Welcome. This blog was created to supplement a six-week series of worship experiences that will take place on Sunday mornings at 9:00 AM July 11 and 25 (note NOT July 18th when congregation will worship with Strafford Fellowship)and August 1, 8, 15, and 22 at the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of the Upper Valley, Route 5 South, Norwich, Vermont. If you are attending this series, the blog offers up some ideas and opportunities for deeper reflection as well as the week's program. Parents, if you are participating on Sundays with your children, you are invited to deepen your personal experience by finding a few moments during the week to be alone, attentive, and quiet in your garden or nearby woods or fields.
If you are moving about this summer, I am hopeful that the reflections and activities you will find on this blog will inspire you to find a time and place each week for religio, or "reconnection" with nature. Simply put, I am inviting you to fall in love with a small patch of Earth and all that unfolds in, around, and through that place - wherever you are!
At least once a week (dare you make that once a day?) visit a natural landscape that in someway calls to you. This place should be accessible enough to visit it easily and often, or, if you are on the road, should simply be a place that calls you to halt and be present wherever you are. Once you have chosen your space, in your mind's eye or with found objects or string circumscribe a circle with a radius about as long as you are tall. This is the space within which and from which you will get intimate with all the life and life support systems that surround you.
Scroll down the blogpost for a description of the past week's worship/activities and jot down the exercise and the questions that appeal to you before each "journey" to your Earth circle. Be sure to bring along a simple journal, a pen or pencil, and, if possible a small set of watercolors or colored pencils.
In addition, watch for an additional activity to connect with nature under the heading ACTIVITY OF THE WEEK. Supplemental materials, quotations, and further readings for each week are posted for each week under FOR FURTHER REFLECTION.
Please share your experience in the comments section of blog. I await your revelations!
