering this particular creature?
We close with song.
2024 Participant
“I loved participating in “Wonder and Preparation” last year - I only got to go to one session but the story stayed with me all winter long! Now I’m really hoping to join for the whole season!”
Join one or all three sessions!
Single Session: $10 – $35
Three-Session Bundle: $30 – $100
About your guides…
Who have been working together to create online and in person rituals for many years!
Sara Jolena Wolcott
Rev Sara Jolena Wolcott, M.Div., is an eco-theologian and an unconventional witchy minister. She leads the eco-spiritual initiative, Sequoia Samanvaya. Prior to pursuing her M.Div Union Theological Seminary, she worked in international sustainable development… which included becoming a traveling singer-songwriter in India (some called her “sara-swati” and “Sara-Baul”), where she learned that the power of voice, sound, song, and the open heart in reMembering our relationship to Source. She has revitalized Circular Time as an ancient temporal technology, co-creates rituals (from eco-spiritual baby blessings to memorial services) and actively engages with decolonial relationships with time.
As a spiritual director, she works with leaders who are hearing the call of Gaia in these times.
Reverend Rhetta Morgan
Reverend Rhetta Morgan is a singing healer, spiritual activist, and interfaith minister who has been gathering tools for healing and inspiration for over 40 years. Through her gifts of prayer, poetry, facilitation, and sermonizing, she cultivates hope and nurtures connection in her community as a pathway back to belonging and wholeness.
Amy Outlaw Kietzman
Amy Outlaw Kietzman was born in the1950’s and raised in the Delaware watershed. and After raising 3 daughters in the city of Philadelphia with her husband, is now at home in Cheyney Pennsylvania among the meadows and woods. As a young adult she traveled, studied, lived and worked in Mexico, England and Kenya, returning home to become a nonviolent action trainer and activist and community organizer. A lifelong Quaker, Amy had a spiritual awakening experience in her 40’s that started her on a long journey that to founding the Outlaw Abbey and Kindred of the Wild congregation, an outdoor church seeking communion with all Creation.
Questions? Ideas?
We are here. Feel free to connect and engage!