In many Pagan and Earth-based traditions, the Autumn Equinox (Mabon) represents gratitude, balance, and letting go. Many see it as a threshold moment, acknowledging what has been harvested and preparing for renewal through darker months. What are you experiencing in this Change of Season? What opportunities for transformation does the Equinox provide us? Join us this week as we honor Mabon (Autumn Equinox) and the gifts and opportunities this celestial event provides us.

Guest Bio

Cecelia Hayes’ more than 29 years of professional experiences run the gamut of organizing, curriculum development, teacher mentoring, & executive coaching for equity with a variety of organizations in Seattle and Chicago.   She was on teaching faculty in Sociology at Northeastern Illinois University in Chicago for nine years, focusing on critical race theory,  gender studies, queer theory, and media studies, She is a former Phyllis Mayo Fellow for Leadership Tomorrow, a national civic engagement institute.   She was a founding member of Black UU’s of the Pacific Northwest, and served as a member of the UUA General Assembly Planning Committee from 2018-2021.  She is currently the senior practitioner for equity, social justice and engagement in Executive Services for King County, WA. The daughter, granddaughter, and great granddaughter of singers and Movement activists, Cecelia’s accomplishments and interests include, vocal performance, “slam” poetry performance, documentary films, local community activism and keeping up with a very energetic 17 year-old daughter.

What is a mistake? Something gone wrong? A decision you regret? Part of transformation is learning from our mistakes, this week we will explore how to have grace for ourselves and others when mistakes are made.

We have spent the past month exploring all the ways we need rest to replenish our bodies and spirits. On our last day of the month, we will lean into the transition from rest to rising and what comes next on our journey toward collective liberation. And we will honor Dolly, the woman who showed us how to live generously and with love for humanity.

Relationships require a lot of work. Growth requires a lot of work. As we celebrate Labor Day weekend in the United States, we will honor the emotional labor that we are each asked to do as part of our commitment to transformation (and recognize that emotional labor is not distributed equitably in our society).

Many times we are told to put things down, disengage, take a vacation or a media fast as ways to rest. Those are definitely ways to rest. And. Sometimes the rest comes in choosing presence, moving closer, picking up threads whose disconnected dangling was wearing us out. There must be at least a thousand ways to rest. Come practice a few together on our faithful journey towards collective liberation.

Bio: Born by a lowland salt marsh, educated by a mighty river, and moved by love to an island cared for by the people of the clear saltwater since time immemorial, Rev. Deanna Vandiver (she/they/De) is a called-auntie in the world and serves as an Affiliated Community Minister for Love and Liberation with the Church of the Larger Fellowship Unitarian Universalist and the founder of Ever Unfolding. As a human raised to be white inside of violent, extractive empire, Deanna is deeply grateful to the People’s Institute for Survival and Beyond for shaping her core understandings as a young adult and beyond of how systemic racism dehumanizes all of us – and how it can be undone together.

Our culture tells us that productivity is worth, that stillness is wasted time. This service pushes back — drawing on Tricia Hersey and The Nap Ministry's teaching that rest is not a reward to be earned but a birthright, and that reclaiming rest is an act of resistance against systems built on exhaustion. We'll explore what rest can actually look like — not just sleep, but the many forms stillness and restoration can take, and an invitation to notice which ones you're missing.

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Have you ever just needed a nap? Capitalist grind culture makes it nearly impossible for all but a privileged few to do this. Perhaps we can normalize napping when we need it.

Global extractive capitalism manufactures scarcity and inflation for the masses by hoarding resources for a few elites. Then, Empire and it’s agents coerce us to trade our sacred bodies (labor) for very trivial amounts of money (a thing that literally has no inherent value). Many of us are so busy on the hamster wheel of capitalism that rest feels like a luxury we cannot afford; but what if, REST is the only thing that can free us from the evils of the Empire?

Suggested Resources:

Rest is Resistance by Tricia Hersey; The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel van der Kolk ; The Deepest Well by Nadine Burke Harriss, MD; Loving the Body ed. By Anthony Pinn and Dwight Hopkins; Post Traumatic Slave Syndrome by Joy DeGruy Leary, and Crisis Contemplation by Barbara Holmes

Robin Wall Kimmerer takes us on a journey illustrating how nature teaches us the lessons of abundance and reciprocity. We will explore her book The Serviceberry, and lean into the ways we can show up for each other and build a better world.

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