Advent Traditions: Embodied Advent
Advent was one of the first seasons of the church calendar I found myself actively, intentionally engaging with. I remember when I ordered my very first Advent study guide from She Reads Truth and how excited I was to engage with the Christmas season in a new way. When the box arrived, I hadn’t just purchase a study book for myself, but I purchased a few to gift to friends who I thought would also love engaging in the season in this way.
As each year passed, I began bulk ordering these study books, taking orders from friends so we could save on shipping costs, get a bulk order discount (which helped with the dollar exchange from purchasing with Canadian funds from a US company!), and even get the free gifts. When the books arrived, texts would be sent to excited friends all looking forward to engaging deeply in the season.
As the Advent study books became a tradition of their own to those of us who would order year after year, our bookshelves lined side by side with the study books filled with pages of recipes and reflections, scripture and crafts, another tradition was being formed– Virtual Advent Soul Care Yoga.
Since 2020, Advent Soul Care Yoga has been taking place over Zoom. For 5 consecutive weeks, we gather weekly for an hour to explore a theme that invites us deeper into the advent season. Each series has a theme that we explore as the five weeks together progress, similar to the advent study books which would walk us through a theme from the beginning of advent, all the way into the new year. This format of a theme, I’ve come to realize, has come from my love for bible studies– from showing up and diving deeper into a topic. More than the surface, spending extended time in a theme allows us to dig in, ask big questions, explore God with us in it all, and often leaves a longer lasting impact.
We’ve explored themes like diving into the lyrics in our favourite Christmas Carols, to remembering that God is With Us as Emmanuel, and even a theme centred around Preparing Room in our Hearts. Each year we explore something unique, and with each passing year, relationships with God deepen and expand.
This year, our fifth-annual Advent Soul Care Yoga Series has the theme of Embodied Advent…
As my pal (lol) Taylor would say, it’s been a long time coming…
I first set out to do a yoga series called Embody: Spring. In this series, we would consider what embodiment means to us and how the season, and all of God’s beautiful creation, invites us into embodied living. The registration page was up, I had done some Instagram stories teasing its arrival, and like the changing weather of spring itself, my life changed in the space of a phone call where I was on a flight within a few days back to Canada to be with my dad as he passed. Embody: Spring never sprung. The seed that was planted never bloomed. And while the world around me was signaling this season of awakening, I was on a plane back into winter and the cycle of death.
The idea of bringing the theme of Embodiment into an offering was still pressing deeply in my heart and soul and originally, my thoughts said, ‘You’ll do an autumn series, it’ll happen then.’ As the days went on and summer arrived, Embodied Advent came knocking on my heart from the Spirit…
I set aside the assumed Embody: Autumn and swapped it for an Autumn Devotions series, which, like the spring session, never came to fruition with life unfolding as it did. But Embodied Advent?... I resolved that no matter what, our advent yoga series, our consistent tradition we’ve been doing together since 2020 was going to happen.
In 2023 when I asked people to join me for our Virtual Advent Soul Care Yoga series, I remember sending out an email saying that I knew it was wild to be asking them to trust me with their hearts, bodies, minds, and souls during such a beloved time of year when I hadn’t been able to hold space for them virtually the rest of the year. In 2023, I spent pretty much every free moment I had at the hospital with my dad, or packing up to get ready for our move to Tennessee. Upon arriving in Tennessee, settling in and adjusting to this new place we called home, starting my post-graduate year of study in Spiritual Direction, and more, life was an adventure and when the time came, our advent together rang like a beacon calling me back into my purpose and passion.
This year, the call feels the same.
This year, we will come together virtually, from anywhere we find ourselves, and we will embrace our annual tradition together.
Embodied Advent invites us into the present moment, into our bodies, and into our awareness of the Loving Presence of God with us as we reflect on what it means to us that God came in human-form as Jesus, born to us on what we lovingly celebrate as Christmas Day.
Through yoga asana (movement), breathwork (pranayama), meditation, soul-nourishing reflection, and contemplative practices, we will be looking at how we can live embodied and self-aware during such a busy season, reflecting on how Jesus came as God-made-flesh, our embodied creator, looking to the gift of being in our bodies and the gift of their creation.
Each week we are going to explore a different part of this idea, taking it slow through the 5-weeks together so we have time to let it sink into our bones, and settle in our hearts. From exploring what embodiment means to you, to exploring what happens in our bodies when we consider the season of advent, reflecting on God as embodied in human form, and even diving into how we can live embodied in this season of waiting that is representative of advent.
The more I spend time in my own prayer practices, including my current involvement in going through the 19th Annotation, doing the Exercises in Daily Life by St.Ignatius, embodiment is key. Being aware of your body, listening to it and responding to it, is a fundamental way we can experience a unique sense of closeness with God. To honour your body is to honour the One who crafted it with such care. To live embodied allows us to more easily notice the fingerprints of God on the created world, which stirs our hearts to gratitude and worship. When we remember that Jesus lived, we have a physical example to learn from.
The beauty of traditions is how natural they become.
They begin to feel like breathing.
They are like puzzle pieces that fit into our lives and bring the picture together.
This advent, perhaps you’ll join me for our Virtual Advent Soul Care Yoga Series and continue building this tradition into your holiday season, or perhaps you’ll join for the very first time, and see what it would be like to add this spiritual practice into your Christmastime season.
To learn more about Embodied Advent, click the link below!
Registration is now open and our first class is on Thursday, November 21st.
*Note, 10 participants are required for this class to run so please tell your friends!*
