Opening (3 minutes)
Materials for Activity
- Altar or centering table
- Cloth for covering altar or centering table
- Chalice and candle
- Small votive candle
- Narrow taper candle
- Matches or lighter
- Copies of Handout 1: Blow in the Wind for all participants
- Optional: Objects for the altar or centering table. You may include natural objects such as rocks, pinecones, seashells, plants, or flowers; little plastic animals, or figurines of religious figures like St. Francis or the Buddha, or pictures of environmentalist heroes like Rachel Carson, Henry David Thoreau, or Aldo Leopold.
Preparation for Activity
- Review and photocopy Handout 1: Blow in the Wind.
- Prepare the altar or centering table with the cloth you have brought, a chalice and candle, a votive candle, a taper candle, and matches or a lighter.
- Light the votive candle in advance for a smooth chalice-lighting. During the workshop opening, a volunteer will use the taper candle to carry the flame from the votive to the chalice.
- Optional: If you have brought additional items for the altar or centering table, place them there.
Description of Activity
Distribute Handout 1: Blow in the Wind. Indicate the unison chalice-lighting words on the handout.Welcome participants and offer a brief introduction to this workshop. Use these words, or your own:
Welcome to this program on Unitarian Universalist spirituality as experienced in nature. We'll remember moments of beauty, awe, and oneness in nature. We'll share some of what we are learning of the cycle of birth and death and the ways we want to live in relationship to the earth. I'm so glad you are here.
If you have added objects to your altar or centering table, explain that you have added them because this workshop focuses on our spiritual connections with nature.
Invite a participant to light the chalice. Show the participant how to use the taper candle to carry the flame from the votive candle to the chalice candle. Ask him/her to blow out the taper candle after he/she has lit the chalice.
Lead the group in reciting the unison chalice-lighting words as the participant kindles the flame.
Invite participants to read silently along with you as you read aloud the Unitarian Universalist Principle and Source that this workshop highlights.
Last updated on Saturday, April 19, 2008.
