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Part I: the beginning of things, when cycles are born

When the world was very young, there were not yet any seasons. There were not even any days — the Sun and the Moon shared the sky in harmony, quietly watching over the world together. After time had been passing for some time, the Sun suddenly realized that he was tired. 

The Sun said to his friend the Moon:

“Moon, I have realized that I am tired, and would quite like to rest. What if we traded places here in the sky, so that we each get a break from watching the world, and have some time to rest?”

The Moon thought this was a wonderful idea, so they tried it out: each taking a turn to watch over the world in the sky, while the other rested. This is how the day and the night were born. This new cycle suited the Sun and the Moon very well — so well, that they decided that they each wanted their own larger cycles, in addition to day and night, so that they each had more time to rest and be renewed.

The Moon decided that she would wax and wane, showing up a bit less each night, until she was able to take an entire night off, and then come back slowly until she was in her full, beautiful glow. And so the months were born. 

The Sun decided that he wanted a longer cycle: he would go to sleep just a bit earlier every night and wake up a little later every morning for six months in a row, and then, more fully rested, he would start getting up earlier and staying up later for the next six months. And so the years were born. 

The Sun and the Moon loved their new cycles even more than they had loved the days. So much more felt possible in the world when everything worked in cycles. In fact, the Sun and the Moon felt so energized by their rest times that they decided they were ready for more life to join the world: in each new cycle, they introduced a few new beings. One new being at a time, they added mountains and rivers, trees and mushrooms, grasses and flowers and animal beings of all sorts. After many, many cycles, the world was full of beautiful new forms of life.

Each time a new being was introduced to the world, the Moon whispered to them: remember always that this world works in cycles. There are times of great light and activity, and there are times of darkness and rest. This is the great rhythm of the world, and all beings must follow this pattern in their own way. 

The mountains and rivers and trees and mushrooms and grasses and flowers and animal beings of all sorts followed these instructions, and they each found their own cycles. And for a time, all was well. 

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Part II: Squirrel arrives, disrupts the cycle

The world continued on for some time, with the mountains and rivers and trees and mushrooms and grasses and flowers and animal beings of all sorts living on, each in their own cycle. Things were going well, so more and more creatures were added to the world: now the world had Owl and Crow, Deer and Spider, Hedgehog and Fox and Bunny Rabbit. Some beings struggled more than others to learn about the rule of cycles, but especially by the time the year got dark and cold, they always seemed to find their natural rhythm. 

One day, Squirrel was born. Squirrel was small and fast and so happy to be in the world. He was so excited, in fact, that when the first instructions from Moon were whispered in his ears, he didn’t quite absorb them — he was already scampering away, running up the nearest tree to explore and learn as much as he could about this new world he had found himself in. The other animals saw this, and it worried them a bit, but little Squirrel was so cute and inquisitive, they all figured that he would learn the way of the world sooner or later.

Squirrel arrived in the world on the summer solstice, when Sun was at his brightest and most full. Everything was blossoming and bursting with life, and Squirrel saw that the world was full of abundance. Even though every day after Squirrel was born, the Sun went to rest a little earlier and woke up a little later, each change was so small and Squirrel moved so quickly, that it was many months before he fully noticed what was happening.

A few months in, the days had become darker and colder, and the trees had started to shed their leaves as they prepared to rest for the darker months of the year. Squirrel finally noticed these changes, and one day, he asked Owl (who had been around for many years, and always seemed to have the answers) what was going on. Squirrel asked:

“Old Owl, why have the days become so dark and cold? The world had such abundance and warmth when I first arrived. Has something gone wrong?”

Owl replied: “Oh little Squirrel. Did you not listen to Grandmother Moon when you arrived? Our world works in cycles — the Sun and the Moon each rest in their turn, and so must we. There is abundance also in our rest.”

Squirrel heard what Owl had said, but quickly dismissed it. Squirrel was very young, after all, and had some of the arrogance that often comes with youth. He thought, “Surely that only applies to the old beings who have been here for many years — I don’t feel tired at all! I’m so small and quick, I’m sure I’ll be able to zoom right through this cycle thing without missing anything while resting. I’ll stay awake all the way through these long nights and soon enough, the Sun will be back to brighten the long days again.”

The days kept getting shorter and the nights kept on getting longer, and most of the beings in the world watched this great cycle turning and responded in their way. Many of the trees shed all of their leaves, and the plants closed up their flowers. Crow and Hedgehog and Spider and Bunny Rabbit cozied up their homes and rested all through the long nights. Even old Owl, whose way was to stay awake through the long night and to sleep during the day, still honored this cycle in her own way: she grew a thicker coat of feathers to keep her warm in the beautiful cold and dark world. 

But Squirrel, in his youthful arrogance, did not respond to the cycle’s turning. Squirrel pretended he was not cold and did not grow a warmer coat, but instead kept on moving so quickly that no other creatures could keep track of where he was. And even though it should have been Squirrel’s way to sleep through the long nights, he kept himself awake, wandering far and wide when he really needed to rest. 

Finally, the world got to the longest night of the year, the turning point in its cycle, and the Sun went down for his deep, restful sleep. The Moon, who lived on her own cycle, was up full and high in the sky that night, watching over all of creation, as she always did.

As the Moon watched the world that night, she was pleased to see so many beings still following her important first instructions: some were awake, as was their way during the nighttime, and many were resting, as was their way. All seems well as the night went on and the Moon made her way through the sky.

Then, when the night was almost over, the Moon spotted something strange: there was little Squirrel, wearing much too thin of a coat of fur, and staying awake in hurried activity even though she knew full well that was not his true way of things. Moon suddenly felt a flash of anger that this being she had brought into the world was ignoring her instructions so fully! Were none of the other beings seeing this and helping him learn? In her anger, the Moon stormed away from the world — leaving the dark night without even the light of her presence. The Stars, who always watched the world kindly from their far-away homes, saw the Moon leaving and thought they should follow suit. The Sun, without the Moon returning to wake him and start the next day, slumbered on. So the world was left in darkness without Moon or Stars or Sun: the cycle of the year had stopped turning. 

---

Part III: Squirrel learns to rest, everyone learns to turn the year around

It was Owl who noticed first. She loved the dark, so it was not the long darkness itself that she minded — but her heart felt it the moment the Moon and the Stars had left, and she knew something was wrong. There was an unnatural stillness to the world: the year had stopped turning. 

Owl, even in all her wisdom, didn’t know what to do. The year had never stopped turning before! How could she call the Moon back and keep the cycle going?

Owl decided she needed help, not just from her animal friends, but from all of the beings of the world. She flew around waking everyone up: the trees and the flowers, the deers and the spiders, the mountains and mushrooms, telling all of them, “Wake up wake up! The Moon has left us, the year has stopped turning!”

Soon, all the beings were awake, disoriented and confused in the pitch darkness. Owl was trying to get everyone ordered, to see if they could come up with a plan, when she felt a little tug on her bottom feathers.

She looked down and saw Squirrel, small and tired and shivering in his too-light fur coat. Tears were streaming down his young face, freezing in the cold night air as they fell. He tried to speak, but words failed him.

Owl said: “Oh my dear, it can’t be as bad as all that! What’s wrong?”

Squirrel, speaking through his tears, said, “But Owl, it is, it is! It is all my fault that the year has stopped turning. The Moon saw me running around when I should have been resting… It’s because of me that she felt so angry that she left the sky altogether. I don’t know what to do!”

Owl sighed, and was still for a few moments. The poor young Squirrel in front of her was so very tired and distraught — Owl knew that more than anything, before anything else could happen, Squirrel needed to sleep. Owl thought back to her earliest days and remembered a song that a grandmother of some kind had sung to help the beings of the world learn to fall asleep. 

Owl said, “Dear child. Rest now — the year has stopped turning, so really, we are in no rush. Let me help you fall asleep.”

And she started singing:

Return again *
Return again
Return to the home of your soul

Return again
Return again
Return to the home of your soul

The other beings who had been woken up in all of the commotion started to listen in — and particularly the older ones, who had been around in the very first cycles of the world, realized they knew the song too. 

Return again
Return again
Return to the home of your soul

Return again
Return again
Return to the home of your soul

Before long, all of the beings of the world, all of the mountains and rivers and trees and mushrooms and grasses and flowers and animal beings of all sorts were singing. It felt right to all of them, somehow, to join together in song when the world was suddenly so strange and uncertain. Little Squirrel, who had been so very exhausted from trying to outrun the turning of the year, was soon fast asleep — but the other beings of the world kept on singing. 

The sound grew so loud and resonant that even in her far-off place away from the world, the singing started to reach the Moon. She inched closer and closer until she could hear them clearly:

Return again
Return again
Return to the home of your soul

Then the Moon, the great grandmother of the world, realized: they were singing the song she had taught them! The anger in her heart started to soften, and she realized how hasty she had been to leave the world. After all, the beings she created were all still so young (that little Squirrel especially!) — of course they didn’t understand how very important cycles were yet. And now they were singing the very song that she had created to help them fall asleep! All was not lost after all.

And so, slowly but decisively, moving to the rhythm of their singing, the Moon returned to the world. She appeared again low in the sky, to the exact point she had left, just staying for a moment before going on to wake up Sun. 

The many beings of the world, still circled up in song as all of them knew they should be as soon as they started singing, started to feel a lightness in their hearts. The sense of unnatural stillness began to shift. Just as the sun started peaking over the horizon line, they all realized together: the year had started turning again. 

Little Squirrel, exhausted from his distress and his long refusal to follow his natural rhythm, slept for most of the month of this re-started year. When he woke up, the moon had gone through her full cycle, and was back in the dark, cold sky in her beautiful fullness. He saw her just for a bit, when she was low in the sky at the beginning of night. The young Squirrel was still moving as quickly as ever, but with purpose this time: he had much to gather to keep himself warm and fed before returning to a restful slumber for the rest of the night. Squirrel had found his natural cycles of things, and honored it as best he could. The Moon was glad, and she hummed an old familiar tune as she traveled, as ever, through her cycle in the sky.

All was well. 

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* “Return Again” by Shlomo Carlebach, Singing the Journey #1011

Return again,
Return again,
Return to the home of your soul.

Return to who you are,
Return to what you are,
Return to where you are
born and reborn again.

Welcome! Welcome to Quest, welcome to the Church of the Larger Fellowship, and welcome to Unitarian Universalism.

This is a special issue of Quest meant specifically for those who are new to the Church of the Larger Fellowship (CLF) and Unitarian Universalism, and want to learn more about both. We are a community of spiritual seekers: Unitarian Universalism is a faith bound not by dogmatic beliefs, but by a commitment to love, learn, and grow with one another. We learn from and are resourced by many different spiritual paths and wisdom traditions, and embrace theological diversity within our communities. Our shared beliefs center around love and liberation for all people, and a commitment to creating more justice in the world. If that intrigues you, keep reading.

In this issue you’ll find the guiding principles and values of Unitarian Universalism, a timeline of our congregation’s history, and more about our shared theological commitments. You’ll also see some testimonials from members of the Church of the Larger Fellowship, the Unitarian Universalist congregation behind Quest, about the impact that the CLF has had on their lives.

Regular issues of Quest include reflections on monthly spiritual themes, poetry and artwork from our members, and opportunities to engage with the life of our congregation. The CLF is a congregation with no geographical boundary, and Quest is just one way that we connect with our 3000+ members, more than half of whom are currently experiencing incarceration. Our members who have access to the internet can join our weekly online worship services, take classes and be a part of small discussion circles, and our members who are not online have access to correspondence courses, reading packets, and pen pal connections. Please visit our website or write to us if you would like to learn more.

We hope to connect more soon—until then, enjoy this introduction to our vibrant, liberatory faith community!

A phrase landed in me during the week that my mother was dying, as I grasped at any words I could find to make sense of the enormous shift in front of me.

The shape of every memory is changing.

I was seeing with painful clarity what anyone who has experienced big loss knows: I would now have two lives. The first life was the previous 26 years in which I was lucky enough to have my beloved mother with me in life, and the second, however much time I have in front of me, in which I would have to hold her close as a beloved ancestor. And every memory from that first life was now changing, shaped by the reality of this sudden ending.

My mother was a constant in all of the life I’d already known. Her steady presence, her love and care, was a backdrop to all things — a backdrop so fundamental to my experience of life that it was hard to see it clearly at times. Her love had always been at the center of my life, but I wouldn’t have named it as such until I realized I would have to live without her living presence reinforcing it. Perhaps that’s just the way of everything that is fundamental. We assume there will always be air to breathe, until there isn’t; we assume the sun will rise every day, until it doesn’t.

Now, the backdrop of my every memory was suddenly shifting into focus. Now, in the constant foreground: the gift of having had my mother for any time at all, my gratitude for any moment we spent together in life. The shape of every memory had changed.

So many other things have come into clearer focus along with that shift. There is painful truth to the cliche that major loss makes you realize what’s most important. I’ve moved through the past year with much more clarity about how I want to use my time and energy, letting go of past insecurities and narratives that no longer serve me. With my mother’s love at the center, I understand the sacredness of my life more fully. The shape of my every memory has changed, and with it, the shape and direction of my life.

Memory is not static, an unchanging account of events and relationships and facts. It is the source of our meaning-making, a collection of threads from which we weave the narrative that holds our life. The shape and texture of our memories change along with us, as we need them to, to make sense of the ever-changing reality we are faced with.

Letting the shape of my memories change to foreground my mother’s love is one of the things that has saved me, that has made surviving this first year without her possible. How we remember matters — and the shape of our memories can shape our lives as we move through them.

May you each find a shape to your memories that allow you to move through loss and change with more ease. May you know, always, that you are loved, and let that holding shape all of your life to come.

Thank you to Rachel for your above piece, “Loss as a Gateway to Compassion” — this reflection is prompted by and written in response to your words.

As I write this, I’m about two months into the most significant and all encompassing grief journey of my life. My beloved mother passed away at the beginning of April — a fact that still feels completely impossible, no matter how many times I share it.

I’m new to the experience of this level of grief, so I won’t pretend to have particular wisdom on it. But I can say that so far, this has been the most embodied experience of my life. I’ve never felt more completely in my body than in the moment I learned my mother would soon be leaving hers, and every day since is teaching me more and more about how to care for and love my full, embodied self.

My family had a precious almost week between my mom’s stroke and her death, during which we knew that she was dying and that the most we could do for her was to sit by her bedside and surround her with our presence and love. Every inch of my body hurt that week, and I found myself uninterested in numbing the pain — feeling it made this unfathomable thing that was happening more real, somehow. The pain was as appropriate and warranted as my sobs and panic attack I had by her bedside, each one a physical expression of my complete love for her, and how very much I wanted things to be different.

I could barely eat for that entire week, as if my love for her was taking up too much of my being for there to be room for anything else. I’ve regained my appetite in the time since, but it often feels like my body chemistry has been changed by this loss. My mom loved cooking nourishing, vegetarian meals, and these days, any food that’s even slightly less healthy than what she would make doesn’t sit well anymore (and food that does remind me of her feels even better than it did before).

As I’ve waded into grief, I’ve found that it’s impossible to describe without some level of contradiction. I never experience it as just one feeling: for me, pain and sadness have been woven so tightly together with love and gratitude, there is no

separating them out. Noticing and naming where I’m experiencing each of these feelings physically, in my body, has become a necessary and almost constant practice for me just to move through the overwhelm.

The pain and heaviness usually shows up in my back and my limbs, building up as tension in moments when I feel the wrongness of a world without my mother’s physical presence. But that pain is always coupled with a feeling of warmth and protection wrapping around my heart: what I understand as her presence and love as it’s with me now.

I do feel that warmth around my heart as my mother’s spirit, with me now as she is with all that she loved in life — and I try to simply rest in that feeling as much as I can, and to ignore the nagging pull of my mind when it doubts the ‘realness’ of what I’m feeling. It is easy to doubt, because our minds can’t ever fully make sense of even our deepest spiritual truths; they can simply be experienced, known at the level of the body, and disembodied Western culture has taught so many of us to mistrust what is felt.

Through the heartbreak and exhaustion of feeling so much all of the time, in grief, I’ve also found myself more able to appreciate the everyday pleasures of simply being in a body. When I feel the sun on my skin and smell the spring flowers coming alive in my mother’s garden, each of those sensations feels like a huge gift, anchoring me to my love of this life. There’s no more room for me to take for granted the miracle of physical presence on earth while I’m this close to the otherworld of death.

Loving my physical body, caring for it through its overwhelm and pain, also feels like the most important, everyday way to honor my mother. She cared for me, for my body, so completely in life — caring for myself with that level of love is perhaps the most simple and most significant way for me to carry on her legacy.

If you are on your own grief journey — whether from a recent loss or one still carried close from many years ago — I hope that some of these words have landed gently in your body, either as a mirror or comparison point for your embodied experience. There is no one right way to feel or live with grief; each of our experiences plays out within our unique, messy, infinitely complex bodies, and I think the most important thing may be to simply be with what our bodies are feeling. I hope that’s true, anyway — being with all my body is feeling has been my way of making it through so far, so I’m holding on to it and trying hard to understand it as sacred. Our bodies are sacred, without a doubt, so all their experiences of love and grief must also surely be so.

Though the COVID-19 pandemic truly started months earlier, March 2020 was the month when its life-changing realities hit many of us in the US and other Western countries. In those early weeks of stay-at-home orders and new health and safety protocols, few of us could have imagined just how long and devastating this pandemic would become. There have been over 2 million recorded deaths from COVID-19 worldwide — with over 500,000 deaths in the US alone — and, as enormous as those numbers are, they fail to capture the full scope of loss that this year and the governmental mismanagement of the pandemic have brought. COVID has highlighted and exacerbated every one of the deep inequities in our society, and as those of you who are currently incarcerated know well, it has made our already-deadly prisons into places of even more violence and pain.

As we reach this one year mark of the pandemic as its been experienced in the West, it’s hugely important for us all to acknowledge the collective and individual loss we have experienced. Acknowledging and tending to our grief expands our capacity to hold it, allowing us more room to also hold the joy, resilience, and hope that may exist alongside that grief.

Below is an outline of a simple ritual for acknowledging and honoring the grief of this year of pandemic, as well as the gifts that this year may have brought. I believe that grief and gifts are inseparable — the losses we experience shape us, and we can honor them by making meaning from all they have taught us. Feel free to adapt or expand this ritual in any way that makes sense to you.

A prayer for grief & gifts

If you are able, I invite you to begin this ritual by gathering a pen and two pieces of paper, and finding a quiet spot to sit or lie down. Take a moment to breathe deeply, in and out, until you feel settled and calm in your body. You may then choose to light a chalice if that practice is available to you, or to sing or chant — whatever allows you to mark this time as sacred.

Then, call to mind all that has brought grief in the past year. As a list or in sentences, write down whatever comes to the surface. You may be grieving loved ones lost in the past year, or the continued absence of in-person community, or the loss of the sense of security you felt before the pandemic. Try not to filter what you’re feeling or compare your losses to that of others — all grief is holy and deserves to be honored.

Whenever you feel ready, turn your attention to the gifts or lessons of the past year. Perhaps this year has taught you to slow down, and listen more closely to the needs of your body. Or maybe you have learned more about your capacity for resilience, that you’re able to survive through heartbreak. Again, try not to filter what arises when writing down the gifts of this year — no matter how short or long your list of gifts is, each one deserves your attention.

Next, turn toward the year ahead. What do you hope to leave behind you from this year of pandemic? What do you hope to bring forward with you? Write down whatever rises to the surface, whether or not it is completely within your control.

When you have answered all of the prompts fully, go back through your answers and highlight or underline words that stand out the most. On a new piece of paper, use the format below (or your own version of it) to turn your words into a prayer or spell. Once you are done, read your prayer out loud. Then, fold the paper that has this prayer written on it and place it under your bed or beside your pillow. These words will now be with you as a loving companion in the coming year, a reminder of all that has been lost and all that has been gained, and the choices you are making about what to carry forward.

After a year of pandemic, I honor the heartbreak that I am carrying for all that has been lost. I am grieving ….

By holding my heartbreak tenderly, I also make space to take in the gifts and lessons this past year has brought. In this year, I have received the gift(s) of ….

Turning toward the year ahead, I hope to leave behind ….

In this next year, I seek to carry forward ….

By naming the grief and gifts of this year, I honor all parts of my experience as sacred. With these words I set my intentions for the year ahead, knowing that I am loved and held in care. May it be so.