2010 Winter Feast for the Soul
ORGANIZER’S CHECKLIST
Preliminary Comments:
As an organizer for the Winter Feast for the Soul, there is one very important thing for you to keep in mind. Our goal is to make a contribution to personal and planetary peace.
I encourage you to do your very best to reach out in all directions to bring people of all faiths and beliefs into the Feast. There are many paths to peace and one of them is to receive one another, without limitation, with love, respect, and understanding. I know that you already know this, or you would not have stepped forward to help with our outreach program. This is just a gentle reminder of our work and the many forms that it takes.
No matter where you live, or what time zone you live in, I strongly encourage you to plan to offer an opening ceremony as described below. This will join us and add to the coherence of our work
Thank you so much for being part of the Feast in this way.
Create a Community Group to Help You:
- Put an ad in the paper or community bulletin to find like-minded individuals who may want to team up with you.
- Start a meditation or prayer group in your home. This will prepare people for the Feast and will likely attract the people who can help you with your outreach.
- Call your six best friends.
- Talk about it everywhere: supermarket, church, yoga classes, book clubs, etc.
Develop Programs for the Feast:
- Identify locations where daily or weekly meditations can be hosted. These might include private homes, as well as yoga studios, AA meeting places, ashrams, and other meditation centers.
- Send letters to the heads of spiritual and religious organizations, inviting
- Consider bringing everyone in your area together for the global opening and closing meditations. Suggested template attached.
- Last year one group rented a space for weekly gatherings where different spiritual practices were shared. Volunteers brought candles, flowers, and tapestries to decorate the space. This created a lovely community that lasted throughout the year.
- Don’t forget to include the Children’s Feast in your planning: 4 minutes of stillness each day for world peace.
- Include prisoners in your outreach when possible. They find the Feast to be a huge healing for them. Being involved in a worldwide event includes them in ways that they are rarely given.
Publicity and PR:
- Consider placing an ad in the local newspaper
- Submit a press release to local news media and magazines. Press Release attached. Include your contact information wherever indicated.
- Post flyers that are downloadable from our website and click on Tools.
- Email the flyers to your friends and family.
- Order posters from the office to post in your area.
- Play the DVD in your community to promote the Feast. Copies can be obtained from the Winter Feast office. The DVD can alos be found on our website. Click on Resources in the menu bar.
- Print out the bookmarks and put them everywhere. You can go to our website to find the downloadable file for these under Resources in the menu bar..
- Direct people to go to the website and encourage them to sign up for the newsletter and /or to commit to the Feast while they are there.
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Remind people that we will have meditations according to six different traditions each day of the Feast on our website:
- Children’s Meditations
- Christian Contemplative Prayer
- Insight Meditation
- New Thought (Interfaith)
- Sufi
- Tibetan Buddhist
Funding:
- There may be grants available from small local organizations
- Find organizations that might sponsor your efforts
- Consider asking for donations at your events. Funds can be used to support your local events, or sent to the office in Idaho to support the global outreach.
Opening Ceremony 8:30 a.m. EST on January 15, 2010:
There are a number of ways to mark the opening of the Feast. One that we use here in our area is to create an altar with nine candles, one for each of the major spiritual traditions. Each of these candles is lit from a single, larger candle that represents the candle of Truth. As each candle is lit we read something from each tradition:
- Hindu
- Buddhist
- Zoroastrian
- Native American
- Divine Feminine
- Jewish
- Christian
- Islam
- All other traditions, known and unknown to the world
This ceremony might be preceded by 15 minutes of silent meditation and followed by 30 additional minutes of silent meditation. The instructions for this ceremony will be posted on our website under tools.
Closing Celebration 8:30 p.m. EST on February 23, 2010:
In 2009 the “headquarters” here in Idaho created a spectacular event with Coleman Barks, translator of Rumi’s poetry, David Darling, world famous cellist, and Hafizullah Chishti, whirling dervish. This event was recorded and can be found our website and on Talkshoe.com. Bringing people together to listen to this wonderful event is very uplifting.
This year we are not able to sponsor this kind of extravagance. We will certainly identify a place to hold the closing meditation that evening and will most probably hold a potluck dinner afterward where people can share their experiences from the Feast.
New Ideas:
Let us know is we have left something out, or if you have some ideas that we have not thought of yet. We are always open to what you have to say. That’s how we grow.
Attachments:
Outreach Letter to Religious Leaders
Sample Press release
Opening Ceremony Guidelines
