How will you prepare for the Holy Nights? How will you celebrate Inner Advent?
Inner Advent is a preparation for the new birth of self, the renewal of creative innocence, and the arrival of compassionate wisdom during the Twelve Holy Nights. It is an practice of recollecting, reviewing and releasing your soul's experiences of the just-lived year.
The year is about to be over…done…finished…gone. How do you say goodbye to 2016? How do you discover the inner meaning of 2016? How do you prepare for 2017?
Each year you evolve. You become something you weren’t last year.
Some of your evolution is intentional and some is unintentional. But if you don’t take time to review your year as the unfolding of a new you, how do you know yourself? How do you know what you mean when you say I am?
Looking back at the year can feel daunting and confusing. Participating in Inner Advent makes the whole process clear, creative and results in a beautiful and meaningful closure for the year. Even for me, the idea of doing this on my own seems too easy to ignore. I could imagine finding the demands of the season and daily life an
excuse to not do this important inner work.
Yet I know the Inner Advent process really celebrates my soul’s year and prepares my soul for the very special time of Inner Christmas and the Twelve Holy Nights. My inner life becomes richer and my relationships to all the other aspects of my life in the course of
the year have more vitality and beauty.
Inner Advent is the most popular course I offer with so many coming back year after year.
This
year I am offering a 2nd Inner Advent. It is a different path, but it leads to the same new experience of selfhood and the same new openness to the wonder of the Holy Nights.
A NEW Inner Advent –
Your Shadows, Sorrows and Sufferings
2009 was the first year I offered Inner Advent. The focus of the program was to recollect the thoughts that led you to find your truth, the feelings that led you
to know beauty, and the deeds that brought goodness into the world. This inner work would prepare the soul for the inspiration of the Holy Nights.
Soon I realized that I wanted to have another kind of Inner Advent, one that, with reverence, objectivity, and self-compassion, guided me to recollect my shadows, my sorrows
and my sufferings. By going through a four stage/Sunday Advent process of recollecting, reviewing and releasing the darker aspects of my soul, I would arrive at Christmas and the Holy Nights prepared in a very courageous and humble way.
I truly wanted to create this darker Inner Advent and offer it to those
who wanted to journey into the depths of their being and find their way to the gates of confession, absolution, redemption and, ultimately, wholeness… But I always hesitated. With all the Christmas festivities and celebrations, do we really want to go into the dark, cold, lonely shadows, sorrows and sufferings we experienced over the year?
Let me offer a brief description of these three dark experiences of our soul life…
Our shadows hide the times when our thoughts, feelings or deeds were motivated by ill will, egotism, and
impulsivity.
Our sorrows reveal our losses and our failures to create or sustain our ideals and principles in our work, our relationships, our well-being and our moral development.
Our sufferings tell of the times we experienced being attacked, negated, misunderstood, neglected, sabotaged by life, others, illness, and ourselves.
2016 has given all of us a very dark, challenging set of shared shadows, sorrows and sufferings. Earthquakes, hurricanes, floods in nature. The social/political life has been filled with polarization and hatred. Terror and violence have been paralyzing and the homelessness of being alien and a refugee has broken hearts.
That is the difficult global year. What has your intimate year been like?
When, if not now, should the human soul walk through the valley of shadows, sorrows and sufferings and fear no evil? When will we find the light of meaning in our souls and the warmth of equanimity in our
hearts?
I have been walking through my days and nights with the question of how to shape and guide this Inner Advent process. Then a few days ago the inspiration came. It scares me and excites me. It’s like having the lantern in my hand, knowing the time has come, wondering where the path will end and what will surprise
along the way, and hoping others(you) will follow.
It also feels to me following the months, weeks and days of 2016 in the world contexts of so much darkness that the more of us as world citizens do this deeply personal work that more spiritual light will shine into the planet and all the peoples that inhabit it during
the Holy Nights. Each of us will be holding open the heavy veils that have fallen in our souls and the world soul over the year.
Your ChoiceIf you want to do the
work of Inner Advent this year, you have a choice: The Advent path through the light of your soul over the year or the Advent path through the dark of your soul over the year. (Or you could do both.) Either Advent path offers a profound preparation for the Holy Nights and the ongoing challenge of self-knowledge and inner development. Trust your heart to make your choice.
The original Inner Advent and the path through the light of your soul. Learn more and register here.
The new Inner Advent: Your Shadows, Sorrows and Sufferings and the path through the darkness of your soul. Learn more and register here.
Thoughts on Traditional Advent PracticesI also want to invite you to listen to my audio
describing the traditional Advent practices…they are all beautiful and meaningful. I recommend this to those with young children.
Do you wonder how to prepare for your Inner Christmas?
Are you curious about the meaning of traditional Advent Rituals?
Would you like to imagine new ways of celebrating traditional Advent?
Are you curious about Inner Advent and want to know more before you register?
In this free audio, I will share many perspectives on both traditional and Inner Advent.
Advent – A Beautiful Preparation. Listen here.
Any questions about Inner Advent. Ask me by replying to this post.
Men go abroad to
wonder at the heights of mountains, at the huge waves of the sea, at the long courses of the rivers, at the vast compass of the ocean, at the circular motions of the stars, and they pass by themselves without wondering. St Augustine
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LEARN MORE AND REGISTER HERE.
This season between Michaelmas and Advent asks us to spend time deepening our relationship to our spiritual companions: our own guardian angel, the spiritual hierarchies, the spirits of nature and the dead and yet-to-be-born. The course also explores the differences and purposes of
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We have made thee neither of heaven nor of earth, neither mortal nor immortal, so that with freedom of choice and with honor, as though the maker and molder of thyself, thou mayest fashion thyself in whatever shape thou shalt prefer. Pico
della Mirandola Oration on the Dignity of Man 1486
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How do you imagine yourself? Not fantasize or wish you were different from a powerless, stuck, and miserable place in your soul. When you imagine yourself you are seeing yourself as powerfully evolving into a self more
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