Practicing Joy
Month by Month Reflections for the Year of Joy.
Nine Goddesses to Nurture Nine Steps on the Path of Joy
This Year of Joy calendar gathers nine steps along the Path of Joy into nine months, composed of four ten-day weeks. The weeks invite you to explore joy through each of the four elements: earth, water, fire, and air, which can be experienced as metaphors – the fires of passion, for example, or the tears of sorrow – as well as richly concrete in themselves. The nine months, 360 days, come to an end on December 26, leaving five intercalary days before the Year for Joy begins again on January 1.
CLICK ON THE IMAGES OR TITLES below to read the full month’s reflection.
Joyful Gods December 31: Dark Mother
On the final day of 2020, the holy day of December 31, those divine beings who call to our Soul and Sing to our Spirit become manifest within us and within the world – again and again – never to leave us if we only pay attention, and allow them to bring us to new […]
Joyful Gods December 30: Not Too Young To Change The World
On the holy day that is December 30, the divine reminders of Beauty in all its manifestations come into time again, and yet again. Here is how they appear to the artist who watches for them, portrays them, and speaks for them.Not Too Young To Change The WorldDon’t say we can be seen but not heard.Don’t […]
Joyful Gods December 29: BLM
The holy day, December 29, brings about the birth and continuing rebirth of the divine beings how celebrate our human capacity for Passion, for genuine devotion, for deep care. Representing those beings is one who reminds us of that caring, and issues a call for caring with passionate longing for justice and equality. BLM […]
Joyful Gods December 28: Waiting for Peace
This holy day, December 28, we welcome those divine beings who urge us toward the most important things to remember and to manifest – our true spiritual Direction. Here is a representation of one of those divine ones: pointing to the possibility of making peace, of being peace. Waiting For Peace I can see […]
Joyful Gods December 27: Tomorrow’s Hope
This year’s immensities have called forth new gifts from artist and speaker for the art, Patti Kaufman. On December 27, we welcome into the world a new manifestation of those divine beings who celebrate the wonder of being Human. (These beings also dwell in our individual hearts and minds, awaiting only our remembrance to be […]
#10 Happy Birthday to the Gods of Joy 2020
Holy Days of the Lady’s Year for Joy December 27-31 We have miraculously arrived at the end of a wild ride – through the extremes of joy and sorrow carried on the winds of 2020. For the year’s fierce (though sometimes tender) teachings, I give thanks. May I understand, embrace, and metabolize these teachings in […]
#9 Joy in the World 2020 Service & Sharing
Joy in the WorldThe Month for Joyful Service and SharingNovember 17 – December 26, 2020 Our lives are not our own. From wombto tomb, we are bound to others.Past and present, and by each crimeand every kindness, we birth our future. –David Mitchell, British prize-winning novelist, screenwriter, librettist Once upon a summer time, in a […]
#8 Joy in the World 2020 Transformation
Joy in the WorldThe Month for Joyful TransformationOctober 8 – November 16, 2020 “The most important lesson that one can learn from life is not that there is pain in this world, but that it is possible to transmute it into joy.” –Rabindranath Tagore The magnificent poet/seer/philosopher Tagore gives us a hint about the means of […]
#7 Joy in the World 2020 Remembrance
Joy in the World The Month for Joyful Remembrance August 29 to October 7, 2020 We shake with joy, we shake with grief. What a time they have, these two housed as they are in the same body. —Mary Oliver These forty days that mark a retreat of summer in the Northern Hemisphere […]