Image: Wise Women Also Came © Jan Richardson
Friends, it is the time of year when I get to wish you a Merry Women’s Christmas and share a gift that I’ve created for you in celebration of the day!
You might know that in some parts of the world, Epiphany (January 6, which brings the Christmas season to a close) is also celebrated as Women’s Christmas. Originating in Ireland, where it is known as Nollaig na mBan, Women’s Christmas began as a day when the women, who often carried the domestic responsibilities all year, took Epiphany as an occasion to enjoy a bit of respite and celebrate together at the end of the holidays.
Whether your domestic duties are many or few, Women’s Christmas is a good time to pause and take a break from whatever has kept you busy in the past weeks or months. As the Christmas season ends, this is an occasion both to celebrate with friends and also to spend time in reflection before diving into the responsibilities of this new year.
It has become a tradition for me to create a retreat that you can use for Women’s Christmas—or any time you’re in need of a space of respite and regathering. This year’s retreat (our tenth!) is titled The Sanctuary Between Us, and it offers an invitation to ponder how we hold space for one another across the distance.
The retreat is very flexible, easily adaptable to your own purposes. You can do the retreat anytime you wish, by yourself or with others. It includes an introduction with some thoughts about how you might use these reflections.
Clicking the link below will take you to a page on this Sanctuary of Women site where you can download the retreat as a PDF file. There is no cost; this is my Women’s Christmas gift to you! If you wish, you can make a donation in support of the retreat; contributions will be shared with the A21 Campaign (a21.org), which is devoted to ending human trafficking and providing sanctuary, healing, and hope for those rescued from slavery.
Download the 2021 Women’s Christmas Retreat
(If you don’t see the 2021 retreat when you click the link, just refresh your browser so that you’re seeing the most recent version of the Women’s Christmas page, and the new retreat should appear.)
This year’s retreat opens with a new blessing I’ve written for you, which you can find below. As we celebrate the day and enter into the year ahead, I pray that you will be attended by many graces. Merry Women’s Christmas!
About the Light
A Blessing for Women’s Christmas
As of yet
I cannot say
which I love best
about the light:
that it gathers itself
even in what goes hidden,
no stranger to
the seed, the stone,
the labyrinth of night,
or that it is wildly
generous in where
it lands, glad the same
to touch the face of
the one in laughter,
the one in tears,
the one in trouble,
in fear, in pain.
But it may yet be
that this is what
woos me most
about the light:
that it knows
what to do with distance,
how it arcs
across the space
between a heart
and a heart,
illuminating that ache
through which
the farthest of stars
might be seen.
—Jan Richardson
[The image Wise Women Also Came is © Jan Richardson from Night Visions. To use this image or order an art print, please visit this page at Jan Richardson Images.]
Simply beautiful!