It’s the day after Christmas, radiance still vibrates the air. The world awakes.
I hear the ocean but can’t yet see it, walk around, the world cleansed by wind and rain, all quiet now.
I learn that David Sedaris advised: “Write every day and read everything you can get your hands on. Write every day with a pen that’s shaped like a candy cane.” I love that, and consider living with entry shaped like a candy cane, so rising up with a curve and slipping down like a question mark, always observing and receiving new.
I’m by the ocean in Santa Barbara and the wind and rain are rattling the glass door. 50 mph gusts!! We’re enjoying gathering and celebrating the holidays that light this time of year.
In Iceland, the tradition is to give books on Christmas Eve, and read. Each of us is a book, so yes, give books, but also open up the pages within, and share what’s there.
I’m watching the sky come to light as my family gathers today and for the next many days. I’m with these words of Antonio Machado:
I open a Christmas/Holiday card to learn friends were visiting NYC and went to St. Patrick’s Cathedral and lit a candle for my brother’s passing. My heart is touched.
Ram Dass passed away yesterday at the age of 88. I’ve read his books, and watched him on-line, but was most touched when I saw him speak at the College of Marin. It wasn’t that long after his stroke, and yet there he was in his wheelchair, cheerful and slow, measured one might say, but in the most expansive way.
He taught us how to give space and breathe just by his presence. Nothing more was needed.
Today, I learn my two month old grandchild loves owls, and is gurgling “whoooo” and I think of all the creatures surrounding us, and the grace we share as we pause for this season of love and beauty, reflection and peace, connection and care.
I’m sitting with two quotes of Ram Dass as I listen to men scramble on my roof like Santa’s reindeer as they clean the gutters of all the leaves that have fallen in honoring this time of year. The branches are bare, and people pass, and love is here.
Ram Dass: “Unconditional love really exists in each of us. It is part of our deep inner being. It is not so much an active emotion as a state of being. It’s not ‘I love you’ for this or that reason, not ‘I love you if you love me.’ It’s love for no reason, love without an object.”
“You are loved just for being who you are, just for existing. You don’t have to do anything to earn it. Your shortcomings, your lack of self-esteem, physical perfection, or social and economic success—none of that matters. No one can take this love away from you, and it will always be here.”
I wake with elves dancing in my chest and stars twinkling in my ears. I believe in Santa Claus, in love, giving, receiving, and peace. We can have this when we pause for a moment, and before we know it, each pause is fully aired with love, gratitude, and peace.
May we each radiate in ourown precious and only in this moment, startling and momentous ways.
William Blake wrote, “In seed time learn, in harvest teach, in winter enjoy.”
We are now officially in the season of winter. Where I live, rain is pouring down, and joy, renewal, peace, and ease sprout in the drops linked to connect.
My book group which has been meeting for over thirty years spent Friday night in San Francisco near Union Square. We stay at “our place” which is fully decorated for the Holidays, and entering, we are in France. Downstairs, dinner is served in a castle-like atmosphere honoring Joan of Arc, Jeanne d’Arc. The climax to the meal is Grand Marnier Souffle.
My friend Elaine Chan-Scherer celebrated Winter Solstice at the labyrinth in the Headlands. Her photo captures all we celebrate as we gather to honor All.
Enter into the magic, enchantment, and sacredness of the season
Here we are in the shortest days of the year, and longest if you’re in the southern hemisphere. It’s so exciting, this clear awareness of our planet’s tilt. I tilt inside, a tilt-a-whirl, and yet, there are also a few days where all is still, so I balance there too. The word solstice derives from two Latin words, “sol” meaning sun, and “sistere”, to cause to stand still. Feel the spaciousness in nature’s call and respond. Give yourself time these next few days to stand still.
In checking out two African penguins hatched at the Monterey Bay Aquarium last week, I learn that the aquarium has live web cams so you can view various exhibits wherever you are.
Again, we’re wrapped in fog, and so I imagine the Aquarium is too, and yet, consider all the work on the planet to bring us together to connect land and sea.The penguins are part of a Species Survival plan for endangered species. Birth by birth, we build, and believing in the value, inspiration, and creativity in diversity, receive.
“A human being is a part of the whole called by us universe, a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feeling as something separated from the rest, a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.”
It’s raining, all night, and now all day. I love the sound and watching the plants open and renew.
A few years I ago I was at Commonweal and heard Frank Ostaseski speak. I give a taste of that here, but first a few words from his book, The Five Invitations: Discovering What Death Can Teach Us about Living Fully.
“Hope is an optimizing force that moves us and all of life toward harmony. It doesn’t arrive from outside; rather it is an abiding state of being, a hidden wellspring within us. When the mind is still and awake, we can see reality more clearly and recognize it as a living, dynamic process. Hope that is active has an imaginative daring to it, which helps us to realize our unity with all life and find the resourcefulness required to act on its behalf. We can sense the lightness, the buoyancy of this kind of hope, the enthusiasm and positivity it engenders. It energizes us to engage in activities that we imagine will enrich our future. This version of hope is a basic human need.”
I learned about Commonweal years ago when a good friend had cancer. I’ve loved Rachel Naomi Remen’s books for years. Today I quote from an interview with her in the Commonweal newsletter on A Life with Purpose.
She says, “My grandfather believed that each of us has a holy purpose and that we fulfill this purpose in many ways – through our relationships, our families, our careers, or just on some street corner somewhere. We may fulfill our life purpose simply by something we say to some stranger on a bus.”
She continues on speaking of collective purpose which has a Hebrew name, Tikkun Olam, which translates as the word service.
“One of my favorite authors, Kurt Vonnegut, writes about this in his book Cat’s Cradle. According to Vonnegut, God has organized the world into working units called Karasses. A Karass is a group of people who have been born to serve one of God’s holy purposes without ever knowing. Their lives and their work may bear no outward relationship to one another. No matter. They serve their holy purpose together perfectly. Vonnegut says the members of a Karass circle around their holy purpose like electrons circle the nucleus of an atom. Some orbit very close to the nucleus. Others orbit at a great distance. But all are bound to their holy purpose by spiritual bonds, bonds of the soul. Those who orbit very close to the nucleus may be friends or even a married couple. But most others are total strangers: people whose lives and work seems to bear no relationship to one another, people of all ages who speak different languages and have different religions, people who will never meet or have any awareness of one another. Yet their lives fit together in service to their holy purpose. Vonnegut contrasts this to the Grandfaloon, the way human beings organize the world. The people in a Grandfaloon think they are related to one another but actually have no relationship to one another at all; for example, the Yale class of 2003 or any professional sports team anywhere.”
She continues: “According to Vonnegut, should you have the good fortune to meet a member of your Karass, you feel a sort of deep recognition that you can’t explain, a sense of bondedness, a feeling that this other person is truly family.”
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