Beloved friends,

In the heat and intensity of this Florida summer, it has been such a fine thing to be in the studio, working on Advent. I’m creating a new Illuminated online retreat for Advent, and I am so looking forward to launching it in early December! I love offering the Illuminated retreat and spending the season in the company of folks around the world who want to move through those weeks with intention, grace, and hope.

The retreat will take place December 3–December 27, and we'll share details when registration opens in October. I would love for you to join us for this new online journey that offers spaces of reflection and rest that you can enter into from anywhere you are, in the way that works best for you. Individual, group, and congregational rates will be available.

In the meantime, on this still-summer-in-Florida day, here’s an Advent blessing for you from me, along with a couple of other things I wanted to share with you.

Wherever you are, whatever the season, I am grateful for you and sending so many blessings.

Peace,

Jan Richardson

The Wellspring Studio, LLC

janrichardson.com

CARRYING THE SONG


A Blessing

Call it everything

that travels

on the current

that moves between us,

where what had been

unbearable

becomes, somehow,

borne

and all that lay

in silence

finds its cadence,

finds its flow,

finds the edge

of its own voice

and cannot help

but sing.

—Jan Richardson

SPECIAL OFFER ON SPARROW

We have been so moved to hear from people who have used Sparrow: A Book of Life and Death and Life in book groups, given it as gifts, or found it to be a companion in their own grieving. We want to help make this book of solace available to anyone experiencing a loss, so we’re offering Sparrow at a 50% discount, plus free shipping (in the U.S.) for copies ordered through the Books page on our website.

Shepherd recently featured Sparrow on their website, along with this article about some of the books that mysteriously found their way to me in the first year or two after Gary's death. In a time when I very much did not want to read about grief, these books drew me in with their creative, poetic, artful, sometimes offbeat tellings of living with sorrow.