Coming Full Cycle

 

This year I have been collecting Touchstones...

 

Our Sundays together on Zoom have been a touchstone. Each week we are invited to light our own chalice in our own space to remind us of our intention to make space for the sacred, and to remind us of our UU faith tradition. 

This year, like every other, we started with the water communion, reminding us that no matter how far we are apart, we are all connected to one another both symbolically and materially through the water system we share with the web of life.

It was a challenging fall, as the covid numbers rose, as the election grew closer, as we tried to make our vision of an anti-racist world a reality. I invited you all to hold an actual stone, to remind us that our values were the rock, the touchstone that would ground us through this tumultuous time. 

As divisions depend, and conversations became fraught, as many of us faced holidays at home without family as the virus spread, we remembered that sometimes we can choose to unhook ourselves from conflict when we have become hooked.

 

Our holiday rituals were held on zoom, as we were invited to put our wishes and hopes into a ribbon and tie it to a tree. 

  

As we gathered on Christmas eve in our traditional candle light ritual, I was amazed how moving and magical the ritual could be here alone in my office, and yet united with all of you in spirit and ritual.

 

We were nourished again and again by cookies and tea and treats from the goodie bag team, a physical reminder that our community cares about us, is thinking about us, is there for us in a real way when we need them.

This spring we played with listening stones, noticing how you can tell many different stories with the same images, encouraging us to shape our stories well.

 

We blessed seeds of hope and renewal, as the earth came back to life, as the vaccines began to spread. 

 

And we shared the unique beauty of flowers, proof of the fruition of life’s cycle- even after the hardest times, beauty and renewal blooms.

Finally, summer is come again- tomorrow is the summer solstice, when the days are at their longest. We enter the growing season of our food system, and begin to enjoy all those delicious fruits of that season. (I know this is true because there were strawberries in my csa box this week!) And here in Tompkins County this week we had multiple days with no new positive cases.

This summer we will be “going visiting” other congregations worship services online, so we won’t be together like this again for a while. In fact, when we resume services in September, we are hoping it will be a bit different, with at least some folks in the church buildings and some folks online. But one way or another we will gather on September 12, time to start the church cycle all over again with the water communion.

Remember, we began this time together back in march of 2020 with the life saving practice of washing our hands. Herbalist, activist, poet Dori Midnight, wrote, back then:

“We are humans relearning to wash our hands.
Washing our hands is an act of love
Washing our hands is an act of care
Washing our hands is an act that puts the hypervigilant body at ease
Washing our hands helps us return to ourselves by washing away what does not serve.

Wash your hands
like you are washing the only teacup left that your great grandmother carried across the ocean, like you are washing the hair of a beloved who is dying, like you are washing the feet of Grace Lee Boggs, Beyonce, Jesus, your auntie, Audre Lorde, Mary Oliver- you get the picture.
Like this water is poured from a jug your best friend just carried for three miles from the spring they had to climb a mountain to reach.
Like water is a precious resource
made from time and miracle”

This summer encourage you to use this simple act as a touchstone, one time or all summer long, to find a moment that is quiet and feels right, and wash your hands in the water of that place, whether it is a lake, a stream, a garden hose or a kitchen sink. To just wash your hands or immerse your whole self. Use this practice to “return to yourself by washing away what does not serve” and to feel your connection to all beings everywhere who are part of the water cycle.  

 

And if it’s possible, bring a bit of that water, a bit of that spirit back to us for our water communion next fall.

Each year the cycle is different, but our tradition grounds us, through cold and grey times, through dark and scary times, through colorful growing times.

I am so grateful to each of you for being this touchstone community for me and for one another this year when we needed it the most.