Advent ~ Season of Arrival

 

Thanksgiving weekend found me very gratefully gathering pinecones and cutting pine boughs on a chilly Tahoe evening to decorate my Advent altar. Sun dropped below the mountains as moon rose in the sky, glorious and near full. I pondered week 1 ~ Hope.

Advent, means “arrival,” and I was reminded of a practice poem as I snipped and placed my greens, coming back to breathing deep the delicious scents of pine and vanilla candles ~ I have arrived, I am home ~ In the here and in the now ~ I am solid, I am free ~ In the Ultimate I dwell. 

“Hope” by it’s nature implies somewhere in the future, yet isn’t there always some glimmer available, a flickering, arrival of light if we train our eyes to find it? Can we arrive with an open, hopeful heart in every moment?

Lighting the match, 

extending flame to wick. 

Advent candle, week 1: Hope ~ 

I have arrived, 

I am home.