While ages course along,
Blessed be with loudest song
The Sacred Heart of Jesus,
By every heart and tongue.

Excerpt from “To Jesus’ heart all burning”

As you wander…

• find this month’s schedule of events in the Village Green

• peruse the June 2026 Almanac

• explore more posts for the month of June

• send me a note!

SACRED HEART PRINTABLES

A Book of Hours helps us to graft liturgical traditions into our own sacred days - and each month, I offer some additions intended to spark curiosity as we re-discover these seasonal patterns together.

This month, you’ll find:

• a cover page (with original art featuring the Pelican and Bleeding Heart - more details about their symbolism are in the printable!)

• a summary (with artwork) of history, traditions, flora, & fauna that give shape to the holiday

• a field guide coloring page

• prayer and artwork

Paid members can find Sacred Heart art & resources (as well as my whole archive of printables) in the Scriptorium:

Scriptorium

As if it were a spiritual garden

From thy life-giving side,
A fount like that which flowed from Eden
Waters thy Church, O Christ,
As if it were a spiritual garden.
Thence it divides,
As from one stem
Into four Gospels.
It waters the universe,
It rejoices creation,
Teaching the nations
Faithfully to revere
Thy gracious rule.

From a Holy Friday Matins hymn in the Orthodox Church

Our journey into Ordinary Time II - when the Church enters into this great season of pilgrimage - begins with presence, theology, and devotion. The indwelling of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost brought us to the fullness of the Trinity, Corpus Christi held our celebration of the ongoing presence of Jesus in the Eucharist, and now, at the Feast of the Sacred Heart, we dwell the sanctuary of Christ’s love. What a beautiful school to launch us into our ‘ordinary’ sojourn - and what a kind reminder of the sanctity and depth inherent in the ordinary. In our familiar, counted days - our holy mundane - we find the deepest mysteries of God.

The Solemnity of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus is a more recent calendar addition with an ancient heritage. Its lineage traces back to the Beloved Disciple’s posture of reclining toward the heart of Jesus (John 13:23), from which the early Church fathers and mothers drew their devotion to the Sacred Heart...a symbol that encompasses the fullness of God’s love for his creation. A fiercely flaming love pierced by thorns and spear, always bleeding in yearning for our own yearning.

The early Middle Ages saw an intensifying of this devotion, with Saints receiving visions of the Sacred Heart - St. Gertrude the Great, in the 13th c., leaned her head against the side wound of Jesus, and, like the Apostle St. John, heard his heartbeat.

French Visitation Nun St. Margaret Mary Alacoque, though, brought the depth of this devotion to the breadth of the Church in the late 17th c.: in her miraculous visions, Jesus himself sent her forth to share the beauty of his Sacred Heart, providing devotional practices for conforming oneself to his precious Heart.

It took time for this devotion to move from religious communities and into the wider Church, but eventually - just relatively recently, in 1856 - a feast day was set aside to fold the whole Church into devotion to the Sacred Heart.

Being such a recent feast, many of its customs are still being newly discovered - most of them landing sweetly in the context of the beginning of the summer harvest, tethered to the firstfruits of Corpus Christi...an enthronement of the Sacred Heart in our lives, our homes, and even our landscapes. Heart-shaped bonfires are lit from hill to hill in some places, and a lamp is kept burning at home, illuminating the image of the Sacred Heart. Flames and firstfruits...like echoes of that most Sacred Heart - the ultimate sustaining love, the firstfruit of humanity.

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A timeline of the feast of the Sacred Heart’s history, Scripture verses, details about the flora and fauna tied to this feast, tidbits about traditional meals and celebrations, & more can be found in this month’s printable:

Scriptorium

BENEDICTION

O wounded Heart! O Font of tears!
O Throne of grief and pain,
Whereon, for the eternal years,
Thy love for man doth reign!

Heart of Jesus, hear!
O Heart of Love Divine!
Listen to our prayer:
Make us always Thine.

Fr. Theodore Metcalf, excerpt from “O Sacred Heart, O Love Divine” (19th c.)

I hope that this little offering, as well as the art and printables tucked into it, will be a jumping-off point for a whole month of focus on the Sacred Heart of Jesus. All of June, after all, is dedicated to the Sacred Heart…with that Midsummer sun burning brightly, we have such a startling reminder of the sanctuary that is available to us every day of our years.

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How are you celebrating the Sacred Heart this month, friends?

Pax et bonum,
Kristin

After our chat, the link to its recording will be posted below

I’m forever fascinated with Medieval Books of Hours (which may go without saying, if you’ve been here for awhile!) The textures, colors, endlessly creative ways of portraying Scripture and hagiography, intricately detailed borders…that sacramental eye toward all the flora and fauna of nature…they’re just the most gorgeous vessels of Medieval timekeeping.

And I suppose that’s what really strikes me most about the Book of Hours: the way it’s a visual union of time and prayer. It marks the sanctity of time, weaving Scripture and Sacred Tradition through the unique life of the book’s owner.

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So, my friends, I’m over the moon to let you know that Medieval manuscripts specialist Sienna Wells will be joining us on Friday for a show-and-tell of some Medieval Books of Hours - as well as Q&A time!

One of Sienna’s many gifts is her eye toward the unspoken stories embedded in each Medieval manuscript that she studies…she notices every detail of interaction with the Book of Hours.

“In the process of creating the catalogue, it became very important to me to highlight the human element in medieval books, and the journeys they lived through. From scribal mistakes and the interactions between illuminators and scribes…to physical acts of devotion including kissing and the rubbing of miniatures by owners in their prayer books…to the many hands that helped produce manuscripts, the many owners - and the women who were part of that history.”

Sienna Wells

Sienna Wells is a Medieval Manuscript Dealer and Historian. She joined Tom W. Ayling Rare Books & Manuscripts in 2024 and is a specialist in medieval and renaissance manuscripts.

Sienna’s Masters thesis was about the Book Of Hours of Nicolas Rolin (Yates Thompson MS 45), and details about her first catalogue of medieval manuscripts can be found here.

Sienna also posts videos about manuscripts and the world of rare books to Instagram and TikTok.

Courtesy of Tom W. Ayling web site

I hope you can join Sienna and I for a fascinating conversation! Here are all the details…

Google Meet Details & Invitation
» Friday, June 12 at 8 am Pacific Time

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Ave, Colenda Trinitas!
Ave, Perennis Unitas!
Pater Deus, Nate Deus,
Et Deus Alme Spiritus!

All hail, Adorèd Trinity!
All hail, Eternal Unity!
O God the Father, God the Son,
And God the Spirit, ever One!

Excerpt from Ave Colenda Trinitas (early Medieval Anglo-Saxon); tr. John David Chambers (1857)

Just as May was at a close, amidst all the intensity with the end of the school year, we still managed to get together for a beautiful evening celebrating Trinity Sunday. It can be so hard to set time aside to prioritize gathering, but it is so fruitful and restorative. Somehow, it’s another addition to the calendar that seems to create more mental space rather than deplete.

Here’s a peek at how we celebrated Trinity together!

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And what is so rare as a day in June?
Then, if ever, come perfect days;
Then Heaven tries the earth if it be in tune,
And over it softly her warm ear lays:
Whether we look, or whether we listen,
We hear life murmur, or see it glisten;
Every clod feels a stir of might,
An instinct within it that reaches and towers,
And, groping blindly above it for light,
Climbs to a soul in grass and flowers;
The flush of life may well be seen
Thrilling back over hills and valleys;
The cowslip startles in meadows green,
The buttercup catches the sun in its chalice,
And there’s never a leaf nor a blade too mean
To be some happy creature’s palace;
The little bird sits at his door in the sun,
Atilt like a blossom among the leaves,
And lets his illumined being o’errun
With the deluge of summer it receives;
His mate feels the eggs beneath her wings,
And the heart in her dumb breast flutters and sings;
He sings to the wide world, and she to her nest,—
In the nice ear of Nature which song is the best?

James Russell Lowell, excerpt from “June” (19th c.)

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Would you like some music while you read?

Founder Box announcements

• MID-JUNE | Founding Members’ summer boxes will begin shipping mid-June!
  

Online gatherings

• JUNE 12 | Friday at 8 am Pacific Time | History of Books of Hours
  » For paid subscribers: We’ll be enjoying a live show-and-tell with Sienna Wells, manuscripts specialist at Tom W. Ayling Rare Books & Manuscripts - Sienna will be sharing more about Medieval Books of Hours in their collection, as well as giving us more historical background on these manuscripts!
  

• JUNE 22 | Monday at 2 pm Pacific Time | Summer Book Club welcome gathering

  » For paid subscribers: Join me as we begin our time in our Summer Book Club selection - A More Beautiful Way to Live!

Fresh Posts & Previous Archives

• JUNE 11 | Thursday | St. Barnabas’ Day
  » Printables: Cover sheet and resource packet

• JUNE 24 | Wednesday | Johnsmas
  

• JUNE 29 | Monday | Ss. Peter & Paul
  » Printables: Cover page and Book of Hours pages

Also this month:

• Hearthstone Bookshelf - first book posted!

+ June 2026 Calendar & Coloring

The June Almanac includes:

• June calendar page with a selection of holy days, dip-pen illustrations, and links to connect you with more HF resources

• Coloring page featuring my hand-drawn illustrations of June feast emblems

• Print out these goodies (I recommend card-stock for the calendar and regular paper for the coloring page), and see how you can integrate the featured holidays into your existing plans!

Give a gift subscription

+ June Recipes

Refer a friend

This collection of recipe cards features whimsical illustrations for meals to help share and celebrate a handful of feasts throughout June!

Head to the Scriptorium to find your June printables:

Scriptorium

BLEEDING HEART
Dicentra formosa

Head to the Scriptorium to find your June Herbarium print:

Scriptorium

This month, we’ll be looking at a relatively recent feast that encapsulates an ancient devotion: the Solemnity of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus:

• Reflections, history, folk traditions, art, and more will be available in the first half of June

• Paid members will receive a printable cover page and booklet for their liturgical year binders, as well as a peek into how our liturgical living group celebrates this holiday

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Rain on the Trinity
means a harvest of bread and a warm summer

Ukrainian weather proverb

As you wander…

• find this month’s schedule of events in the Village Green

• send me a note!

TRINITY SUNDAY PRINTABLES

A Book of Hours helps us to graft liturgical traditions into our own sacred days - and each month, I offer some additions intended to spark curiosity as we re-discover these seasonal patterns together.

This month, you’ll find:

• a cover page (with original art featuring the Triple-Hare - a Trinity depiction in some old English churches - and Herb-Trinity, this feast’s flower)

• a summary (with artwork) of history, traditions, flora, & fauna that give shape to the holiday

• a whimsical coloring page (featuring an old English Trinity Sunday tradition…)

Paid members can find Trinity Sunday art & resources (as well as my whole archive of printables) in the Scriptorium:

Scriptorium

Creator, Saviour, Strengthening Guide

The busy world a thousand ways
Is hurrying by, nor ever stays
To catch a note of Thy dear praise.

Why tarries not her chariot wheel,
That o’er her with no vain appeal
One gust of heavenly song might steal?

Alas! for her Thy opening flowers
Unheeded breathe to summer showers,
Unheard the music of Thy bowers.

What echoes from the sacred dome
The selfish spirit may o’ercome
That will not hear of love or home!

The heart that scorn’d a father’s care,
How can it rise in filial prayer?
How an all-seeing Guardian bear?

Or how shall envious brethren own
A Brother on th’ eternal throne,
Their Father’s joy, their hope alone?

How shall Thy Spirit’s gracious wile
The sullen brow of gloom beguile,
That’ frowns on sweet Affection’s smile?

Eternal One, Almighty Trine!
(Since Thou art ours, and we are Thine,)
By all Thy love did once resign,

By all the grace Thy heavens still hide,
We pray Thee, keep us at Thy side,
Creator, Saviour, strengthening Guide!

John Keble, excerpt from “Trinity Sunday”

Eastertide led us through fifty days of joyfully soaking in the fulfillment of salvation, and Pentecost’s fiery tongues - revealing the mystery of our Triune God - ushered in the Church’s mission.

In that week after Pentecost (historically, the great feast’s octave), we move toward Trinity Sunday...a summertime fruiting of everything we’ve just experienced blooming during those springtime cycles. We affirm the truth so mystically encapsulated in the Trinity, celebrating a theological concept rather than a particular event or witness.

And, from here, we’re propelled forth into our time of great pilgrimage...the beautifully difficult work of daily discipleship practiced throughout a fresh season of Ordinary Time.

Trinity Sunday - this threshold between our salvation and our missionary pilgrimage - has an ancient lineage within the Church. Though every Sunday hailed & affirmed the mystery of the Trinity, a celebratory emphasis of the Trinity grew and deepened in response to confusion and false teaching. It became incredibly popular in the Middle Ages, remaining a cornerstone in our annual cycle of rehearsing the truth of our faith.

Tethered to Pentecost (and, therefore, Easter), Trinity Sunday aligns our faith journey with the abundance of summertime and the coming harvest: as God’s nature is loving communion, we’re called to bloom and bear fruit in image of his character...directing our love toward God and neighbor, allowing ourselves to embody - however imperfectly - the legacy to which we’re called.

In popular celebration - that beautiful intersection between Church theology and the devotion of lay people - we find customs that so beautifully encapsulate all of this theology.

Church fairs, wakes, and ales were held, drawing the people of the parish together for a shared meal with early summer herbs and flowers. Trinitarian blossoms - like the three-colored Herb Trinity (the wild pansy) - adorned garlands and wreaths, placed over the heads of young ladies & men as Trinitarian prayers were offered.

Both churches and homes would be greened for this holiday, like a summertime Christmas: birch trees were taken from the woods and brought indoors, ferns and moss adorning the aisle, hay strewn on the pews…turning the church, for our threshold holiday of Trinity Sunday, into something of a threshold between architecture and nature.

Many Eastern European regions considered this one of their “Green” Holidays, in which the church came alive with the abundance of early summer greenery…flourishing and growing, just as we’re called to do during Ordinary Time.

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A timeline of Trinity Sunday’s history, Scripture verses, details about the flora and fauna tied to this feast, tidbits about traditional meals and celebrations, & more can be found in this month’s printable:

Scriptorium

BENEDICTION

Holy, holy, holy! Lord God Almighty!
Early in the morning our song shall rise to thee.
Holy, holy, holy! merciful and mighty!
God in three Persons, blessed Trinity!

Holy, holy, holy! all the saints adore thee,
Casting down their golden crowns around the glassy sea.
Cherubim and seraphim, falling down before thee,
Who was and is and evermore shall be.

Holy, Holy, Holy! though the darkness hide thee,
Though the eye of sinful man thy glory may not see,
Only thou art holy; there is none beside thee,
Perfect in pow’r, in love, and purity.

Holy, holy, holy! Lord God Almighty!
All thy works shall praise thy name, in earth, and sky, and sea;
Holy, holy, holy! merciful and mighty!
God in three Persons, blessed Trinity.

Reginald Heber (1823)

Last night, our liturgical living group celebrated Trinity Sunday with some wreath-making - I’ll be sharing more details on that soon!

In the meantime, remember: though Trinity Sunday is marked on a day, its celebration was never limited to that day alone: traditions and gatherings pointed toward this great solemnity in the days leading up to Sunday, and a plethora of customs continue celebrating it all week long afterward.

…so, keep the party going as we head into Ordinary Time!

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Pax et bonum,
Kristin

At long last, here’s a recording for those who missed the live!

P.S. I’m still brand new to figuring all this technology out and am almost always behind-the-times 😂 - enjoy my struggles thro…

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“We don’t heal just to mitigate the pain in our lives; we also heal so that we have the capacity to embrace the elation.”

Bethaney Wilkinson, A More Beautiful Way to Live

Has the pace felt a bit slower here?

…I hope so. This spring, as I’ve been pondering what ‘sustainability’ looks like for both writers and readers, having Bethaney Wilkinson (via her remarkable new book) alongside me has been such a source of inspiration and camaraderie.

Over the past few years, I’ve savored Bethaney’s pieces here on Substack,1 following along as she’s done the tender work of sharing both her faith journey (she converted to the Orthodox Church a year ago) and her heart for writing & teaching.

In her newest book, A More Beautiful Way to Live, I was delighted to get to hold the gift of Bethaney’s writing in my hands…taking it slowly and pausing to dig deeply into her incisive prompts and poignant reflections.

True to the nature of all of her work, A More Beautiful Way feels a bit like a map…a space to wander and explore. At its heart is the invitation to re-focus our divided attention - both a symptom and a cause of so much of our turmoil - toward more wholeness and attentiveness. Through bravely-vulnerable reflections and practical tips, Bethaney helps us explore the ways our modern pace of life may be hindering our vocation and harming our peace…and she offers us loving relatability and helpful ways to move forward.

All of this is told through the lens of the seasons - which, at a time when we tend to expect machine-like pace and precision from our very humane selves, is such a relief.

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A More Beautiful Way to Live has already proven to be formational in refreshing my own habits, and I feel like summer will provide the perfect backdrop as we steep in this restorative book as a community!

And lovely Bethaney will be joining us this summer, too. :)

is a writer, facilitator, spiritual director, and Orthodox Christian rooted in rural middle Georgia, where she lives with her husband Alex and their two dogs, Isla and Bear. She has an MA in theology from Fuller Theological Seminary and a BA in educational studies from Emory University. She is the author of A More Beautiful Way to Live: Nine Practices to Unlearn Habits of Anxiety, Fear, and Urgency and is the pen behind the Substack publication, The Inner Terrain.

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GATHERINGS

Everyone is invited to read along with Book Club! All subscribers can share their questions and thoughts in the HF Chat and in the comments thread here.

Additionally, paid members can join for live online gatherings - including a discussion with the author herself!

Subscribe now

Summer Book Club Gatherings:

LIVE DISCUSSIONS

For paid members.
Details and a Google Meet link will be sent the week of each discussion, and a reminder (with link) will be posted in Chat. If you can’t make it to these gatherings live, no worries; they’ll be recorded and posted for you to watch on the re-play.

• WELCOME GATHERING
  Monday, June 22 at 2 pm Pacific Time
  Just an informal welcome gathering & time for chatting!
  

• CHAT WITH THE AUTHOR
  Thursday, July 9 at 3 pm Pacific Time
  Author will be joining us as we dive into her book!
  

SUBSTACK CHAT

For all subscribers.
As you read, feel free to hop into our Chat space to discuss with other subscribers!

• Substack Chat

Bethaney shares some helpful links for purchasing her book here:

• A More Beautiful Way to Live

My Abbaye de Cluny rose is blooming right now, and she felt like the perfect emblem of beauty to accompany Bethaney’s book: not just because, in full bloom, this rose is so stunning…but also because her fleeting bloom time, her falling petals, feel like an equally beautiful part of this rose’s story.

Kind of like life: all the beauty, all the pain, in beautiful complexity. And as we hone our attentiveness, those fallen petals and tired blooms can be just as lovely as a new bud.

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Pax et bonum,
Kristin

Behind every single post in this space, there’s a deep-dive of intensive research and reflection. Over the years, I’ve built up a beautiful library of treasured books that support the journey down this rabbit-hole.

Starting this month, I’m expanding my reflections here on Substack by bringing you along for more of the research process: I’ll be steadily sharing posts with more details and reviews about many of my books, and I thought it would be fun to start with a live tour and let you choose the first book to feature this month!

Give a gift subscription

This live peek into my studio and bookshelves will be available to Paid Members (thank you for contributing to this library of research through your generosity!), and folks in attendance at the Live chat will get to help pick the first few books that I’ll write more about this summer… If you can’t make it to the Live, though, keep an eye out for a recording to come later. :)

» Here are all the details for our live chat…

Substack Live Details & Invitation
» Monday, May 11 at 10 am Pacific Time

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On the Substack App:

• Check your settings to make sure that you’re set to receive notifications when someone who you subscribe to begins a Live video.

• When I start the Live, you’ll receive a push notification about the event. You can always access the invitation in the Activity section in the app or from the email notification.

• You can also visit my Profile and click on my profile picture to view the Live once it begins.

Get more from Kristin Haakenson in the Substack app

Available for iOS and Android

Get the app

On Desktop:

• Follow the link that will be emailed to you when the Live video begins

• …or, visit my Substack page to see the live video at the top of my publication

Questions?

I’m so excited to chat books with you! See you on Monday - but let me know if you have any questions in the meantime!

Leave a comment

Pax et bonum,
Kristin

O Jesus, meek and humble of heart,
Hear me.
From the desire of being esteemed,
Deliver me, O Jesus.

Excerpt from the Litany of Humility (attributed to Cardinal Merry del Val, Secretary of State to Pope St. Pius X, 1903-1914)

One of the hidden gems in the practice of hosting these liturgical life parties every-single-month is that a lot of idols have been knocked off pedestals simply out of necessity: I can’t manage be too precious with these gatherings, since they come around so often (a dream come true, really).

So, I don’t worry about exactitude…we celebrate when we can, and that often means that we’re gathering weeks after the actual holiday. Oh well!

In getting together for a belated Hocktide party, I saw it as a way for us to really explore the challenge of celebrating all fifty days of Easter - of recalling it as a season, not a day…a habit, not a moment.

And this ended up being one of our wildest gatherings! Here’s a peek into the day…

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A branch of May we have brought you,
And at your door it stands,
It is but a sprout, but it’s well budded out
By the work of our Lord’s hands.

The hedges and trees they are so green,
As green as any leek,
Our heavenly Father He watered them
With his heavenly dew so sweet.

Excerpt from “The Mayers’ Song,” quoted in The Oxford Book of Carols (Percy Dearmer and Vaughan Williams)

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Would you like some music while you read?

Founder Box announcements

• MAY 2 | Saturday | Last day to sign up as a Founding Member in time to begin your subscription with the Summer Box!
  

Online gatherings

• MAY 11 | Monday at 10 am Pacific Time | Live tour of the Hearthstone Bookshelves

  » For paid subscribers: As we begin a new Library series (in which I share more about the books I lean on for my research and reflection), I’ll be hosting a LIVE tour of my bookshelves and can share more about any books that strike your eye while we’re together!

Fresh Posts & Previous Archives

• MAY 1 | Friday | May Day
  » Printables: May Pole paper scene
  

• MAY 14 | Thursday | The Ascension
  

• MAY 19 | Tuesday | St. Dunstan’s Day
  » Printables: Cover page & Book of Hours pages
  

• SECOND HALF OF MAY: Festal focus reflections, art, & resources shared
  

• MAY 18, 19, 20 | Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday | Rogation Days
  » Printables: Printable prayer by
  

• MAY 24 | Sunday | Pentecost
  » Printables: Dove garland
  

Also this month:

• Summer book club selection announced

• Start of Hearthstone Bookshelf series

+ May 2026 Calendar & Coloring

The May Almanac includes:

• May calendar page with a selection of holy days, dip-pen illustrations, and links to connect you with more HF resources

• Coloring page featuring my hand-drawn illustrations of May feast emblems

• Print out these goodies (I recommend card-stock for the calendar and regular paper for the coloring page), and see how you can integrate the featured holidays into your existing plans!

Give a gift subscription

+ Marian May Basket

This floral printable takes the beloved tradition of creating a May basket and encourages us to mark our days with symbolic flowers throughout the whole month!

Head to the Scriptorium to find your May printables:

Scriptorium

HAWTHORN (aka, May Flower)
Crataegus spp.

Refer a friend

Symbolism:

• The Hawthorn was said to have been used as the Crown of Thorns during Christ’s Passion - Norman peasants wore sprigs in their hats as a reminder of the Crown.

• The Glastonbury Thorn - a legendary Hawthorn said to have grown from the staff of St. Joseph of Arimathea - uniquely bloomed twice a year…once in the spring, near the celebration of Jesus’ Resurrection, and once in the winter, near his Nativity.

• The burning bush is sometimes thought to have been a Hawthorn - a legend that tethers the Haw to the Holy Spirit in symbolic language.

• Blessed Virgin Mary’s Purity (its white flowers, often in bloom during Mary’s month of May, recollect her purity)

• Purification/Protection (because of its tie to the Crown of Thorns & the Passion of Christ)

• Hope (again associated with the Crown of Thorns and, thus, the Resurrection)

Head to the Scriptorium to find your May Herbarium print:

Scriptorium

This month, we’ll be steeping in a holiday that helps us bridge Eastertide and Ordinary Time: Trinity Sunday!

• Reflections, history, folk traditions, art, and more will be available in the second half of May

• Paid members will receive a printable cover page and booklet for their liturgical year binders, as well as a peek into how our liturgical living group celebrates this holiday

Share

Let us rejoice, O my Beloved!
Let us go forth to see ourselves in Your beauty,
To the mountain and the hill,
Where the pure water flows:
Let us enter into the heart of the thicket.

St. John of the Cross, excerpt from A spiritual canticle of the soul and the bridegroom Christ (16th c.)

When crafting this season’s box, each and every item felt so much like an embodiment of “spring” that it wouldn’t surprise me to stumble upon all of these pieces unfurling along with all the ferns up in the woods here.

(So, naturally, I had to make that vision come to life for you all…)

In getting the Founders Box to you this Spring, I was weirdly met with some of the same challenges that accompanied Winter box shipments: high, long-lived floods!! I try to ship each box near the solstices & equinoxes, and flooding has been a wrench in that process the past few times.

So, to get your Spring Founders Box shipped out on time, we moved as much as we could up to the hillside before the water got too high - then we kept moving items via rowboat. (During a flood, we keep our vehicles parked on the hillside and can get out to town & the post office from there.)

Here’s David ferrying me back and forth…

Our friend/‘farmily’/CSA1 manager, Liz, lives on the hill here on the farm - and she’s the real MVP of the Spring Boxes. When we saw the flood predictions, she offered up her home and her help in packaging everything so that it could still get to you as promised. We set up an assembly line in her house…troubleshooting the packaging, getting the details just right, and putting it all together.

Here’s a peek into all that (Liz was helping to put hymnal pages into each box). Rest assured…lots of love and laughter went into each and every package!

I said it before, & I’ll say it again…I love what I do, high water and all! And I’m so grateful to be surrounded by people who will come in and support every aspect of this journey.

UNPACKING THE BOX…

In this year’s Spring Box, I shared some heralds of spring’s liminality - reminders of our heart’s springtime journey toward God. Threshold-plants that flourish at the edge of land and flowing water, delicacies made from tender new growth, poetry to accompany us on the way...it’s a selection that, I pray, will help us to nourish our nature as Christ’s pilgrims.

Here’s a peek into each treasure that filled up the Spring box…

THE WILD IRIS
By Louise Glück / Published by Harper Collins

This lush collection of poems is a perennial favorite of mine, and as irises are springing up this season, it feels like a fitting companion to a new season. Writing about the intersection of faith, nature, and humanity, Glück patterns this collection after the Liturgy of the Hours, with dreamlike call-and-response choir elements and the infrastructure of canonical hours guiding the cadence of the poetry.

• The University of Notre Dame’s Church Life Journal has a lovely article helping to illuminate The Wild Iris

SPRUCE TIP JELLY
By Barnacle Foods / Alaska

“The true taste of spring in Alaska. A hint of citrus from the Sitka Spruce Tips makes for a sweet, fresh flavored jelly. Spread on toast, mix in a cocktail, or pair with your favorite cheese.”

Tender spruce tips are a harbinger of spring in the Pacific Northwest, and Barnacle has managed to capture their flavor and turn it into the most delightful jelly.

HERBAL MEDLEY FINISHING SALT
By Wildness Within Living / Washington

Our friend Rachael Witt is a registered Herbalist with a special passion for ethnobotany and herbal folklore, and we’ve been fortunate to feature her teas, salves, & more in our barn store for years - she also leads foraging courses on the farm every so often, really helping us all to better notice the landscape here.

For this spring box, I asked Rachael to create something quintessentially seasonal that would help to bring the taste of spring into a wide swath of your meals this season - she came up with this delightful spring salt!

SEED KIT
Alexanders Seed & Watercress Seed

Both Alexanders and Watercress were favorite early-spring herbs for Medieval Lenten pottages - here’s a kit for you to grow your own, including:

• Two biodegradable peat pots (which can be directly planted into larger containers or gardens)

• Two plant labels

• One packet of Alexanders seed & one packet of Watercress seed

• Seeding & transplanting information

ANNUNCIATION STICKER
By Hearthstone Fables / Washington

This Annunciation wheel features the swallow - that migratory bird of the resurreciton, so often featured in historic Annunciation artwork - surrounded by a wreath of florals symbolic of this poignant holiday.

ANTIQUE HYMNAL PAGE & HEARTHSTONE POST NEWSLETTER

Founders, I would love to hear about how you’ve been using the goodies from this season’s box! Do you have a favorite piece?

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I hope it’s a welcome companion in your springtime pilgrimage.

Pax et bonum,
Kristin

After our chat, a link to its recording will be posted below!

Hosting a monthly liturgical life group over the past several years has been one of the most lifegiving practices we’ve adopted, helping me to root deeper into our landscape, our people, and the life of Christ as told in the Church year. It’s a pattern I’m so incredibly grateful for throughout all of life’s ups and downs!

Last week, I shared some practical ideas to help you think about hosting a liturgical life group in your neck of the woods…

And this week, I’m hopping onto a live video chat with you so that we can all brainstorm together! Bring your questions, frustrations, ideas, experiences, and more. Let’s think creatively about what liturgical living looks like in your own community.

Here are all the details…

Google Meet Details & Invitation
» Wednesday, April 29 at 5 pm PST

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A delicate fabric of bird song
Floats in the air,
The smell of wet wild earth
Is everywhere.
Red small leaves of the maple
Are clenched like a hand,
Like girls at their first communion
The pear trees stand.
Oh I must pass nothing by
Without loving it much,
The raindrop try with my lips,
The grass with my touch;
For how can I be sure
I shall see again
The world on the first of May
Shining after the rain?

Sara Teasdale, “May Day” from Flame and Shadow (1920)

As you wander…

• explore more posts for the month of May

• send me a note!

May poles are one of the sweetest traditions of this beautiful growing season, and this miniature woodland May pole has been one of my favorite paper scenes to create…for both the young and the young-at-heart, ‘playing’ our way through the calendar can be so enlivening.

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I designed this May Day scene to be placed on top of a turntable, ideally - so the liturgical critters can ‘dance’ around the May pole - but I’m sure you can all find a million creative ways to bring this to life.

Removable flower crowns can adorn each animal, and they can also tote a pannier filled with May wine (and some extra Sweet Woodruff and Strawberries).

I tried to think of every detail to bring this to life…all of the animal cut-outs are double-sided, so they can still have continuity as the scene rotates. A patch of dandelions hides the base of the May pole, and a garland of wild roses tops it.

This whimsical May Day scene is available for you in the Scriptorium - just add ribbons and a May pole, and you’re ready!

Scriptorium

A link to the recording of our conversation and our text chat is posted below!

With all the energy of spring cleaning (both inwardly & outwardly) that bubbles up this time of year, having ’s new book as a companion has added both depth and whimsy for me…

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I hope you’re enjoying it too, and finding new ways to think about yourself as a placemaker. Let’s get together with Christie on Saturday to chat more about the theology of place, incarnational faith, and more!

Here are all the login details…

GOOGLE MEET DETAILS
» Saturday, April 25 at 10 am Pacific Time

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For the past few years, I’ve hosted a Liturgical Life group. We’re a diverse gathering - of all ages, from a variety of denominations, learning alongside each other and working to graft the traditions of the liturgical calendar into our own varied circumstances.

For more photos from our events and details about how we celebrate, visit my archive:

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Invitations

There are a million ways to invite friends and neighbors into your liturgical living gathering, so find whatever works best for you and your people…if it’s helpful, though, here’s what works for me (it’s nothing fancy, and I am by no means some sort of expert hostess!):

1. Invitation email: A few weeks (ideally, a month…) before the event, I send out the first invitation. Sometimes, life gets crazy and I don’t manage to give much notice at all, but late is better than never! I keep an email list of interested folks in a Google Sheet, then cc all of them when I send the invitation.

2. Looking back: I always like to thank friends, and include some shout-outs to folks who contributed in extra ways, from our previous month’s gathering. I also attach a handful of photos…bits of memories for that month’s guests to hold onto, and also a peek into the event for those who couldn’t attend in-person.

3. Intro to this month’s feast: I just type up a quick paragraph introducing the saint/event we’re commemorating in the upcoming event, usually with a tie-in to what our activity / connection to the land will be.

4. Nitty Gritty: I always have a few bullet points to help guide the shape of the event…

   1. When/Where: We always host on the farm, but the location on the farm often changes. I always provide the address as a reminder, as well as details on where to meet before (if) we are heading out somewhere further. I also provide a roundabout time when folks can start arriving, but generally, that means there’s about a half-hour cushion of arrival time…so I plan for some time-margin, especially if we’ll be heading somewhere and need to go together.

   2. Meal Theme: I like to provide some sort of potluck theme to help prompt us all…i.e., food traditionally associated with a particular feast, food from regions associated with that saint, etc. But here’s the crucial part: I tell folks to bring what they want, in or out of the theme, and only bring it if they can. The theme is provided to help spark ideas and excitement, to help us all learn…but it’s not meant to be legalistic or be a burden. (For St. Catherine’s Day, our theme was “circular” food - and I was delighted that a friend brought Cheerios. Brilliant!) Sometimes, we just don’t have the bandwidth to do anything but bring ourselves to a gathering, and that’s okay.1 I also usually have a Pinterest board to point friends to…just a place to peek around and get ideas.

   3. Bring: I always include a note about what to bring…sometimes, donation items. Often, this includes weather/terrain related items (i.e., bring your rain boots, bring a swimsuit and a beach towel, etc.)

5. RSVP: I ask friends to let me know if they’ll be joining us, and if so, how many guests will be coming. This is super malleable and often changes on the day-of, but it helps to give me an idea of who to look out for - especially if we’ll be taking the hay wagon somewhere, or won’t be celebrating in an obvious location. If I’m preparing any sort of hands-on work, it helps me make sure I have enough for everyone.

6. Reminder: My email box tends to overflow quickly, so I really don’t want to fill up anyone else’s inbox. I just send a quick reminder out a day before the event.

Hosting Essentials

When we host our monthly liturgical gathering, the location often changes - sometimes, it’s in our house…other times, at the river’s edge, in the meadow, up on the hill…there’s a lot of variation.

To make my life easier, I keep all the pot-luck hosting essentials handy in a couple of plastic tubs. That way, wherever we are, I have some grab-&-go tubs that are stocked with everything I need.

Even if we’re just hosting inside our house, I love being able to pull everything I need from one hosting bin.

Here are the basics that stay in my bins:

• Compostable plates, bowls, cups, and cutlery

• A bin for all the cutlery

• Napkins

• Bottle opener/wine key

• Tray for placing alcoholic beverages (to differentiate them)

• Sharpies (for writing names on cups)

• Wipes

• Extra trash bags

• First aid kit

• Bluetooth speaker

• A couple of neutral tablecloths

• Placecard holders & index cards (in case folks want to write any allergen notes by their dishes)

…and here are some other additions that require a bit more tinkering on the day of the potluck. I have a crate that I tend to stuff all of these “day-of” things into so that I can easily transport them:

• Seasonal tablecloths (I have a pile of vintage tablecloths that I rotate & use as festive layers over the more neutral base)

• Vases for flowers (I like to use a whimsical assortment of vintage milk glass vases, canning jars, old silver-plated pitchers, etc).

• Scissors/clippers (for flowers)

• Supplies for an activity (if what we’re doing requires supplies)

• Water pitcher

• Cases of sparkling water

• Cooler (if we’re outside and it’s hot, I have a rolling cooler to help keep bevs cold)

• Pop-up tent (totally not necessary, but this comes in handy since we do so much outdoors. Whether it’s sunny or sprinkling, it’s handy to have a space to shelter the spread of food and drinks)

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Where can you host?

We’re in an incredibly fortunate situation here on the farm: we have lots of space outside, and it allows us to practice liturgical living through an agrarian lens in a very hands-on way. (A good chunk of the year is rainy here, though, which means we find ourselves indoors).

But there are ways to weave liturgical traditions into your own life and landscape. If we lived somewhere else, our expression of liturgical living would look different…which is part of the loveliness all of this.

If we lived in a city, seasonal living would have its own unique challenges - and uniquely beautiful expressions. I grew up in the suburbs, moved to the downtown of a bigger city, then came to the farm around 2011 (my husband grew up here).

I’ve experienced a few different flavors of place, and looking back, I can see how seasonality appeared distinctively in each location…from looking forward to certain weeds that would grow in city parking lots (I made bouquets with them), to flowers that appeared in a nursery, to annual book sales at the library that became tethered to springtime for me.

We have to start with curiosity and practice the art of attentiveness, though: how does my unique place intersect with theology? What do I notice right here, right now?

It can also be challenging to host if our space is small or parking is so-so. Rest assured, though: we have lots of outdoor space here, but our house easily overflows. People find places to perch to eat dinner, and more than one person in the kitchen makes it crowded. We’re incredibly lucky to be in our home, but it’s not the space that would get featured in any sort of hosting magazine - it’s just not built for that, and that’s okay!

Because of that idyllic vision in my head, I used to be reluctant and self-conscious about hosting: our dog is too big, our couch is too dirty, our entryway is like a game of Tetris.

Leaning into the reality of hosting in this unique place, though, has deepened my gratitude for it.

That being said, sometimes hosting at our own home just isn’t possible. Maybe we struggle with anxiety (hi! It’s me!), roommates, nervous pets, or are caretakers. There are a plethora of reasons.

If that’s the case, we can still find a ‘third place’ to host a liturgical living gathering, though: and truly, it’s worth the work to make it happen.

Places for hosting:

• Church

• Library

• Park

• Senior Center

• Cafe

What venue suggestions do you have?

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Tell me: what are your unique obstacles in hosting a liturgical living group?

Hit me with with your challenges, and let’s see if we can wonder about it together.

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Poll:

I sometimes wonder if it would be helpful to have regional lists of folks who are also interested connecting about liturgical living or who are willing to host…just general connections (with hosts later doing the contacting of interested attendees) to make it easier to find that common ground.

I’ll keep an eye on this, and if there’s a need, I’ll see where the breadcrumb trail goes. :)

Pax et bonum,
Kristin

P.S. Don’t forget, I have a free ebook for all subscribers to help you get started with liturgical living groups!

“This most beautiful ‘flower of the root of Jesse,’ which had blossomed in the incarnation and withered in the passion, thus blossomed again in the resurrection so as to become the beauty of all.”

St. Bonaventure, Lignum Vitae (Tree of Life) (ca. 1260 AD)

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If keeping all twelve days of Christmastide can feel challenging in our modern context, keeping all fifty days of Eastertide bends our creativity even further. As a Recovering Nostalgist™, it’s easy for me to pine for some idyllic daydream of ‘the good ol’ days,’ imagining Easter celebrations saturating every meal, every gathering throughout the season…supporting and continuing the Eastertide liturgies.

And while we have indeed lost so many of this season’s cultural traditions, I think there’s an invitation in the dissonance we feel: Eastertide, in so many ways, is a joyful defiance.

Easter is an ongoing, active choice to cling to joy in all its dimensions…even though. Even though the diagnoses roll in. Even though violence rages, abuse persists, fear pervades.

Over the years of joys and losses, I’ve found that ‘keeping Eastertide’ is the ongoing challenge (and inexplicable reward) of my days. Practicing the Eastertide posture, rehearsing in part the fullness that we anticipate, is the habit to which I’ve clung & aspired throughout deaths, trauma, suffocating anxiety.

So, I find myself filled with surprising gratitude to meet the challenge of celebrating Easter as a season…here at a time when our cultural rhythms don’t support that liturgical way of timekeeping as they once did.

True to the compassion of our incarnational spirituality, we get to take our faith’s daily posture - cleaving to the truth and joy of Eastertide - and apply it to a cultural moment that has forgotten its practice. We get to take the core mystery of our theology and imprint it into timekeeping, even though our cultural calendars have moved on. As students of the even though of Jesus, we’re uniquely equipped to give this a whirl.

It’s a joyful rebellion on many fronts - and not a joy based on circumstance, but a joy borne from everlasting, tearful, whole hope.

Put your faith in the two inches of humus
that will build under the trees
every thousand years.
Listen to carrion – put your ear
close, and hear the faint chattering
of the songs that are to come.
Expect the end of the world. Laugh.
Laughter is immeasurable. Be joyful
though you have considered all the facts.

Wendell Berry, excerpt from Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front

Printable resources for savoring Eastertide:

BOOK OF HOURS: COVER PAGE

Friends, it’s been a DELIGHT getting to reflect on all the flora & fauna of Eastertide to tell this season’s story through a handful of their images. Your printable will include little snippets on why I chose each element for this arch, but I wanted to take a moment to highlight one in particular: the European Goldfinch, a multilayered emblem of salvation.

As the story goes, a fluttering springtime Goldfinch saw the suffering Christ…and wanting to relieve his pain, she flew to his brow, attempting to remove the thorns from his crown. In her attempt, she was stained red with his blood.

Part of this symbolism comes from the Goldfinch’s vibrant red cheeks, but there’s more: she loves a thistle snack, deftly pulling the seeds out from this prickly plant. She also carefully removes thistledown to pad her own nest…taking the spiky thistle plant - reminiscent of the crown of thorns - and transforming it into the new life she’s bringing forth in her nest.

Especially in Medieval and Renaissance art, you’ll find the European Goldfinch near the Christ child, emblematic of the salvation he bears and the redemption we receive. (In Crivelli’s painting, the infant Jesus is holding the Goldfinch in his hands. Also near this bird, you’ll often find the Fly: symbolic of sin and death, which the rest of the visual language shows to be conquered).

Without further ado, here’s a bit more on your new Book of Hours addition for this glorious season:

Inspired by Medieval books of hours, these cover pages feature pollinators and plant life emblematic of the liturgical seasons. (They also complement the printables for all of the feast days that you may have already collected!) The design itself is an homage to gothic stained glass windows, their arch reminding us of the soul’s journey toward God.

Alongside the Eastertide cover page is a quick guide to the symbolism embedded in all of the natural elements featured in this arch…a starting-off point for your own reflection and research, if your curiosity gets piqued!

I hope that these pollinators and their plants will remind us of our work as co-creators with Christ.

These Easter printables - as well as more resources for the holidays historically within Easter - are available in the Scriptorium:

Scriptorium

Here’s a behind-the-scenes photo of my process (not pictured: days and days of research and reflection, sketching and erasing).

Things are real homespun and handmade around here, ya’ll! ;)

If you print this out, I’d love to see how you use it:

Pax et bonum,
Kristin

The ancient market-place has heard
For half a thousand years,
The summons of the mighty horn,
Time-honoured Lancaster’s.
The Tuttimen have trimmed the poles
With blossoms fresh and gay,
And kissed the merry, bashful maids,
On Hock Day holiday.

Hungerford Hocktide carol

As you wander…

• find this month’s schedule of events in the Village Green

• peruse the April 2026 Almanac

• explore more posts for the month of April

• send me a note!

HOCKTIDE PRINTABLES

A Book of Hours helps us to graft liturgical traditions into our own sacred days - and each month, I offer some additions intended to spark curiosity as we re-discover these seasonal patterns together.

This month, you’ll find:

• a cover page (with original art, featuring boxing hares and watercress - emblems to remind us of Hocktide)

• a summary (with artwork) of history, traditions, flora, & fauna that give shape to the holiday

• a whimsical art print (featuring a swan-Tuttiman! More on these chaps below…)

Paid members can find Hocktide art & resources (as well as my whole archive of printables) in the Scriptorium:

Scriptorium

Eastertide’s edge

Thus they pass through the market-place,
Highly-fam’d for Hocktide games…

From the counterfeit “second part” of Hudibras, Samuel Butler (17th c.)

After the great Lenten anticipation of Easter, I like to recite the often-forgotten reality that ‘Easter is a season.’ A whole fifty days of Eastertide celebration await us.

Can I be honest with you, though? The reality is that my heart & body haven’t grasped Eastertide’s liturgical pattern. Even as I find Eastertide in the liturgy & the lectionary, I simply don’t have a cultural memory of wisdom for Easter-ing through the whole Great Fifty Days in the context of my home and community.

We’ve retained that great preparatory time for Easter, but we’ve lost sight of the patterns of tradition that sustain this highest of Church holidays. We come to it through our worship, through the Eucharist, but we’ve forgotten so many of the traditions that tether our Sundays to the rest of our lives.

So, how does that Sunday Eastertide worship overflow into our home? Our neighborhood, our landscape?

Thankfully, the cloud of witnesses offers up a host of traditions to help us embrace this season wholly and sacramentally - reminding us of Easter’s extension into our everyday reality.

So here, flourishing right on the edge of Easter’s lifegiving waters, we find echoes of an ancient and once high-holiday: Hocktide.

Hocktide’s etymology and history are both mysterious.

We find Hocktide’s earliest mentions in the early 12th century, and its placement in the year - tethered to the Monday & Tuesday of the second week of Easter - was significant in many ways: it moved the parish from the Octave of Easter to the rest of this glorious season; and, more practically, it was seen as being the summer counterpart to winter’s Michaelmas (back in the days of two-season reckoning)…also, like Michaelmas, Hocktide was a quarter day for rent and debt collection. Crucially, it was a time for re-establishing fishing, hunting, and grazing rights in many regions as well.

By the 15th century, records show us that Hocktide was entrenched in the English calendar, with mentions often chastising how raucous celebrations had become…while also noting the immense amount of contributions raised for church funds during these days. Hocktide festivities came and went during the English reformation, with most revivals ultimately waning over the centuries until it became an all-but-forgotten memory in all but a few places.

Scholars aren’t really even sure what ‘Hocktide’ means - etymology linking it to older terms for indebtedness (“in hock”) tend to be anachronistic, and other attempts at linking it to terms for “binding” (often related to England’s freedom from Danish rule in the 11th c.) are also uncertain.

Through the haze of a thousand years worth of folklore, lost footnotes, and best-guesses, though, I think I see Eastertide glimmering in this enigmatic holiday.

Easter shows us the ultimate fulfillment of indebtedness through Christ’s crucifixion and resurrection (indeed, a practical reminder for parish debts to be re-balanced).

And, in Easter, we greet the ushering-in of the new era of God’s topsy-turvy economy: here, after tipping over the edge of Easter Sunday, we find that crucifixion is triumph, death is life, the meek shall inherit the earth, and the ‘usual order’ of what we’ve grown to expect has been turned inside-out.

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Hocktide is here to help us cement that mystery into our bodies.

Most of the Hocktide festivities are concentrated on the Tuesday of the second week of Easter, with celebrations stretching back toward Monday (almost as if it were a vigil, with the revelry extending earlier & earlier in the day).

This placement sounds like a word scramble, but it’s a beautiful invitation for us: Eastertide begins with an Octave…an eight-day period of extended solemnity. This Octave ends on “Low Sunday”: the Sunday after Easter day. Hocktide, then, bridges that sustained height of solemnity & celebration with the patterns of life held by the remaining days of Eastertide.

And, just as Easter Sunday rattles our expectations and shakes us into a new way of thinking, Hocktide gives us a time to practice that resurrection-strangeness in a tangible, lively way.

These two days (often extending further beyond just Monday & Tuesday, too) were a time of misrule, when the social order was upset through parish-wide games.

On Monday, women would chase men, sometimes barring the road with a rope or binding them.1 When each man contributed a payment to the parish, he would be released to continue on in the day’s games. Over time, payment was accompanied by or replaced with a kiss. On Tuesday, the roles were reversed, with men collecting funds from women.

Churchwarden accounts show that the women brought in the lion’s share of money during these peculiar days:

“…in the London parish of St. Mary at Hill, the women regularly raised between two and three times as much money as the men, and in some years men failed to bring in any money at all.”2

Katherine L. French, The Good Women of the Parish: Gender and Religion After the Black Death

The significant funds raised from Hocktide games benefitted the parish in so many ways, with the women’s collection providing lasting support to countless churches: many sanctuaries received Hocktide funds toward the maintenance of the “damelight” (a light dedicated to the Blessed Virgin Mary). Furnishings were funded, and later, new windows were purchased. We see the altar at Westminster’s newly-built (1509) St. Margaret Church receiving a new banner with women’s Hocktide money, and fresh satin altar cloths and curtains abounded elsewhere.

At a time when women had few ‘official’ capacities within parish infrastructure, Hocktide interrupted social habits within the context of Church tradition (another example of the ongoing dialogue between popular piety, folk tradition, and Church hierarchy).

How very Eastertide-ish!

Hocktide festivities were overseen by “Tuttimen” bearing fragrant staffs:

“…two tithing men [parade] the town on Hock Tuesday, each carrying a staff ornamented with flowers, surmounted by an orange, and decked with blue ribbon. These are called ‘tuttimen,’ from a West Country word ‘tutty’ - a flower or nosegay, and they are entitled to demand a penny a head for every person in the town, for services rendered during the pats year…”

George Charles Williamson, Curious Survivals: Habits and Customs of the Past that Still Live in the Present (1923)

These Tuttimen were accompanied by the Orange Scrambler,3 who carried a bag of oranges to give to each person who gave a penny or a kiss, replenishing the orange that topped each staff. Tutti Women additionally carried baskets of oranges and sweet treats to toss to the crowd.

In some parishes, the custom of “lifting” was also part of the chasing and binding: the captured person would be lifted three times in a flower-bedecked chair - reminiscent of the raising-up of Christ on the cross.

Lifters in some regions additionally brought with them a posy and a bowl of water, using the flowers to sprinkle water onto the feet of the captured person in the chair (Maundy Thursday comes to mind), singing the hymn Jesus Christ is risen again.4

Throughout all of this, the elected Hocktide Court would hold its proceedings: in this town council, the maintenance of fishing & grazing rights were maintained by “commoners” - literally, the villagers who had rights to graze their animals, collect firewood, forage for cress, etc. on common-held lands.

In a way, it was a way of refreshing the local memory and customs that revolved around crucial aspects of village life - and what better season that Eastertide and the turning of a new agricultural year to reestablish the shared use of community resources?

PASS OUR DAYS ON LOVE AND WATER-CRESSES

“Will you marry me and mistress be, fair lady, of all these?
And we’ll pass our days on love and Water-cresses.”

Harry Clifton, Water-Cresses (1863)

While other strange customs abounded (like the election of Hocktide Courts and the “Shoeing the Colt”5), Hocktide’s antics of course led to celebratory meals: in particular, the Watercress Supper.

Watercress (also known as St. Patrick’s Cabbage) is a bright, fresh, peppery herb that grows alongside running water, just on the edge of the streambed.

This season’s Founder’s Box included some watercress seed for you to plant!

Because it flourished near pure, running water - and also owing to its cross-shaped flowers - Watercress gained a reputation as a symbol of protection, its use especially prevalent during Eastertide. It may have also been one of the bitter herbs used during Passover, alongside a handful of other greens.

And, as a semi-aquatic herb that grows alongside running water, Watercress is also a tangible reminder of the incarnational mystery of Jesus that we see come to fulfillment in Easter -a time when we celebrate the resurrection of the son of God who was (and is), mysteriously, both fully man and fully God.

This staple green was a fitting herald during Hocktide’s proceedings - both for its Eastertide connections and as a representative of the re-assertion of rights to common land here after Easter Sunday:

“This is the sort of thing we English have gone to war to protect,” said Andrew Sawyer, the local vicar, as he surveyed the horse-shoe shodding process proprietorially. “This and the right to gather water-cress from the marsh.”

Jim White, Independent article (1993)

These Hocktide festivities, strange though they may seem, underscored the importance of both Eastertide’s ongoing celebration as well as land use rights by leaning on this popular foraged herb: a Watercress Supper would be held, featuring macaroni, Welsh rarebit (toast topped with a creamy cheese sauce), watercress salad, and punch.

A celebration of the water’s edge, that place where two worlds meet.

BENEDICTION

I bind my heart this tide
to the Galilean’s side,
to the wounds of Calvary,
to the Christ who died for me.

I bind my soul this day
to the neighbor far away,
and the stranger near at hand,
in this town, and in this land.

I bind my heart in thrall
to the God, the Lord of all,
to the Christ, the poor one’s friend,
and the Spirit he did send.

I bind myself to peace,
to make strife and envy cease.
God! Knit secure the cord
of my thralldom to my Lord!
Amen.

Lauchlan MacLean Watt, “I bind my heart this tide” (1907)

Our liturgical living group will be celebrating Hocktide later in the month (I’m never a stickler about timing with these things) - I’ll keep you posted on how it goes!

How is your Eastertide? Do you also struggle to find ways to incorporate this beautiful season into your daily routine?

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Pax et bonum,
Kristin

“…12th calends of April [21 March], the day which we celebrate in honour of the holy man Benedict because of his great virtues. Indeed, the earth also shows by the shoots which are then quickened again that this is the time which should most rightly be the year’s beginning, when the earth was created.”

Ælfric, excerpt from his homily for New Year’s Day, translated by Dr. Eleanor Parker (10th c.)

Today’s look back at our Lenten experience of St. Benedict’s Day is a quick photo album featuring one of my favorite places on the farm: the woods on the western hillside, filled with old-growth cedar and the astounding undergrowth that the Pacific Northwest offers…an ever-changing array of plants, all springing up one after another this time of year.

Our little patch of woodland houses a small shrine - fitted with a Benedict medal, nestled in drooping ostrich ferns. As we encountered St. Benedict this Lent, we celebrated his witness by making a pilgrimage to the shrine, spending some time in the woods as we imagined his three years of forested hermitage.

The kids, of course, found themselves in a fairy tale among all the tiny forest treasures!

Join me for a little jaunt to the woods with our liturgical life group…

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When I dream up these seasonal Founders Boxes, I like to imagine that each one feels a bit as if the season is overflowing & taking shape in all the wares that go into the package…and this spring box was chock-full of bright vernal delights that I hope will help you to embody the season wherever you are.

Last week, despite a spring flood (!), I shipped off all of the Spring boxes for Founding Members - and I had enough goodies leftover to make an additional six Spring boxes.

So, if you’d like to grab one of these remaining 6 Spring boxes to begin a year-long Founding Membership, I’ll be sending these out on a first-come, first-serve basis:

Subscribe now

(Substack has a helpful article that shares more about upgrading).

I’m keeping the Spring box contents a secret for now (surprises are more fun, after all), but later on, I’ll share more about all of the artisans and creations that went into it.

If you’re a current Founding Member, your box should be arriving shortly (if not already)!

Also, if you’re a current Founder, you should have received an email to coordinate shipments…please reach out if you haven’t found that email. :)

Feel free to send questions my way if you’d like to learn more about how this seasonal subscription works (or if you have any other questions or thoughts!)

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I do not think I have ever seen anything more beautiful than the bluebell I have been looking at. I know the beauty of our Lord by it. Its inscape is full of strength and grace.

Gerard Manley Hopkins, journal entry (May 18, 1870)

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Founder Box announcements

• Your Spring Founder Boxes have shipped out and should be arriving any day now! I’d love to hear more about how you’re using and delighting in the goodies in this season’s box…would you like to share any pictures or ideas over in our Chat?
  

Online gatherings

• APRIL 18 | Saturday at noon Pacific Time | Substack Live Q&A with and myself about our pilgrimage invitation
  » For all subscribers: Dixie & I will be hopping onto Substack Live to gush about all the things we’re excited to experience in our upcoming pilgrimage, as well as answer your questions!
  

• APRIL 25 | Saturday at 10 am Pacific Time | Spring Book Club discussion with author !
  » For paid subscribers: Join Christie and I to discuss her beautiful new book, A House To Call Home!
  

• APRIL 29 | Wednesday at 5 pm Pacific Time | Q&A chat about hosting liturgical living gatherings!

  » For paid subscribers: Bring your questions, ideas, experiences…and let’s wrestle through the ins & outs of hosting a liturgical life group in your own neck of the woods.

Fresh Posts & Previous Archives

• FIRST HALF OF APRIL: Festal focus reflections, art, & resources shared
  

• APRIL 23 | Thursday | St. George’s Day
  » Printables: Book of Hours pages & dandelion soda recipe

• APRIL 25 | Saturday | St. Mark’s Day
  » Printables: Ebooklet with nettle risotto recipe & sage shoe spray instructions
  

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+ April 2026 Calendar & Coloring

The April Almanac includes:

• April calendar page with a selection of holy days, dip-pen illustrations, and links to connect you with more HF resources

• Coloring page featuring my hand-drawn illustrations of April feast emblems

• Print out these goodies (I recommend card-stock for the calendar and regular paper for the coloring page), and see how you can integrate the featured holidays into your existing plans!

+ Vase of Days

This ‘vase of days’ is designed to help us see April as a bouquet. Each image (hand-painted in gouache) is a prompt: an invitation to look at the holy wonder of these days & how they meet us in our own lives and landscapes.

Head to the Scriptorium to find your April printables:

Scriptorium

OUR LADY’S NIGHTCAP (aka, English Bluebell)
Hyacinthoides non-scripta

Refer a friend

Symbolism:

• Legend has it that the Blessed Virgin Mary used to tuck her hair into a nightcap of the same color and shape as the Bluebell

• Humility (because of its downward-facing posture - reminiscent of a prayer posture - Our Lady’s Nightcap is a reminder of faithful humility)

• Resilience (since they’re so hardy, surviving so many weather hardships, Bluebells came to represent a robust faithfulness in adversity)

• St. George (traditionally worn on St. George’s Day and used to decorate churches for his fesat)

Head to the Scriptorium to find your April Herbarium print:

Scriptorium

To help us all settle into Eastertide - a season whose shape and traditions have been somewhat obscured over the centuries - let’s look to a Medieval English celebration: Hocktide, the Monday & Tuesday in the second week of Easter (this year, April 13 & 14).

The more we re-discover - and re-imagine these feasts within our modern context - the better we can see the nuance and form in the ongoing celebrations of Eastertide. It’s SO easy, outside of the liturgy, to forget the length of this glorious season.

• Reflections, history, folk traditions, art, and more will be available in the first couple weeks of April

• Paid members will receive a printable cover page and booklet for their liturgical year binders, as well as a peek into how our liturgical living group celebrates this holiday

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Pax et bonum,
Kristin