Sunday Services: 11:00 am949 West 49th Ave, Vancouver, BC V5Z 2T1Office: 604-261-7204 |  |
News from the Earth Spirit Council: Paganism, circle dance, labyrinths, if approved updates from Environment and Gardening teams. This category is used for the monthly Earth Spirit e-newsletter.
The Social Justice Committee of UCV has nominated the Downtown Eastside Women’s Centre as the next recipient for funding from the Outreach Opportunities Fund. Funding will be from the beginning of June through September 2019. (more…)
Update: The event was very successful thanks to so many women who stepped up to help.
—post from January below—
You can still register to attend our annual Women’s Gathering. Scroll down for link to register.
And we’re still looking for some help to ensure the evening goes smoothly. Many of the volunteer roles are for a 15-minute shift. Many hands make light work and all that. If lots of people sign up then everyone can have lots of free time as well.
Below are descriptions of some of the needs at this point.
If you like sparkly, shiny things (like twinkle lights and lanterns with live flames), and you’re coming to the annual Women’s gathering, I’m looking for 2-4 people available at 5 pm to put out the lanterns and lights around the property and indoors. Kinga is coordinating this endeavour. She likes sparkly, shiny things.
We have a good crew ready to come early and help set up the decor and food arrangements for the potluck. And now need to have a few stalwarts who will be the last to leave: do a final cleanup; move furniture back to where it belongs; do a final dishwasher load; check on lights and locked doors etc. And of course to bring IN and store the twinkle lights and lanterns! With many hands we’ll be done by 9:30 pm.
An extra set of hands (or two) to help Coral and Laurie arrange things for the drop-in Collage Space 7-9 pm so they can enjoy other aspects of the evening. Perhaps some of you registered for the afternoon workshop would drop in now and again and offer some support to rookie collage makers.
Jodie will set up the Meditation room with runes and some handouts but we’d like to make sure there’s a volunteer in the space from 7-9 pm to answer questions and just welcome people into the space. You don’t need to know a lot about runes, but knowing a little bit would be helpful. Probably some of the people who have attended Jodie’s recent workshops will be available. There will be posters up giving the meaning of each of the 24 runes and some suggestions for a “reading”.
Biddle Room will be set up for our yearly swap meet. Kinga needs a few more people to check in every half hour or so and make sure the wares are looking tidy. She may need help at the end to box up the stuff left and make sure the box(es) are labeled for the Refugee Committee to get the following Sunday. Arrange with the caretaker Igor or a keyholder to put boxes into the office. (Bringing plastic bags or shopping bags and perhaps even bubble wrap would help the items get to the right place!)
We are inviting women who would like to be in a women’s group to come to the Fireside Room from 6:30-7 pm (with their dessert). Sheila Resels will facilitate a discussion. If you are currently (or have been) in a women’s group, through UCV or elsewhere, we hope you’d join a panel to share different kinds of women’s groups. We feel that would help those who would like to be in a group form an idea of what they would want in a group. They might then join together and put the word out through UCV to invite other women to join or express interest.
If you can bring some poster making supplies for the 7:30 – 8:30 pm workshop with Cayla, it would be appreciated. Cardboard, sharpies, markers, glue gun, glue sticks…
Click here for details on the gathering and how to register.
Sunday January 13 7:30-8:30 pm Fireside Room, Vancouver Unitarian Centre, 949 West 49th at Oak
Cayla Naumann just moved to Vancouver in May of last year after having lived 15 years in Victoria. She grew up in the Unitarian Church San Jose, California.
She will share her knowledge of Women’s March Canada, the H.E.R.S. principles and participation in the March On event on January 19th, and other events year round. She’ll share her experience of what WMC – Victoria has done, ideas for what she thinks WMC – Vancouver could do, but mostly she wants to try and build a network of women supporting women.
Here’s what she says about herself by way of introduction:
I’m a biologist, very passionate about social justice and environmentalism. I’m involved with Women’s March Canada, I organized the Victoria March last year and am trying to get the Vancouver chapter up and running. I’m also interested in gardening and reading/bookclub (some friends and I started a badass ladies bookclub in Victoria and I haven’t found a similar group in Vancouver yet). I’ll be 30 years old in April and live in Marpole (South Vancouver) and I’m the admin for the Buy Nothing Marpole FB group part of the Buy Nothing Project.
If you can bring felt pens, poster board, cardboard sheets, glue guns, wooden dowels or sticks, etc. please let Cayla know at cayla.naumann@gmail.com or just bring with you.
This is part of the Annual Women’s Gathering which starts at 5:30 pm with a potluck dinner.
More information here: http://vancouverunitarians.ca/events/annual-womens-gathering/
If you’d like to come to a poster-making session at a different time, contact Cayla and we’ll try to set something up.
March On Vancouver (organizers of Vancouver’s March) https://marchoncanada.ca/march-on-cities/march-on-vancouver/
Women’s March Canada https://www.womensmarchcanada.com/
Women’s March Global https://womensmarchglobal.org/
Winter Solstice will occur in Vancouver on December 21 at 9:11 am Pacific time.
You can check out solstices and equinoxes here: https://www.timeanddate.com/calendar/seasons.html
This month’s full moon will be on December 22 at 9:48 am. The December full moon is sometimes called “Cold Moon” (for obvious reasons, at least in Canada.)
Here’s more information about the Cold Moon.
https://www.timeanddate.com/astronomy/moon/cold.html
If you are interested in
You may enjoy participating in some of our Earth Spirit gatherings at the Unitarian Centre. All welcome.
Image is from UUA by Ralph Y. Roberts
https://www.uua.org/offices/people/ralph-y-roberts
Some people like to print out their calendar, so we’re experimenting with creating a monthly pdf of all of the earth spirit, circle dance, pagan and labyrinth events. Let me know if this is useful and any suggestions or questions you have. We will post on the bulletin boards at the Unitarian Centre.
Click here to download. Jan-March2019
Email Mary. (Want to meet me? Here’s a link to my bio) I’ve been part of the Pagan group at the Unitarian Centre for nearly 20 years.
You can go to http://vancouverunitarians.ca/earth-spirit and follow the links any time to find upcoming events.
In Neo-Paganism the moon cycles are often seen as a way to think about planting/growing/nurturing (during the waxing moon) and letting go/banishing/decreasing (during the waning moon).
Folklore certainly has lots of advice on planting and harvesting related to moon phases.
The full moon is full power. And the new moon is a time for spell casting–what do you want to bring into your life over the next month.
The dark moon is one to three days prior to the new moon being visible and is a time for banishing. (Makes sense–since the moon itself has “vanished”.)
In the Paganism 101 curriculum, we learn about the phases of the moon and correlation to pagan rituals and practices in session 9. The 2018-19 group is now full and in progress. You can join a wait list for next year’s group by sending an email.
Here’s a fun activity to do with pagans and/or kids.
Photo from: https://4thgradefrolics.blogspot.com/2012/05/howling-at-moon-and-happy-happy-joy.html
Sandy taught us how to make rope from day lily leaves and then weave in a colourful fall mix of natural plants. If you’d like to do more nature art with Sandy, please contact her on Sundays or through earthspiritucv@gmail.com 
Mary led a session on creating nature mandalas from plants around the church gardens.
We did these at GLAD – Gathering for Labyrinth, Art and Dance. Every 3rd Thursday we get together for labyrinth walking, art-making and circle dance.
When tea is an art form!
You will take some dried day lily leaves to learn the art of rope-making. Once you have made a short piece of rope you will be able to turn into a piece of natural art by adding berries, feathers, sprigs of herbs or flowers.
Once your piece is completed you can hang it inside or find a place for it outside and leave it to return to nature.
Sandy made this decorative piece from dried day lily leaves and various organic objects tied into the braid.
On October 21, Sandy will provide the materials and instruction for you to make your own as a fall decor piece.
Decorating your home with seasonal craft projects can make you more mindful of the changing seasons.
Thanks to a Neighbourhood Small Grant from the Vancouver Foundation administered by the South Vancouver Neighbourhood House, Sandy and Marge have worked with others at UCV to improve the labyrinths and invite people to free events with refreshments and supplies for art projects.
So far we have added five lavender plants, several varieties of thyme, a sage and rosemary to the courtyard labyrinth and plants representing the four directions (East: lavender; South: rosemary; West: thyme (lemon and red creeping); and North: sage (golden and pineapple sage) to the Garden Path labyrinth.
Yet to be done, is improve signage and purchase a cart or storage box for events.
We’ve hosted several events and our final event is Sunday October 21 including a workshop with Gaia Gardens.
We also want to invite neighbours to join our Labyrinth Team. Contact unitarianlabyrinth@gmail.com if you’d like to be part of the group who organize events and tend the labyrinths.
At our October 21 Labyrinth event, Mary will help you take cuttings of several different kinds of sage (golden, pineapple, regular and purple) to start your own sage garden.
You’ll be able to sample sage tea.
Click here for how to make your own–it’s easy.
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