Welcome to Nature Nurtured!
This month, we’re celebrating the first day of Winter with the comforts of hearth and home. Our December offerings are intended as inspiration for crafting a solstice season both meaningful and merry for your own pagan or earth-reverent family. We hope that you’ll cozy up with some cocoa and enjoy!
Birth of a Star by Ellen Million
Waiting For Winter
It isn’t always easy waiting for Yule to arrive, for the cookies to be frosted, the gifts to be exchanged, the first snows to fall, and the Sun to begin his return to our days. When the landscape is brown, instead of crystalline white, it can be hard to imagine that the season will ever change. Kristin D. Jones shares, in Preparing for Yuletide, a day with her daughters reading books about winter’s approach and creating some seasonal art in anticipation of snow. My Yule and Winter-themed Books for the Pagan Family compiles over forty recommended resources and storytime favorites to curl up together with as the temperatures drop. Sarah Diemer embraces the happy anticipation by inviting us to join in her family tradition of 21 Days of Thankful Snowflakes: A Solstice Advent Project.
Giving Gifts
For many of us, giving gifts is a vital part of Yule. My Homemade, Handmade, Fair Trade, Found, and Fun: Alternatives in Gift Giving explores a wonderful world of options outside the big box store. Sarah Diemer put together a charming list of small businesses that will make it easier this year Finding Gifts for the Pagan Child (or child at heart). In our December Shop Spotlight, we meet Susan Minyard of Sweetwater Pottery and learn how she embraced her passion and saved a little bit of the Earth in the process.
Holiday Dove Tree by Neva Davis
Celebrating Yule
In this month’s installment of Your Family, we are invited to share in the joys and eclectic traditions of Yule at Home with the Dandelions. Missouri-based J.F.A., regales us with rich details from her farm family’s solstice observances and lets us know ways she is Sharing Yule Traditions with Children, Pets, and Wildlife.
If you’re looking for new traditions for the holiday, you can host A Feast for the Animals, read Sarah Diemer’s Holly and the Winter Queen: A Winter Solstice Fairy Tale together, or explore thoughts of the Sun as a star in her Following the Star: A Winter Solstice Meditation for Children.
Warmth Grows, Held by Stars by Katie Raynes
The Lessons of Winter
When the bustle of holiday parties, family gatherings, and social obligations die down we have the opportunity to experience what River Roberts calls The Season of Stillness. There are many lessons of Winter to be explored in the coming months. For me, the difference between experiencing it as the hardest season or as a winter wonderland depends on my attitude and The Magic of Perception. Jennifer Diemer offers advice for parents and ritual planners on how to provide Quiet Rituals and safe space for shy and introverted children to participate in group gatherings.
Our December Prize Giveaway
In celebration of our inaugural issue, we are giving away three Merry Meet plates from Sweetwater Pottery. For details on entering, please visit our Giveaways page. The drawings are open to any U.S. residents age 18 or older. Sweepstakes entry runs between December 1st, 2012 and Noon EST December 10th, 2012 when the winners will be selected via random.org random number generation and announced on our site. Good Luck!
For information on art you’ve seen in this issue, please visit our Art page. Artist bios, mediums and intentions, and links to portfolios and shops where you can see and purchase more of their work are all listed under the titles of the individual pieces.
Your opinion matters to us. Please take a moment to comment on an article that you particularly enjoyed or send us an email to let us know what we’ve done well and what we can do better. As a new venture, we are working hard to create the best resource possible for pagan and earth-reverent families. Thanks!
My heartfelt thanks go out to this month’s circle of contributors. Your wisdom, talent, and generosity make Nature Nurtured possible. Thank you, as always, to Laura Vasilion for your technical skills, artist’s eye, and cheerful professionalism. You are both the brains and the beauty of this operation. Thank you, thank you, thank you to those of you who took a risk on a new venture and contributed your time, your creativity, and your knowledge. J.F.A., Neva Davis, The Dandelion Family, Sarah and Jennifer Diemer, Kristin D. Jones, D. Melcher, Ellen Million, Susan Minyard, Katie Raynes and River Roberts–you’ve helped me believe in my own dream. Finally, a big thank you to Susan Minyard of Sweetwater Pottery who sweetly fielded (lots of) questions about her work from a complete stranger and then surprised me by donating one of her plates for our giveaway. It has been a delight to meet you.
We need you to make Nature Nurtured great. We are currently accepting submissions for our January 1st issue on the themes of winter, Imbolc, and nurturing creativity in our homes. If you are interested in contributing, please visit our Submissions page for more information on what we’re looking for and what we pay. Thanks!
Brightest Blessings,
Rachel Melcher
NatureNurtured.com
