It’s here! The Sacred Seasons liturgical wall calendar is now available in the (new!) Journey Shop.
I’ve been working on the Sacred Seasons liturgical calendar since the beginning of summer, and more specifically since listening to Rob Bell’s interview with one of my all-time favorite journey guides and spiritual midwives, Elizabeth Gilbert (download it now and listen on repeat—you won’t regret it). They were exploring the topic of Elizabeth Gilbert’s latest book, Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear, and something they said in the interview grabbed hold of me and wouldn’t let go when it comes to creativity: create the thing you can’t help but create.
In other words, create the thing that you feel compelled to bring into this world, create the thing that you find useful, meaningful, important. But most of all, create.
The Sacred Seasons liturgical wall calendar is that for me. I grew up in a non-liturgical denomination in the Christian Church, and though I was familiar with the seasons of Advent and Lent through the various traditions that accompany them (namely the lighting of the Advent wreath and fasting during Lent), I didn’t discover the deep significance of the liturgical seasons until I entered graduate school.
All calendar images by Dan Cumberland of Sparkfly Photography
In this ecumenical setting, both ancient in its practice and postmodern in its way of thinking, I was introduced to the Liturgical Calendar and became enchanted by the invitations the liturgical seasons carry for my own life and spiritual journey. To me, the Liturgical Calendar seemed both rooted in tradition while also offering an innovative framework for spiritual growth, allowing seekers to journey deeper year after year.
As my passion grew for the liturgical seasons and I began to see the many ways in which they brought deeper meaning to my own spiritual journey, I became equally passionate about sharing the richness of the Calendar with fellow seekers, whether they were being introduced to the liturgical seasons for the first time or simply seeing them with new eyes.
Since A Sacred Journey began in 2013, we’ve followed the liturgical calendar and its invitations for our everyday lives closely, even inviting liturgical guides to share their wisdom with us along the way. Now, with the release of the Sacred Seasons liturgical calendar, A Sacred Journey offers a liturgical guide that you can hold in your hands, hang on your wall, and use again and again, year after year.
Each turn of the page of this perpetual wall calendar beckons you into a new liturgical season or select feast day, with unique hand-lettered illustrations containing invitations, colors, and symbols associated with each period and more detailed descriptions on the back of each page.
Put it in a corner in your kitchen or at your desk at work. Hang it above your home altar or by your back door. Turn the page with the arrival of each season, reading the season’s description and then returning it to a place where it will catch your eye each day, reminding you of the season at hand and its invitations for your own spiritual journey.
Blessings to you as you inhabit these sacred seasons, furthering your journey with each turn of the page.
Behind the scenes of the creation process (from left to right): preliminary sketches of the season pages (read: doodles); perfecting the lettering (the liturgical seasons alphabet doesn’t need all 26 letters); finishing the text (lighting a candle helped get me through); final edits (which I had to do at least A MILLION times—if there are any typos don’t tell me; okay, DO tell me, but only when I’m out and it’s time to re-order); color-matching at the printer in order to make it just right