Order of Service - Dec. 21, 2016 Winter Solstice
Date of Service:
December 21, 2016
December 21, 2016, 7pm Winter Solstice
May the light around us guide our footste…ps
may the darkness around us nurture our dreams.
-- Kathleen McTigue
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*Gathering Song Return Again Shlomo Carlebach
Return again, return again, return to the home of your soul. (x 2)
Return to who you are, return to what you are, return to where you are
Born and reborn again.
Return again, return again, return to the home of your soul.
Prelude The Holly and the Ivy Traditional
Lynn Angebranndt, cello
Welcome
Chalice Lighting (Unison) The Turning of the Wheel of Time Starhawk
The turning of the Wheel of time is a circle,
as the year is a circular journey we make around the sun.
We begin in the dark of the year, when present, past and future meet.
Calling the Directions #446 To the Four Directions Joan Goodwin
Story Indra’s Net Traditional Buddhist & Hindu Tale
Musical Response We are the flow and we are the ebb
We are the weavers, we are the web.
Message Rima Snyder
Questions to Consider What do you want to nurture in your life?
What brings you strength and joy?
How can you use your experiences over the past year
to transform aspects of your life in the days to come?
Poem The Alchemist Bill Goldberg
Night Music Must the Winter Come So Soon? Samuel Barber
Lynn Angebranndt, cello & Karen Hsu Patterson, piano
Responsive Reading #608 This Clay Jug Kabir
Inside this clay jug there are canyons and pine mountains,
and the maker of canyons and pine mountains!
All seven oceans are inside, and hundreds of millions of stars.
The acid that tests gold is there, and the one who judges jewels.
And the music from the strings no one touches, and the source of all water.
If you want the truth, I will tell you the truth:
Friend, listen:
The God whom I love is inside.
Walking Meditation
Circle Chant The Earth, the Air, the Fire, the Water
Ritual
Closing Activity
*Closing Song Light is Returning Charlie Murphy
Light is returning, even though this is the darkest hour.
No one can hold back the dawn.
Let's keep it burning, let's keep the light of hope alive.
Make safe our journey through the storm.
One planet is turning, circling in her path around the sun.
Earth Mother is calling her children home.
*Benediction Black Elk
Everything the Power of the World does is in a circle.
The Sky is round and I have heard that the Earth is round like a ball
and so are all the stars.
The Wind, in its greatest power, whirls.
Birds make their nests in circles,
the Sun comes forth and goes down again in a circle.
The Moon does the same and both are round.
Even the seasons are a great circle in their changing,
and always come back to where they were.
*Please stand in body or in spirit
Service Notes
Thank you to our service participants, ushers, and musicians: Lynn Angebranndt, Rev. Rebecca
Benefiel Bijur, Tom Early, Kathleen Hogue, Peggy Kharraz, Karen Hsu Patterson, Jimmy Ranieri,
Judith Martin-Straw and Rima Snyder.
Many thanks to our reception hosts: Joyce Holmen, Katie Malich and Diana Spears.
❦ ❦ ❦ ❦
The Alchemist, by Bill Goldberg
Life is alchemy,
one thing becomes another.
The seed becomes the tree,
the flower the fruit,
coal becomes a diamond,
sand, a pearl.
The river becomes the cloud,
the cloud, rain,
the rain, the river.
The earth changes into food,
and sunlight becomes all living things.
We transform our experiences also.
Our pain becomes compassion,
our suffering, art,
our problems teach us life's lessons.
Becoming the alchemist
is part of our healing,
using every experience
for our movement towards wholeness.
Alchemy,
what a beautiful word.
It goes to the heart of creation.