Our February theme invites us to reflect on the kinds of love that we and our world need at this time. We were not able to meet together in person due to a winter storm warning, but these are the readings and reflection questions we would have used. I hope you can take some time to go on your own self-guided forest church this month!

In a time of upheaval and uncertainty, how do we let love be our guide? This month we are faced with hearts, flowers, and chocolate, with poetry and cards to celebrate romantic love. But love is also relentless, fearless, courageous, bold, inclusive, generous, honest, joyful, wholehearted.
In a time of upheaval and uncertainty, how do we let love be our guide? This month we are faced with hearts, flowers, and chocolate, with poetry and cards to celebrate romantic love. But love is also relentless, fearless, courageous, bold, inclusive, generous, honest, joyful, wholehearted. How would you describe the love that you need to see in the world today?

Gathering & Grounding - Pause for a moment to ground yourself where you are. Take some deep breaths, look around, listen, feel the air and snow on your skin. Tune into a sense of the sacred presence with you.

Readings & Reflections - take these readings onto the land with you:
“Love is the greatest force in the universe. It is the heartbeat of the moral cosmos.” Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

“Love does not rejoice in wrongdoing but rejoices in the truth.  It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.” 1 Corinthians 13: 6-7  

For further reading, you can look at Dianna Butler Bass's Substack post titled Love Relentlessly.

Wandering & Wondering - as you wander, or sit cozily indoors, consider these questions: 

• What message of love do you need to hear today?
• What kind of love do you think the world (or a specific being you encounter today) needs right now?
• What kind of love do you think the world (or a specific being you encounter today) can offer you?
• What examples of love do you observe happening around you, in both human ways and more-than-human ways?​

Winter's joy comes in fluffy snow
brightening the drab landscape,
pillowy soft to catch my falling body,
sculptable magic inspiring creativity,
insulating life and promise.

Joy comes in howling winds
and stormy weather that shuts
down roads, schools, meetings,
creating space to curl up at home
and the joy of missing out.

Joy comes in the persistent
song of a cardinal in February,
perched high atop a bare tree,
brilliant red against brilliant blue,
singing for love and life.

Joy comes in remembering 
we are enough in who we are today.
we are not our labours.
We are not our achievements.
We are deep, strong, resilient, connected.
We are made for joy.

​- Wendy Janzen

This is my found poetry based on a quote I shared in our February newsletter. Here is the full quote, followed by the poem I created.

"Once we stop wishing it were summer, winter can be a glorious season in which the world takes on a sparse beauty... It's a time for reflection and recuperation, for slow replenishment, for putting your house in order.
Doing those deeply unfashionable things--slowing down, letting your spare time expand, getting enough sleep, resting--is a radical act now, but it is essential."
(Katherine May, in Wintering: The Power of Rest and Retreat in Difficult Times)

My poem:
Slow down.
Stop wishing it were summer.
Winter be a glorious season
the world a sparse beauty.

Time for reflection, recuperation,
slow replenishment.

Do deeply unfashionable things
let spare time expand
get enough sleep.
Rest is a radical act.

​- Wendy Janzen