Three more Winter Solstice Celebrations!

 Hello, folks,

If you missed the Winter Solstice Celebration I led, it turns out there are three more communities, all in the US, who are presenting A Winter Solstice Singing Ritual this year.  

• Orange Coast Unitarian Universalist Church had their Celebration over Zoom on Saturday night, but will have a recording available for about a week on YouTube.  More here:
  https://ocuuc.org/events/winter-solstice-singing-ritual-2/
  

• On Monday, December 21st, the Unitarian Universalist Church of Spokane will present theirs on-line at 7 pm Pacific / 10 pm Eastern.  More here:
  https://www.uucj.org/2020/12/17/a-winter-solstice-singing-ritual-with-uucs/

• On Tuesday, December 22nd, the Unitarian Universalist Church of Huntsville will present theirs on-line at 4 pm Pacific / 7 pm Eastern.  More here:
  https://uuch.org/events/winter-solstice-virtual-service/
  https://uuch.org/services/8856/
  

 

I am so grateful to everyone who is using this to help build and strengthen community during these (it's such a cliché to say it) challenging times.

"A year like no other," indeed.  (from A Winter Solstice Singing Ritual)

For more information about A Winter Solstice Singing Ritual project, please see:
https://sites.google.com/view/winter-solstice-celebrations/home

 

a spiral labyrinth, outlined by candles, in the dark
(c) 2004 Laura Treadway, used with permission

2020 Winter Solstice Celebration On-Line

 

You're invited to
the 24th Annual

Winter Solstice Celebration

A Celebration of the Darkness and the Light
with Songs and Stories

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Saturday, 19th December, 2020
On-line
7-9 pm GMT

Europe: 7-9 pm UK; 8-10 pm Central European Time
North America: 2-4 pm Eastern Time; 11 am-1 pm Pacific Time
Everywhere: Click here to confirm time in your location

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A time of quiet reflection in the midst of the hectic festive season

Songs, stories, candle-lighting, silent meditation, singing, and more

All ages welcome

-------

Registration required

To register, please click here

Sign Up for 2020 Winter Solstice Singing

 

I am going to be hosting a Winter Solstice Celebration (A Winter Solstice Singing Ritual) on-line, on Saturday, 19th December.  

From September through December, I am hosting on-line song-learning sessions / rehearsals for those who would like to learn the songs ahead of time, to sing along during the Celebration.  

Everyone is welcome, regardless of experience singing or ability to read music. There are easier pieces and more challenging pieces -- a little something for everyone.

You do not need to attend these in order to come to the Celebration; likewise, you do not need to come to the Celebration if you come to these.  You are welcome at either and both!

Song-learning sessions will run from Sunday, 6th September through Sunday, 13th December, each week building on the week before.  

We'll cover the sing-along songs, of course, including harmonies, but also the "performance" songs as well. (If you'd like more information on the specific songs, please click here.) 

• Song-learning sessions will run from 6-8 pm UK time, and are open to anyone, regardless of geographic location.  
  

• You can check what time that is for you here: https://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/converter.html.   
  

• If you miss a session or the time generally doesn't work for you, there will be rehearsal recordings available.   
  

• You don't need a copy of the book or CD in order to participate, although they're helpful to have.

 

Schedule: 

• Song-learning sessions/rehearsals Sundays, 6th September - 6th December (no session 29th November), 6-8 pm UK time
  

• Complete read-through and sing-through, Sunday, 13th December, 6-8 pm UK time
  
  

• Winter Solstice Celebration, Saturday, 19th December, 7-9 pm UK time 

 

Copies of the book and CD

You do not need to own a copy of this in advance, but the book contains all the sheet music, and the CD contains full recordings of all 15 pieces, as well as teaching tracks for 8 (as well as the full Celebration), so it's very, very useful.

If you live in Europe and would like a copy for £14 + postage, you can get one from me.

If you live in the US and want a copy, the person to contact is my co-author Julie Forest Middleton; I can put you in touch.

 

How do I know without knowing more about the music itself?

The songs are a mix of rounds, well-known songs, spirituals, feminist spirituality chants and Pagan chants, and a couple of choral pieces.

There's detailed information about every song at tinyurl.com/wintersolsticesinging/for-singers.

I'm looking forward to singing with people from a wide range of places in the Northern Hemisphere!

 

Open to people of all genders

Both the choir and the Celebration are open to people of all genders. Transgender, non-binary, agender, and genderqueer people are explicitly welcome.

• The music I have is written mostly in treble clef and is labeled for sopranos and altos, but I've worked with tenors and basses over the last several years, and these pieces adapt well for lower voices as well.

• Anyone can sing any part on any song that works for their voice. You might sing a part labelled one way for one piece, and a part labelled a different way on another. You can also choose to sing all one voice part if that's what works for you. We have lots of flexibility.

 

If you have any other questions, please let me know. 

If you'd like to sign up for the song-learning sessions, please click here:
https://forms.gle/ds2yV9eLfkLFa2ot7

On-line choir starting soon

Hello, all! 

Starting in August, I am hosting on-line song-learning sessions for an on-line Winter Solstice Celebration (a presentation of A Winter Solstice Singing Ritual).

There will be:

* two taster sessions in August;

* regular sessions from September to December that build on each other, leading up to the Celebration on 20th December.

You are invited to participate in the Winter Solstice Celebration whether you sing or not -- but if you'd like to learn the songs in advance, including harmonies, please sign up!

You also do not need to commit to the Celebration to come learn songs. Maybe you just want to come learn songs and sing! (You can also decide later.)

We will meet once a week. I hope to record rehearsals for those who can't join us live and for anyone who wants to go back over the rehearsal during the week; these will be shared privately. There will also be a variety of learning resources available between sessions for your work on your own.

Everyone is welcome, regardless of experience singing or ability to read music. There are easier pieces and more challenging pieces -- a little something for everyone.

== Dates ==

Taster sessions:

Sundays, 9th & 16th August

6-8 pm BST

(7 pm Central European, 1 pm EDT, 10 am PDT)

Regular rehearsals:

Sundays, 6th September-13th December

6-8 pm British Time

(7 pm Central European, 1 pm Eastern North America, 10 am Pacific North America)

Winter Solstice Celebration:

A presentation of A Winter Solstice Singing Ritual

Sunday 20th December

6-8 pm UT/GMT

(7 pm Central European, 1 pm EST, 10 am PST)

== To sign up ==

Message me on Facebook, or email me if you have my email address.

== Copies of the book and CD ==

You do not need to own a copy of this in advance, but the book contains all the sheet music, and the CD contains full recordings of all 15 pieces, as well as teaching tracks for 8 (as well as the full Celebration), so it's very, very useful.

If you live in Europe and want a copy for £14 + postage, you can get one from me.

If you live in the US and want a copy, the person to contact is my co-author Julie Forest Middleton; I can put you in touch.

== How do I know without knowing more about the music itself? ==

The songs are a mix of rounds, well-known songs, spirituals, feminist spirituality chants and Pagan chants, and a couple of choral pieces.

There's detailed information about every song at tinyurl.com/wintersolsticesinging/for-singers. 

I'm looking forward to singing with people from a wide range of places in the Northern Hemisphere! 

== Open to people of all genders ==

EDITED TO ADD, because this has come up a bit with people who don't know me personally, and I'd neglected to say it explicitly: 

Both the choir and the Celebration are open to people of all genders.  Transgender, non-binary, and genderqueer people are explicitly welcome.  

* The music I have is written mostly in treble clef and is labeled for sopranos and altos, but I've worked with tenors and basses over the last several years, and these pieces adapt well for lower voices as well. 

* Anyone can sing any part on any song that works for their voice.  You might sing a part labelled one way for one piece, and a part labelled a different way on another.  You can also choose to sing all one voice part if that's what works for you.  We have lots of flexibility.

Beltane during stay-at-home

Happy Beltane! 

When we gather in person for Beltane, we often weave ribbons around a May Pole as we weave intentions into our lives, and bless each other's creativity and pay specific attention to what we're experiencing with our senses, this sensuous time of year. 

Some queries for reflection this stay-at-home Beltane:

• What are you weaving into your life? 
• What are you doing here, now, today, that nurtures your senses?  

 [photo by Mike Goren (hi, Mike!), from Bryn Mawr College May Day 2005.  A stone building framed by trees in the background, with three white May Poles on green grass; to the left, the farthest has light blue ribbons, the middle one green ribbons, and the nearest, to the right, has red ribbons (you can see ribbons from the dark blue one to the right, but not the May Pole itself.)  There are many smiling people, mostly women, mostly but not all wearing white and many wearing matching sashes, holding ribbons to the May Poles and dancing around them, as well as spectators watching.]

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Maypoles.jpg
Album here: https://www.flickr.com/photos/celebdu/albums/306062

Pandemic post: Pesach and moving from "eternal now" back to being anchored in the cycle of the seasons

So... at the end of week four of stay-at-home for our family (end of week three for the UK), six weeks after the first covid-19 case in Scotland, part-way through Passover... here's my first pandemic-related post. 

(My Beloved Partner, inspired by Ada Palmer's #SomethingBeautiful hashtag on Twitter, has been blogging about being Present in Challenging Times for 23 days now: https://walkingaftermidnight848100467.wordpress.com/.  There are some lovely and kind of eerie pictures of life in Edinburgh there.)    

Anyway.  On to me.  

Tonight we attended a Seder via Zoom, hosted by a long-time dear friend of mine, with whom I share some other long-time dear friends.  It was a marvelously multi-time zone event, filled with people I know and people I'd never met, in person or on-line, before -- family and friends of the host, spread from northern CA, to the next neighbourhood over from our old one in Seattle, to Twin Cities, to London, to us here in Edinburgh.  

It was kind of a last-minute decision.  I had thought I was fine with pretty much skipping Pesach this year for lack of spoons.  But then I realized I wasn't, and when I posted to Facebook about some of the things I was doing to observe Passover after all, my friend invited us to their Seder. 

So Beloved Partner and I spent the afternoon putting together a Seder plate with what we have on hand.  This was a little hilarious but mostly worked really well, and it was kind of fun and creative.  

So, we had a lovely, brief-ish Seder, and then a special dinner ourselves.  

I needed this.

I realized, as we were cleaning up, pausing to look out the dining room window to the growing green in the back garden: 

**

Most of my experience so far of stay-at-home has been sort of an "eternal now" -- for example, yes, I know it's spring, because there have been several days warm enough for me to sit outside and read or crochet, and I had a birthday, and we sprang forward, and the sunrise is much earlier and the sunset even more muchly later...

But it wasn't until the Seder tonight that I felt anchored in the past and future, in the *cycle* of the seasons.

I needed that.

And I'll have to have a think about how to do that with Beltane.

** 

I feel like I ought to close with something pithy, or wise, or encouraging, or...

All I can say is what my therapist and I have been telling each other each week so far:  This shit is hard.  

I have a whole 'nother post about the Angel of Death that is still percolating, but for now my wish for us all is survival.  

Love and blessings,

Staśa

 

 

[top picture:

an oval wooden table, with two places set with white dishes on the long side to the left, and along the edge clockwise from there: on the far short side of the table, two white square bowls with greens (parsley, and dandelion greens for maror / horseradish), and a flower-shaped bowl with charoset; on the other long side, a blue and white Palestinian-patterned bowl with matzoh buttercrunch, salt and pepper grinders, and a pitcher of home-made pomegranate soda; on the short side, two glasses. in the middle from in front of the plates: a Seder plate with parsley, a ramekin salt water, egg, radish for beet for shankbone, dandelion greens for maror / horseradish, and a ramekin with charoset; a plate of matzoh; two glasses; a small square bowl of radish slices; silver candlesticks, one with a purple candle and one with a blue; a ramekin with another egg; and the haggadah where the computer will go.]

[middle picture: close-up of a blue-patterned Palestinian pottery bowl with broken-up pieces of matzoh buttercrunch in it]

[bottom picture: close-up on the wooden table of the silver candlesticks, now lit, purple candle on the left and blue on the right, in front of a blue-patterned Palestinian pottery bowl with matzoh buttercrunch in it.]

Blessed Brigid

Today is Brigid, the day on the Wheel of the Year half-way between Winter Solstice, the longest night and shortest day, and Spring Equinox, when night and day are nearly equal.

Brigid is the triple Goddess of smithcraft, healing, and poetry. Many years, right about now, I feel Her in my life woven/weaving through my creativity.

This year... This year, may I know Her in Her aspects as Smith and Healer. Worker of Justice.

And yes, also, Poet. May I be reminded, again, in my body, in my being, that creativity in the face of injustice is resistance, and necessary.

So mote it be. Blessed be.