In this beautiful second week of Advent, the kingdom of plants, along with the minerals of the Earth, are preparing for the event that becomes the turning point in humanity; a turning point of love.

I was thinking of the giant redwoods and sequoias, who have remained steadfast in the growth and light of the sun and the seasons.  Some of these ancient trees were alive at the time of Christ’s coming to Earth.  Perhaps one of the spiritual qualities within this second week is enduring constancy, and how we show this to our families.  Are we  steadfast and constant in our love and joy toward our families?  Toward all of humanity? That has become my meditation this week.  Constancy in love toward all.  The action I find I most often need to take to do this is to not react strongly to something at first; but to let things sit and filter through my mind and then react later; to hold my thoughts to not try to “fix” anything but to be present and attentive as a support; to hold hope.

This is a lovely week to make simple little crafts for the home and for gift-giving that involve plants.  Things we have planned include making pomanders ( I like this blog post on Simple Bites),  creating moss gardens in a tub of water and floating little half walnut shell beeswax-filled boats (see the book “Earthways” for more), slicing and dehydrating lemon, orange , and apple slices for your Christmas tree, a garland, or an outside tree for the birds.  This week might also be a wonderful time to make some herbal gifts.

I also thought of donating to an organization that plants trees in varying places – you could do this for a local organization or one that plants trees internationally.

Here are some back posts about the second week of Advent:

2015  (book suggestions)

2012

2010

This is also the week of The Feast of St. Nicholas!  There are some wonderful stories in this post; here is a back post about this special day.  There is also a post about some more traditions for this day here from 2009.

Many blessings to you this week in this week of constant love,

Carrie