{"id":1063,"date":"2015-01-01T05:10:28","date_gmt":"2015-01-01T09:10:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sanctuaryofwomen.com\/blog\/?p=1063"},"modified":"2015-01-01T05:10:28","modified_gmt":"2015-01-01T09:10:28","slug":"womens-christmas-2015-illuminating-the-threshold","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sanctuaryofwomen.com\/blog\/womens-christmas-2015-illuminating-the-threshold\/","title":{"rendered":"Women’s Christmas 2015: Illuminating the Threshold"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Wise<\/a>
\nImage: Wise Women Also Came<\/em> \u00a9 Jan Richardson<\/p>\n

Did you know that in some parts of the world, Epiphany (January 6, which brings the Christmas season to a close) is celebrated as Women’s Christmas? Originating in Ireland, where it is known as Nollaig na mBan<\/em>, 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 break and celebrate together at the end of the holidays.<\/p>\n

Whether your domestic duties are many or few, Women\u2019s Christmas is a good time to pause and take a break from whatever has kept you busy and hurried 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.<\/p>\n

It’s become a tradition for me to create a retreat that you can use for Women’s Christmas\u2014or anytime you’re in need of a space of reflection. This year’s retreat is titled “Illuminating the Threshold.” I have a lingering fascination with thresholds, those betwixt and between places that emerge when we have left what is familiar but have not arrived at what lies ahead. This retreat offers an invitation for you to engage your own thresholds and do some reflecting and dreaming there.<\/p>\n

The retreat is very flexible, easily adaptable to your own purposes. You can do the retreat anytime you wish, by yourself or with friends near or far. It includes an introduction with some thoughts about how you might use these reflections.<\/p>\n

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’s no cost; think of it as my Women’s Christmas gift to you! You’re also welcome to make a donation in support of the retreat; donations will be shared with the A21 Campaign (thea21campaign.org<\/a>), which is devoted to ending\u00a0human trafficking and providing sanctuary and healing for those rescued from slavery.<\/p>\n

Download the Women’s Christmas Retreat<\/a><\/h3>\n

You are welcome to make copies of the retreat to share with friends. I’d be delighted for you to spread the word about the retreat by sharing this blog post; you can use any of the social media icons at the bottom of this post or simply forward the link to others.<\/p>\n

The retreat opens with a threshold blessing I’ve included for you below. As we celebrate the day and enter into the year ahead, may Christ our Light meet you at every door. Merry Women’s Christmas!<\/p>\n

Blessing the Threshold<\/strong><\/p>\n

This blessing
\nhas been waiting for you
\nfor a long time.<\/p>\n

While you have been
\nmaking your way here
\nthis blessing has been
\ngathering itself
\nmaking ready
\nbiding its time
\npraying.<\/p>\n

This blessing has been
\npolishing the door
\noiling the hinges
\nsweeping the steps
\nlighting candles
\nin the windows.<\/p>\n

This blessing has been
\nsetting the table
\nas it hums a tune
\nfrom an old song
\nit knows,
\nsomething about
\na spiraling road
\nand bread
\nand grace.<\/p>\n

All this time
\nit has kept an eye
\non the horizon,
\nwatching,
\nkeeping vigil,
\nhardly aware of how
\nit was leaning itself
\nin your direction.<\/p>\n

And now that
\nyou are here
\nthis blessing
\ncan hardly believe
\nits good fortune
\nthat you have finally arrived,
\nthat it can drop everything
\nat last
\nto fling its arms wide
\nto you, crying
\nwelcome<\/em>
\n welcome<\/em>
\n welcome<\/em>.<\/p>\n

– Jan Richardson<\/p>\n

[The Wise Women Also Came<\/em> image is \u00a9 Jan Richardson from the book Night Visions<\/em><\/a>. To use this image, please visit this page<\/a> at Jan Richardson Images.]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Image: Wise Women Also Came \u00a9 Jan Richardson Did you know that in some parts of the world, Epiphany (January 6, which brings the Christmas season to a close) is 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 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,6,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1063","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blessings","category-christmas","category-sacred-time"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p190Xv-h9","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sanctuaryofwomen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1063","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sanctuaryofwomen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sanctuaryofwomen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sanctuaryofwomen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sanctuaryofwomen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1063"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/sanctuaryofwomen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1063\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1072,"href":"https:\/\/sanctuaryofwomen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1063\/revisions\/1072"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sanctuaryofwomen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1063"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sanctuaryofwomen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1063"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sanctuaryofwomen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1063"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}