Friends and Fellow Travelers,
In a year of a world spanning pandemic and political crisis, where people find themselves tired and exhausted we invite you once again to journey with us into the heart of Christmas, to find a place of rest, cradling hope. This online pilgrimage will lead you into an interior journey into the heart of Christmas, in your own pace and time.
Every day you will receive a brief reflection, poem, blessing, or practice you can unwrap like an unexpected Christmas gift.
When we started this journey several years ago we did not know that "cloistering" at home would be the new normal. But here we are, facing another Covid winter, cradling hope. Together we will walk from Holy Night all the way to Epiphany in a contemplative spirit, guided by our heart’s longing and the many wise women and men before us. We will lead this Contemplative Online Journey having our baby girl with us for the second time, and we continue to learn from her to open our eyes and hearts like a child on Christmas Eve and to cradle the Divine presence among us.
We are looking forward having you with us on this sacred journey.
Almut & Chuck
PS: You can subscribe below to receive our daily meditations through the 12 Days pf Christmas 2020/21.
About The Twelve Days Of Christmas Journey
The 12 Days of Christmas might remind some of a silly song. But we use these days to revive the early medieval tradition of a sacred time between Christmas Day and Epiphany. We started our 12 Day of Christmas Online Journey four years ago following a vision of a sacred reading retreat where seekers like us can walk together towards the heart of Christmas, to take a break from the hustle and bustle, to breathe, and to wonder, guided and sustained by wise women and men before us (including Mary, Joseph, Meister Eckhart, Hildegard, Rumi, Bonhoeffer, Kierkegaard and others). And the Journey has gathered readers around the globe since. We do not follow much of the traditional string of saints’ days for the season, but rather explore every year anew what Christmas might mean to each of us, while creating a breathing space for you, guiding you through readings and practices from Holy Night to the threshold of the Old and the New Year and all the way to Epiphany on a quiet interior journey in your own pace and time.
This Year’s Theme: Cradling Hope
What else could happen this year to make us crave hope with all our being? Struck by an unimaginable pandemic and political, economic, and ecological instability many of us are exhausted, lonely, in grief and fear. For many the Christmas season ends with Holy Night when one discards the dried out Christmas tree. But as Christmas is the birthing place for hope, Christmas Eve isn’t the end of the journey but the beginning. Like a newborn child newly-born hope must be cradled, carefully fed and tended, protected, nourished, and guided on its way. And as there is no hope without facing darkness and no Christmas Day without Christmas Night we want to hold together our sorrows and hopes on this sacred journey, birthing new life in each of us.
How It Works
Every day we will provide a brief online reflection followed by a practice or question you might find time for at the same day or a time of your liking. The reflection will help set the stage, and the question or practice will help you construct your own interior journey through the days.
Sustained by poems, stories, spiritual teachings and practices we will walk toward the threshold of the New Year where old and new meet. We will then guide you into a day of recollection at the end of the year. From there we walk together towards the light of Epiphany into new beginnings.
You are invited to take some time every day to walk through our virtual Christmas door here to find some reflections, images, and practices to lead you through the 12 days of Christmas. You can visit our 12 Days of Christmas blog daily or enroll on the journey below to receive our contemplations right in your inbox each day.
Our 12 Days of Christmas Journey is a gift given from our heart to yours. If you like to give a gift in return to sustain our work you surely can do so. Every gift will be deeply appreciated and answered with a handwritten note.
We are looking forward to journeying with you through this sacred time.
Almut & Chuck & little Hannah
Retreat Leaders
Dr. Almut Furchert holds graduate degrees in philosophy of religion and psychology and has worked as an independent scholar, counselor and retreat leader since many years. She grew up as a pastor’s child in the former East Germany and has felt called since to foster dialogue across boundaries as well as to provide soul food for people from pastoral, academic and helping professions. She founded cloisterseminars.org in 2014 and started the Twelve Days of Christmas series there four years ago. Her husband Chuck Huff, PhD. is Professor of Psychology at St. Olaf College and a practicing Benedictine Oblate at St. Johns Abbey, MN. Both share their passion for monastic traditions and spiritual practices as well as for European thought and wisdom traditions. In 2019 they welcomed their daughter Hannah who inspired last year’s theme.
