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.
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The Outer Reaches of Inner Joy A suggestion for Month One,The Month for Joyful Sourcing and Re-sourcingJanuary 1 – February 9 Bliss as we dive for it, this year is an ebullient state: Mindful, Active, Spacious, Compassionate, Untamable, Fiercely Alive, And completely embodied. This first month for Sourcing and Re-sourcing provides time to focus on […]
For those who follow the Goddess Year of Joy (nine months of forty days each), the final five days of every year are devoted to celebrating the birthdays of divine bringers of joy. These so-called intercalary days between December 27 and 31 provide a time to honor our capacity for constant renewal. And bring in […]
Practicing Joy in the World November 17 – December 26 Shakespeare reminds us that the potency of this month of Joyful Service and Sharing dwells in activating, re-activating, claiming, and reclaiming friendships. The joy of that activation stirs the soul and sends us out as messengers of delight to bestow friendship toward others in […]
October 8 – November 16 We are the transformers of earth Our whole being and the flights and falls of our love Enable us to undertake this task. –Rainer Maria Rilke In the process of our transforming the earth, in ways the great poet could not have imagined, the Earth in her mystery, transforms us, […]
Practicing Joy in the World August 29 – October 7 These are days of poignant awareness: we say farewell to the long sweet summer hours, and awaken to feelings of anticipation, something new on the horizon, usually involved with lessons and teachings. That breath of anticipation, even for those of us long out of the […]
Practicing Joy in the World July 20 – August 28 The enchanting summer days make it delightful and sweetly pleasant to stay on the path of joy. That’s one reason this is the month of celebrating our capacity to remain dedicated to that path. But it can also be a tricky time, when the hottest […]
Practicing Joy in the World June 10 – July 19 “I sit on the black stool, then open my book to a world of music. Black notes fill the page like a road map to tell me where to put my fingers.” The poet, musician, dancer Phoebe Brown eloquently describes her sense of Joyful Presence. […]
Practicing Joy in the World May 1 – June 9 Joy curled into my heart with the lilac and chose to live there where it can bloom forever. This forty-day month between May Day and June 9 inspires a practice for growing joy. So richly you can touch it as it flowers. What better time […]
Practicing Joy in the World March 22 – April 30 “My sentence was a thousand years of joy.” declares the poet Robert Bly, in his poignant, enchanting poem, “Stealing Sugar from the Castle.” That’s what we’re about during the forty days between March 22 and April 30: playfully discovering the grain of sugar in every […]
Practicing Joy in the World February 10 – March 21 “The soul is here for its own joy,” says Rumi, providing the ideal statement to open the forty days between February 10 and March 21, the month of spiritedly asking the question, over and over again, “What can I believe about joy? “ In the […]