A quick diversion from my Espe stories. It’s a major holiday today here in the U.S. and many western countries – Christmas – but my comments are about what it ought to be not what it has become. One of the newer Christmas movies in the west is ‘Love Actually’ and whether you love or hate it, I’m not writing today to debate it. However, it does have some compelling scenes, like the opening scene and the final scene at Heathrow airport international terminal. The footage in the scenes is real. Arguably these are the most joyful scenes of the whole film. The footage is of loved ones reuniting at the airport. The opening dialogue says a lot about what is important: “Whenever I get gloomy with the state of the world, I think about the arrivals gate at Heathrow Airport. General opinion’s starting to make out that we live in a world of hatred and greed, but I don’t see that. It seems to me that love is everywhere. Often, it’s not particularly dignified or newsworthy, but it’s always there – fathers and sons, mothers and daughters, husbands and wives, boyfriends, girlfriends, old friends… If you look for it, I’ve got a sneaky feeling you’ll find that love actually is all around.”
There are seven major religious holidays that occur around the time of the winter Solstice in the northern hemisphere. And if you include all the pagan, Gaian, and Earth focused traditional celebrations, it is probably more than 50. What many of the groups celebrate (directly or indirectly) is the rebirth of the sun and the turning of the year. On December 21st, in the northern hemisphere the sun reaches it minimum declination in the sky and then for three days seems not to change at all, until on the 25th it begins to rise again – sound like a familiar story? – it was once believed to be the rebirth time.
Now this was important for people before the industrial revolution, because it helped mark the beginning of the year and allowed calculations for when Spring would begin, and hence crop planning time. Might not seem like a big deal when you can just visit a grocery store anytime and get food that has travelled from all over the planet to reach you. But if you survive from having a good harvest, knowing these time points is critical to whether you live well fed, go hungry next year, or even starve next winter. So naturally it became a time of ritual and gratitude. (Once we started living more in the southern hemisphere it naturally just changed to the summer solstice for those settlers.)
Before 80 years ago, most people lived much more simply than we do today. Simplicity isn’t about depravation, but more about appreciation of the simpler and more important things in our lives. Not getting caught up in counting the gifts but more appreciating that simply getting a gift emphasizes the thoughtfulness and appreciation of gifts of any kind given with Love. The high-level onslaught of commercialism in to the holiday period around the ‘changing of the year’ during my childhood made me jaded with the whole holiday time for many years. I’m not talking religiosity, but more that all the positive platitudes peoples kept saying just at the holiday time (e.g., Peace on Earth, Goodwill to all, etc.) seemed empty and deprecating.
My favorite spiritual guru, Michael Roads, recently wrote a commentary about Christmas that seems apt for what I am getting at:
“Is it Christmas that has changed since I was a boy . . . or is it me? When I was a kid, Christmas was all about fun, snow – if we were lucky! – and overeating – well, it was for me. Now, Christmas seems to be all about Christmas spectaculars. Television spectaculars, local shopping centre spectaculars, shopping sales spectaculars. Everything about Christmas has to be glitzy and glamourous. It has to be loud and in your face.
Maybe I’m a mite odd, or just old, but to me spectacular suggest spectators. In other words, Christmas for many people is something to watch, something to admire as you gaze at the spectacular girls singing their spectacular Christmas songs. Christmas has become a spectacle. Christmas has also become a seduction. Millions of gullible people will overspend far more than they can afford, having to live very frugally as they pay the overdue and spectacular interest on their credit cards over the rather unspectacular months following Christmas.
For me, Christmas is a celebration in which we all should fully participate. I do not need spectaculars to make Christmas special. How many people really know what is being celebrated? I believe and accept that there is a Christ, but I have no idea when he was born. However, if the 25th December is the date we came up with, then so be it. I will celebrate.
I am also aware that Christmas Day will herald a peak in suicides, and is a time of peak depression, anxiety and despair for very many people. Christmas seems to create paradoxes; far too many people will have no money to spare for Christmas, yet it is expected that [many] folk will spend about nine billion dollars on Christmas.
Christmas is also a time of giving and sharing. I am humbled by the gifts and donations that go to the charities to assist the poor, especially the children, at Christmas time. Christmas brings out the best in us, and sometimes the worst . . . at party time!
For many, Christmas is not Christmas without church. Some are there because they totally believe in a Christian God, while others are there to appease the needs of the family. I have no doubt that some are there because they like to place their bets both ways!
Christmas is a bit like Love, it is badly represented. Love is the power of creation . . . an incredible power indeed, and Christmas is supposed to be a celebration of that Love. To experience Love we are required to fully participate, we cannot be an onlooker and know Love.
Christmas does not need to be a spectacular, it only needs us to be true participants in the celebrations by being as fully conscious in the moment as possible. When you smile at your family and friends and you say, “Happy Christmas,” be sure that you really mean it. Be fully with them on this special day. The greatest gift that you can give is of yourself.
I have learned that Love can only be experienced while you are fully conscious, so I wish you all the most conscious, the most meaningful, and the most Loving and Loved Christmas you have ever had. On Christmas Day in particular, consciously . . . choose Love!”
So, for a festival that started with celebrating the turning of the year, the commercial aspect was the most disconcerting for me, and I know for many people, even as we continue to join in with the glitzy festivities it has become. Yes, for many years I was jaded with it all, then I started looking more consciously at what could I do and how could I make the season to be a little better for more people. I learned to express Love regardless of whatever consumerist event I might find myself in. I brought Christmas in to myself and stopped expecting it to be expressed by everyone else. If I could express Love, that was enough. The magic comes from believing in Love. And with that the possibility that my expressions of Love and gratitude for people could be transformative in ways I could not see. The belief that Peace on Earth and good will to all people could be reality all the time and not just platitudes to make ourselves feel better on the ways to our next holiday party.
we’re conditioned to think that our lives revolve around great moments. but great moments often catch us unaware – beautifully wrapped in what others may consider a small one. People may not remember exactly what you did, or what you said, but they will always remember how you made them feel. And don’t people want to feel Loved and respected? Isn’t that what the spirit of this season is truly about? Making your transformation the gift that helps and changes people might be the best gift you can give.
“If you want to awaken all of humanity, then awaken all of yourself. If you want to eliminate the suffering in the world, then eliminate all that is dark and negative in yourself. Truly, the greatest gift you have to give is that of your own self-transformation.” Lao Tzu
I end with a Christmas song that is never played in the multitude of holiday favorites for some reason, but for me, expresses much of what I have said in this post: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JcIV8QHaK2c
Whatever you celebrate and why: Happy Holidays, Peace and Love to all, and hope for a better and beautiful New Year!
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