Between darkness and wonder
Dec. 25th, 2004 03:41 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sigersonHere we are at the close of the year.
Most of you know that I am a neo-pagan, and therefore don't celebrate the religious version of Christmas. My family, however, has celebrated Christmas in its secular incarnation for as long as I can remember: tree, lights; stockings found in the morning, presents after breakfast; carols on the stereo, turkey in the oven. Today has been much the same. I can smell the turkey from here, and my hot new ROTK Extended Edition is just waiting for some attention.
For several years, it has been more and more difficult for me to 'get into the Christmas Spirit', which I think of as a sense of this time as special and different; sacred, perhaps, to family, and characterized by a warm feeling of home and an awareness of family that stretches back farther than my life and my memories. When I can enter into this state, I treasure it. It seems to change all my interactions subtly. I'm not instantly nicer and kinder, running through the -1 Fahrenheit streets yelling "Merry Christmas, Bedford Falls!" But I am...well, aware.
This time it was very difficult, and I think I know why. I celebrate Christmas in a social manner; I wish my lover Merry Christmas on the phone, I sing carols with friends, I wear a Santa hat and jump around the living room with both siblings to the Russian Dance from the Nutcracker Suite (causing Dad to complain about the house's weak foundations). I celebrate Solstice by myself. Meditation, minimal ceremony, prayer and/or contemplation (it's kind of hard for me to separate the two), a lit candle and a few small rituals, practiced privately in my study: this is the core of my Solstice.
And this year I didn't do it. I could lie and say I didn't have time on that Tuesday; there _was_ a fair amount going on, and I was running around doing chores. But I could have stayed up later, or simply lit one candle.
When I don't meditate on the equinoxes and the solstices, I get very grouchy. My inner landscape is untended and running wild, and I haven't spoken aloud my fears and hopes to Her. This is why, I believe, I was angry and sour and sullen on my way home. (The snowstorm didn't help, but I made it home safe.) And then, with this unshed last three months of the year, I enter into my parents' home and renegotiate my adult self in this child's world.
The solitary nature of my Solstice ceremony was and is essential to the social nature of my secular Christmas.
So this morning, before I got out of bed, before I even opened my eyes, I began to...well, let's call it prayer, because I wasn't seated for meditation. I don't know how long it took; I don't know if I began dreaming in the middle of it. And I opened my eyes and went downstairs at the close, feeling the awareness of this family Christmas creep in around my consciousness, warming me like hot cocoa or a friend's hug or a lover's hands over my frigid ears.
Though Solstice has passed, Christmas Night is illuminated by a full moon. My solitary ceremony joins with my family's celebration. This gray but beautiful day is the stopover 'between darkness and wonder', as we move from the darkest days of the year to the unfathomable opportunity and freshness of a new year.
Merry Christmas to you all, and if you will accept a benediction from another faith:
May the close of the year calm its pains and cause its joys to shine; and in the year to come, may you feel the depth of Her love and be sheltered from harm; may your burdens strengthen rather than tire you; may your heart lead you as you would need it most.
From here the days are longer and the light is greater, and the snow around us serves as blanket and sleep. Sleep well until I see you again.
Most of you know that I am a neo-pagan, and therefore don't celebrate the religious version of Christmas. My family, however, has celebrated Christmas in its secular incarnation for as long as I can remember: tree, lights; stockings found in the morning, presents after breakfast; carols on the stereo, turkey in the oven. Today has been much the same. I can smell the turkey from here, and my hot new ROTK Extended Edition is just waiting for some attention.
For several years, it has been more and more difficult for me to 'get into the Christmas Spirit', which I think of as a sense of this time as special and different; sacred, perhaps, to family, and characterized by a warm feeling of home and an awareness of family that stretches back farther than my life and my memories. When I can enter into this state, I treasure it. It seems to change all my interactions subtly. I'm not instantly nicer and kinder, running through the -1 Fahrenheit streets yelling "Merry Christmas, Bedford Falls!" But I am...well, aware.
This time it was very difficult, and I think I know why. I celebrate Christmas in a social manner; I wish my lover Merry Christmas on the phone, I sing carols with friends, I wear a Santa hat and jump around the living room with both siblings to the Russian Dance from the Nutcracker Suite (causing Dad to complain about the house's weak foundations). I celebrate Solstice by myself. Meditation, minimal ceremony, prayer and/or contemplation (it's kind of hard for me to separate the two), a lit candle and a few small rituals, practiced privately in my study: this is the core of my Solstice.
And this year I didn't do it. I could lie and say I didn't have time on that Tuesday; there _was_ a fair amount going on, and I was running around doing chores. But I could have stayed up later, or simply lit one candle.
When I don't meditate on the equinoxes and the solstices, I get very grouchy. My inner landscape is untended and running wild, and I haven't spoken aloud my fears and hopes to Her. This is why, I believe, I was angry and sour and sullen on my way home. (The snowstorm didn't help, but I made it home safe.) And then, with this unshed last three months of the year, I enter into my parents' home and renegotiate my adult self in this child's world.
The solitary nature of my Solstice ceremony was and is essential to the social nature of my secular Christmas.
So this morning, before I got out of bed, before I even opened my eyes, I began to...well, let's call it prayer, because I wasn't seated for meditation. I don't know how long it took; I don't know if I began dreaming in the middle of it. And I opened my eyes and went downstairs at the close, feeling the awareness of this family Christmas creep in around my consciousness, warming me like hot cocoa or a friend's hug or a lover's hands over my frigid ears.
Though Solstice has passed, Christmas Night is illuminated by a full moon. My solitary ceremony joins with my family's celebration. This gray but beautiful day is the stopover 'between darkness and wonder', as we move from the darkest days of the year to the unfathomable opportunity and freshness of a new year.
Merry Christmas to you all, and if you will accept a benediction from another faith:
May the close of the year calm its pains and cause its joys to shine; and in the year to come, may you feel the depth of Her love and be sheltered from harm; may your burdens strengthen rather than tire you; may your heart lead you as you would need it most.
From here the days are longer and the light is greater, and the snow around us serves as blanket and sleep. Sleep well until I see you again.
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no subject
Date: 2004-12-25 10:40 pm (UTC)Wow
Date: 2004-12-26 02:10 am (UTC)May the close of the year calm its pains and cause its joys to shine
That in particular touched me, as it really speaks to the year that I have had. Thanks for adding your own special benediction to what has been for me a truly lovely Christmas Day.