Advent Wreath

ADVENT CANDLES,
ACCUSTOMED, CEREMONIOUS

Thanks to my friend Megan
for the card of PEACE

Yesterday was the First Sunday of Advent, the traditional starting point of the season of holiday anticipation. Advent Sunday is always the fourth Sunday before Christmas Day, which is usually the Sunday immediately following Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving always falls between November 22nd & November 28th, with the First Sunday of Advent falling somewhere between November 27th and December 3rd. The charming daily Advent Calendars -- featuring magical doors, tiny surprises, booklets, pictures, chocolates -- always begin on December 1st, but the weekly Advent Candles began (this year) on November 27th. The timing is perfect: another Thanksgiving has been successfully written into the family history, and now begins the the countdown to Christmas!

Ellie says:
Goodbye Thanksgiving. Hello Christmas!

In his classic "Oratorio," W. H. Auden (1907- 73) captures the outsized sense of expectation that we inevitably bring to this time of year:

"For the innocent children who whispered so excitedly
Outside the locked door where they knew the presents to be
Grew up when it opened. . . . "

Similary, Elizabeth Jennings (1926- 2001) compares the pre - Christmas excitement of a child to the post - Christmas reality of deflated expectations. Her poem moves from forethought / build - up to afterthought / let - down; and the concluding realizations ring just as true for adults as they do for children:

Afterthought

For weeks before it comes I feel excited, yet when it
At last arrives, things all go wrong:
My thoughts don't seem to fit.

I've planned what I'll give everyone and what they'll give to me,
and then on Christmas morning all
The presents seem to be

Useless and tarnished. I have dreamt that everything would come
To life—presents and people too.
Instead of that, I'm dumb.

And people say. 'How horrid! What a sulky little boy!'
And they are right. I can't seem pleased.
The lovely shining toy

I wanted so much when I saw it in a magazine
Seems pointless now. And Christmas too
No longer seems to mean

The hush, the star, the baby, people being kind again.
The bells are rung, sledges are drawn.
And peace on earth for them.

by Elizabeth Jennings

Whether or not Jennings was thinking of Advent, I like the way the final stanza echoes the characteristics of the four Advent candles:

the first candle represents hope & prophecy: "The hush"
the second candle represents peace & Bethlehem: "the star"
the third candle represents love & angels: "the baby"
the fourth candle represents joy & shepherds: "people being kind."

If you want to pull together an Advent wreath, there are numerous designs and color combinations to choose from, but all you really need are four candles that you love the look of, such as this Swedish set from my beloved, inspired and inspiring neighbor Virginia:

or this combination from 2018:

In 2016, I incorporated my brother Dave's hand - crafted Aggravation / Parcheesi / Trouble Game Board into my Advent Candle, lending to the medieval wagon wheel effect:

"The Advent wreath -- usually an evergreen wreath, with candles -- came to us directly from winter solstice celebrations when large wagon wheels were decorated with evergreens and lit candles to encourage the return of light" (p 48).

from Treat or Trick? Halloween in a Globalising World
by Malcolm Foley & Hugh O'Donnell

More Advent Ideas

More Poems by Elizabeth Jennings
This Colorful Friday
The Falling Fruit, The Certain Spring
Childhood Autumn
When I Said Autumnal Equinox
Secret Garden

More by Auden

2023
Next Fortnightly Post
Wednesday, December 14th

Between now and then, read
THE QUOTIDIAN KIT
my shorter, almost daily blog posts
www.dailykitticarriker.blogspot.com

Looking for a good book? Try
KITTI'S LIST
my running list of recent reading
www.kittislist.blogsppot.com

The Soul Shrinks: Wilbur & Whyte

FURTHER CONNECTIONS,
ACCUSTOMED, CEREMONIOUS

" . . . a small opening into the new day . . . "

1. Scroll back eleven years
to Richard Wilbur's dreamy poem
"Love Calls Us to the Things of This World":

"The eyes open to a cry of pulleys,
And spirited from sleep, the astounded soul
Hangs for a moment bodiless and simple
As false dawn. . . .

The soul shrinks

From all that is about to remember,
From the punctual rape of every blessed day . . ."

&

2. Now go back five Thanksgivings
to David Whyte's tender reminder of
"What To Remember When Waking":

"In that first hardly noticed moment in which you wake,
coming back to this life from the other
more secret, moveable and frighteningly honest world
where everything began,
there is a small opening into the new day
which closes the moment you begin your plans. . . .

To be human is to become visible . . .
To remember the other world in this world
is to live . . . "

In very similar ways, these two poems describe the first few seconds of consciousness after a deep forgetful sleep. Whyte says the world of dreams is frightening; Wilbur finds the waking world astounding, and not always in a good way -- which is why the soul shrinks from it. Waking up is hard! It's all about remembering and starting over again, every day.

Nowhere is this daily repetition more vividly demonstrated than in the morning routine of Roy Scheider / Joe Gideon / Bob Fosse, as portrayed in the 1979 movie All that Jazz. He washes his face, puts drops in his eyes, takes a handful of meds, smacks his cheeks, looks in the mirror, and -- miraculously -- his soul appears, ready to accept the punishing reality of his relentless schedule: It's showtime!

Wilbur imagines the soul beginning each day "bodiless" before its descent and reunion with the physical body. Similarly, Whyte suggests the soul's movement from one state to another: "To be human is to become visible." However mystical and enriching our sleep may be, we are perpetually required to make the jagged transition from dreams to reality, to apply ourselves, to get back to work again, gathering our desires. It' showtime!

The morning light illuminates the "hunks and colors" and "shapes" of our earthly life, all those bulky obligations and responsibilities, all that quotidian laundry.

For Wilbur,

" . . the sun acknowledges
With a warm look the world's hunks and colors,
The soul descends once more in bitter love
To accept the waking body . . . "


For Whyte,

"Now, looking through the slanting light of the morning window
toward the mountain presence of everything that can be
what urgency calls you to your one love?
What shape waits . . . "

In both poems, it is love, bitter or not, that calls us to the things of this world. Each narrator reveals a strategy for how to keep on loving the world, participating in the panorama, and writing about it. Whyte says, have a big plan, not a small plan; try not to feel uneasy; you belong here! Wilbur says, no it's not easy keeping our balance; it's difficult but also -- as he describes the laundry animated by the breeze -- joyful, angelic, delicate.

Photos of November Foliage
West Sussex, England

Next Fortnightly Post
Monday, November 28th

Between now and then, read
THE QUOTIDIAN KIT
my shorter, almost daily blog posts
www.dailykitticarriker.blogspot.com

Looking for a good book? Try
KITTI'S LIST
my running list of recent reading
www.kittislist.blogsppot.com