NOTE: This Reflection was cross-posted at https://www.abbeyofhope.com/reflectionary/. We give thanks to Lindy for her care and devotion to the Reflectionary over the last 4 years and we are grateful for the opportunity to host this community of artists, writers, dreamers, and readers for the years ahead.
Water, Leaves, & Light, photograph by Lindy Gifford
By Lindy Gifford
Change is in the air. The leaves are falling to earth, the harvest is in, the garden put to bed. Samhain, All Saints’ and All Souls’ Days, Dios de los Muertos, Halloween, are upon us. It is the dying time of year here in the Northern Hemisphere. Beautiful and oh-so-bittersweet. It is also the time to honor our ancestors and our loved ones who have gone before us. I am preparing a service for the youth of our Unitarian Universalist Fellowship in Damariscotta. This year, we will be celebrating the Solstices and Equinoxes, and the Cross-Quarter Days that stand between them, marking the earth’s journey once more around the sun. I will also celebrate Samhain with my sister, at the family camp, where we will set up an altar for our mutual ancestors. A practicing Quaker, she has begun following the Celtic yearly celebrations and will be sharing her practice with her Quaker small group. It is an unexpected and unusual pleasure for the two of us to be able to celebrate Samhain and be with our ancestors—together this year.
As I began this Reflectionary, I recalled that I also wrote the previous one—on February 1, 2022, about Imbolc, celebrating the first stirrings of Spring. And here we are, the results of those stirrings are dying back, and I am just now writing the next Reflectionary post. What, you may ask, happened to Reflectionary during the intervening months? Counterintuitively, Reflectionary died back in those busy, warm months, but—good news—now, at the dying time of the year, it has been reborn. Some of you may already know this, but for those who do not, Reflectionary has found a warm and welcoming home at ChIME, the Chaplaincy Institute of Maine. (If you missed Rev. Lori Whittemore’s letter describing the future of Reflectionary and other Abbey of Hope programs, you can read it here.) This is the last Reflectionary email you will receive from the Abbey of Hope and in order to honor your privacy, we are not sharing your contacts. Instead, I encourage you to go to this link to sign up to receive the emails from ChIME, if you have not already.
With this letter, I am stepping down as editor of the Reflectionary, and Lisa Steele-Maley, Dean of ChIME, has taken up the task. It is our dearest wish that this community will follow the Reflectionary to its new home, not only to receive others’ reflections, but to offer your own (whether you have contributed in the past or not) and blend the Abbey of Hope community voices with those of the ChIME community. Perhaps fall, as we turn inward and settle by the fire (or radiator), is the perfect time to read, write, create, and connect with each other through both the written word and art. I have found editing the Reflectionary enormously rewarding over the past four years, and I want to thank all our inspired authors and artists, as well as our readers. Let’s keep this going, help the Reflectionary to thrive in its new home, and make sure the voices heard there remain diverse—and become even more so!
To read the new Reflectionary at Chime: chimeofmaine.org/reflectionary
To sign up to receive the new Reflectionary from Chime: chimeofmaine.org/contact-us
New submission guidelines: chimeofmaine.org/reflectionary-guidelines-for-submissions
Contact Lisa with submissions: lisa@chimeofmaine.org
Lindy Gifford is an artist, photographer, graphic designer, creative coach, and writer, ordained an interfaith chaplain in 2015 by the Chaplaincy Institute of Maine (ChIME). A life-long Unitarian Universalist, she is rooted in daily interaction with and connection to the Earth and Creation, as well as the Christian and pre-Christian heritage of her ancestors. She is the author of the Doodle-ography Journal. Her spirit-based practice as a creative coach and publishing consultant is Manifest Identity. Lindy lives on and learns from the Damariscotta River, where she and her husband Steve raised two shining daughters.
