Three Years

Three Years

On Monday, it will have been three years since I expired in the ambulance on the way to the hospital. I will also turn sixty-five this year. Since I was never expected to live to the ripe old age of fifty, every moment of every day is precious.

Having come back through the mist more than once, people often say that I have so much strength, so much determination, but that is not the bottom line. That is not exactly what has brought me back repeatedly and what keeps me here. I believe it was and is courage, the courage to accept the love that is offered to me and to trust that love to hold me safe.

There is a reason, a purpose that keeps me coming back. I believe part of that reason is to share my Journey, to show others the beauty I see, to give hope where I can. Even when we have to struggle to live this life, not just to exist but to embrace all that life has to offer, there are moments of such sheer beauty that can sustain us. These magic moments are sometimes so fleeting that we can miss them if we are not living in the moment.

One such moment in my life happened a few years ago while driving along the east coast of Nova Scotia. It was early summer and a beautiful sunny day. We rounded a corner and glimpsed a small marshy area with a mass of pink water lilies. We stopped to find ourselves with a sea of pink on the left and a small bay on the right. The bay was lined with stones worn smooth by the pounding of the waves rolling them back and forth against each other. Standing there between two very different but very powerful faces of nature brought tears to my eyes. I was humbled by such beauty. My feeling was similar to that of deep meditation, a connectedness with All That Is.

When I contemplate such things as the great whales who cruise the oceans keeping their secrets to themselves, or the migration of every fourth generation of the tiny Monarch butterfly, I am in awe.

This is a poem that for me, captures that sense of wonder.

High Flight by John Gillespie Magee, RCAF, 1920-1939

Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of Earth,
And danced the skies on laugher-silvered wings;
Sunward, I’ve climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth
Of sun-split clouds, - and done a hundred things
You have not dreamed of – wheeled and soared and swung
High in the sunlit silence. Hov’ring there,
I’ve chased the shouting wind along, and flung
My eager craft through footless halls of air...

Up, up the long delirious, burning blue
I’ve topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace,
Where never lark, or even eagle flew –
And, while with silent, lifting mind I’ve trod
The high untrespassed sanctity of space,
Put out my hand and touched the Face of God.

Inside Out

The tears roll down my face.
They don’t have my permission.
Outside, my pain is written
In the water on my cheeks.
Outside, my body reflects
The state of the outer me.
The ocean of life cradles my soul,
Deep where no one can see.
Inside, the blows are cushioned
By a sea of tranquility.
Inside, my soul reflects
The state of the inner me.
So if you see me crying,
If you think you see despair
Don’t let concern for the outside
Blind your eyes to the inner life.
Remember that reflections
Are not cast from
The inside out.

The Lonely Seeker

Traveling along my own path, I look to the left and the right, seeking a glimpse of others traveling their paths near my own. The loneliness at times is palpable, and the need to see a friendly face, struggling along as I am, is an ache in my soul. There are familiar faces which I have glimpsed in the past and even conversed with occasionally, but none are in sight now.

Suddenly, I see arms and legs flailing in the air. A familiar traveling companion on a nearby path, having tripped over a snag, thrashes around like a tortoise on it's back. I recall my own stumbles and falls, and my heart goes out to this fellow traveler. I reach across, but I can not quite make contact. Knowing the loneliness that afflicts all seekers, I settle down and wait, offering reassurance that the only constant in this life is "Change", sharing my own experiences in the hope that such sharing will give some comfort, some faith that "this too will pass".

As I sit offering companionship in silence, I see my traveling companion slowly stop struggling, and begin to gather strength. His struggle is reflected in the lines upon his face and the bruises on his heart. But slowly, I see hope begin to transform his face, and a subtle glow emanate from his form. As his struggling stills, he begins to see his path, his purpose, again. Strength flows from the Creator into his heart, healing the terrible wounds he suffered while fighting to rise up and trudge forward on his own.

Rising up, he turns to acknowledge my presence and begins to offer thanks, I must stop him and remind him that he has done the same for many, and no thanks are needed. The peace and confidence that suffuses his face is thanks enough, the knowledge that he will continue to offer a helping hand as the Creator has helped him renews my confidence.

As I stand, ready to take up my own Journey once again, I smile. The companionship I wished for stands so near, just out of reach but close enough!

More on Soul Mates

After reading about Soul Mates, a friend asked me a logical question. Since it is possible to trace our DNA back for multiple generations, how does reincarnation fit into this? Have we repeatedly incarnated in the same blood line, or different ones altogether?

The body is the home of the soul here on earth for the length of the incarnation. The human body is made from the elements of the earth. Each body is newly made for the soul personality who will inhabit it.

Think of a house that is worn out. The occupant vacates and the house is demolished. A contractor comes along and uses any good materials in the new house he builds. An occupant is found and moves in. There is not necessarily any connection between the old and the new occupant at all. The new house contains what has gone before, but it is still a new house. The previous occupant of the old house may well have chosen a new house in the familiar neighbourhood or they may have chosen to find a new house in a totally different neighbourhood or even a new country, depending on what the occupant wants to experience in the new house.

The soul is eternal, the body is finite, but each is made from the elements of the old. Although there is no physical connection between the body and the soul who inhabits it, we often reincarnate near each other in time and place. When we meet others who have travelled with us through a number of incarnations, there is a knowing that transcends the physical, an instant deep connection that can be felt even over the internet.

Over time, we may well have been father, mother, child, spouse or friend to each other over multiple incarnations. That is basically why soul mate and life's mate are seldom the same thing. When they are, we are incredibly blessed.

My Christmas Wish for All

This season always makes my mind turn to those who have no family to celebrate with. Our society has become very mobile and families scatter across the globe, so even those with family are unable to spend the holidays in the warmth of caring family. We who have been blessed with so much love and caring need to share with those less fortunate. I do not mean to give to the food banks or toy drives. These things are important and we need to give to them, but we need to give of ourselves as well.

There is a great need for more mature people to adopt the young people as well as little children. There is also a need to adopt those of your own age who do not have extended family. It works out well for both parties, at least I feel it does. I treasure my extended family by choice, mutual choice. Some are soul mates, with whom I have shared previous lives, some are new to me but I am sure will travel together in future and some are connected for only this lifetime. There are also some who I will not see in person in this life but have formed a tight bond over the internet and some who will visit my life for a short time only. All are priceless treasures.

Don't be afraid to reach out and to respond when others reach out to you. You have much to give and much to learn, both ... we all do. We are all teachers and we are all students. We are all needed. The Creator does not waste, so you can be sure that what you have learned will be of great benefit to others. Your courage, your great desire to do right, your loving heart, all equip you to be of service to the One. We all have a particular path to walk and the tools to do so. Don't forget that.

My Christmas wish for all is that the love and joy of the season is shared with those who need it most.

With Love and Companionship on the Journey
...Z

Soul Mate

People often spend a lifetime searching for their soul mate without an understanding of what a soul mate actually is. As a result, their search is often futile.

In order to grow we must seek true understanding of the words we so blithely banter around. So many people don't do this and a new and improper definition evolves. A perfect example of this happening is the use of the word "avatar".

Original meaning

Definition of Avatar - Spiritual meaning and purpose of avatar
The title Avatar describes a fully freed soul incarnating directly from God on this physical planet or elsewhere. An Avatar fulfills a highly spiritual task in the name of God and returns to God after accomplishing his task. His Love for God and his creation is beyond description and imagination, his faith in God absolute as there is no difference between an Avatar and God.

Avatars are rarely in populated areas and prefer to act in a quiet retreat to peacefully fulfill their task. One of their task often is to teach guru's or potential Gurus, to assure the continuity of God's Divine plan in his creation.

There are but a very few avatars at the same time incarnated - usually only one. There are no Avatar-courses or Avatar-workshops, these are inventions of mankind's fantasy and desire to abuse even the most sacred values for profit. An Avatar always learns from God and never has any other Guru. Only God can be his Guru.

Purpose of an Avatar. By his nature an Avatar leads an entire culture home to God while a Guru leads a number of individual disciples to God.

http://www.kriyayoga.com/english/encyclopedia/avatar.htm

Current usage.

An avatar is a computer user's representation of himself/herself or alter ego, whether in the form of a three-dimensional model used in computer games, ...en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avatar_(computing) - 58k - Cached - Similar pages

Having been on my own personal Journey for most of my life, I was very familiar with the original meaning. While I was not looking the word changed so much that I could not comprehend, and actually felt it was a kind of sacrilegious usage. For different reasons Soul mate has gone through a similar transformation. When people are unaware of their own spiritual selves, and assume that the earthly existence is all we have, then they put all their hopes into finding that perfect mate. The perfect earthly mate may not be the perfect soul mate. One applies to only this physical existence for however long this life lasts, the other applies to someone who is so close to us that the connection transcends this earthly life and is a part of our true selves.

If we are very blessed, we may reunite with a soul mate in this life. They could be in the form of a partner, relative, friend, a stranger .... whatever. When we come into contact with such soul mates in this life, there is an instant attraction, a sense of déjà vu, a desire to know this person and to have them in our lives in whatever guise they wear in this temporary existence. Because soul personalities tend to reincarnate in a similar time frame, we can meet more than one brother or sister of the soul.

In my own case, I have been extremely blessed by having reconnected with more than one of the soul personalities that travel in a similar time frame as I do. I have actually written about the two sisters of my soul who came and gave me the strength to come back through the mist. Before that incident we had never met in person, only known each other over the internet. The connection we felt was deep and instant. When I first met one of my sisters of the soul in person, she walked into my arms and it felt like we had known each other forever. When the third sister was able to join us in person last summer, the experience was the same for all three of us. When we met in person, it also became obvious that my DH is also part of this transcendent group.

I would wish that everyone could meet at least one of their travelling companions.

Death is Not the Enemy

Death Is Not the Enemy

Fear is. Having crossed through the mist on more than one occasion, I can vouch for the fact that it is a normal part of living.

Pain is generated by illness or injury to the body, which is the temple of the soul in this world. Suffering is caused by desire, clinging to the things of this world, attachment to specific outcomes. Fear is usually caused by the unknown or by a feeling that we will lose what worldly things we have. Fear is also responsible for adding to our suffering.

Understanding and acceptance are lights we can cast into the darkest recesses of our minds and fear and suffering will flee before them. But if we do not grow, we will remain in that dark place of suffering and fear.

Birth and death are normal events in the process we call living. Both are inescapable and rightly so. If we were to avoid these events, spiritual growth would be severely limited. We choose the circumstances of each birth for the potential of experiencing what we need for our continued growth. At death we are able to evaluate our progress and choose the circumstances of the next birth. All things follow a rhythm of birth and death and rebirth.

The Journey is long and speed is not a necessity. It is more important to strive to be aware of the Journey itself, to see the opportunities for growth that appear in our lives. Just as physical evolution happens over a long period of time, spiritual evolution happens over many lifetimes. We must be patient with ourselves. When we fall short of our own expectations, and we will, we need to be gentle with ourselves rather than condemn ourselves for our perceived short comings.

When we take our first trembling steps on this Journey Into Being, we may become disheartened by what we see as slow progress, or no progress at all. However when we persevere, taking our baby steps as best we can, it becomes easier. As we learn the basics and grow stronger, the Journey becomes easier, not easy, but easier. Progress requires striving, but it does not require suffering, or fear. As we learn more, our suffering and fear will ease up and the path becomes easier to follow.

There are tools that we can use to help us in our striving. Learning what we can about the many paths that people follow will help us to define our own path. Meditation helps us to clarify our aims and dissipate the stress we are under in our daily lives. It also helps us to connect with the spirit within us all.

With love and companionship on the Journey

Bittersweet

Bitter Sweet This season is so bad for so many people. It is a bitter-sweet time, with celebrating Christmas and remembering those who have passed before us and those who are fighting for their lives, more so now and in the Spring than any other time. Don't forget to allow yourself time and privacy to shed the tears that heal, holding them back causes a scalding pain that is only relieved by allowing yourself to grieve. I have always found it better to go into the pain and through it to the other side than to try to stifle it and shove it back to be dealt with later. I have also always found being by the water to be comforting and healing. We also have to remember the good things of the Season and be sure to make new memories each year. I wish I could package and send every one of you a sample of the smells in my kitchen right now. My daughter by choice spent yesterday and today with me, doing our Christmas baking together. We are far from done, but the smells and the camaraderie and the joy and laughter are so thick you could cut and serve it. Pity I can not share it as I would like. When my health deteriorated to the point that I can no longer do all the things I used to, I thought my life was over, but I have learned that the old skills and knowledge and stories from another time are also valuable and I can make memories for children that will last them a life time. I can share the magic, and help it to go on and on. I don't need to be physically fit to do this, I only need the will and desire to share. How many of us think that we have reached a point where we are no longer worthy of love and able to contribute to our families, friends and society in general? I did, but have learned so much since then. I have learned that it is important to share myself, not just my efforts. I have learned that people enjoy spending time with me, even if they have to do almost all the work of baking (or anything else) but they value my spirit, my knowledge and lore. Tomorrow morning the girls (ages 8 and 6) will join us for the first of two cookie baking days. This one will be peanut butter cookies and the other one will be ginger snaps. Both batters hold up well to a lot of mauling and still taste great. Both have no egg so our allergic members will not get sick.
Written November 2006
We are in the middle of a snow storm that threatens a foot or more of snow and the girls are going to cut their tree down this evening. Can you think of anything more magical? How many of us know older people who are basically alone in this season but have a wealth of history and experience that they would be so very pleased to share if anyone stopped to notice that they are worthy of attention and consideration. How many of us know a lot of the old ways that we could bring a little of it back into our lives and the lives of our families. Someone told me they were going to take their young brother to a shelter to serve Christmas Dinner with him. The idea of teaching children the value of giving, and particularly giving of themselves is wonderful. Something that is done here, that might be possible in other communities....most small communities have senior citizen residences or nursing homes, where there are elderly people who have outlived their families and really have no visitors or very few. When baking, a lot of us make extra to take to the home for their Christmas dinners. It is usually pretty easy to find out what kind of baking would be most appreciated. Do the schools do anything special with the kids for Christmas? Old fashioned decorations? Pine cone expeditions? Old stories? Any of that? I know that many of them do not get any of the magic at home anymore because the parents do not have it to give. I do not know where the fault lies, in my generation or the next one? but somehow the chain has been broken. We can not make it whole again, but we can mend it enough to give the little ones a chance to see that there is something more, and maybe they will seek it out when they are grown. Sometimes the schools have programs where kids can visit an older person and get to know them in these homes. Sort of a surrogate grandparent thing. It helps the senior and it helps the kids. When kids grow up without contact with the elderly, they almost seem to fear them, or at least the aging process. I wish you all the joys of the season, and the desire to try something old! PS: My granddaughters by choice had a wonderful tree fetching expedition in the middle of the snow storm. Their dad sneaked ice cream and cones into the back of the truck before they went to the woods and after cutting their tree, they had ice cream in the snow. Solo

I Forgot Revisited

January 2007
I had a minor melt-down after the car left us stranded in Bridgewater before Christmas and when it did so again just before New Year's Eve, the melt-down was more severe. It just all got to be too much and I was flooded with a feeling of helplessness that I haven't felt in well over 30 years.
The chimney still needs to be fixed, the kitchen roof needs to be replaced, the barn and shanty need to be torn down for safety reasons. The car problem is intermittent and we can not find what it is so it is not dependable, and our locked in financial situation has no solution. I just could not see a way out. However, one at a time, solutions are being presented to each problem.
In being so involved in the here and now, I forgot that when I do everything I can to be the best person I can be, the Cosmos looks after my needs. It certainly does not provide everything I would like, but it has always looked after what I needed, often just in the nick of time, but I have always had enough to eat, a roof over my head and clothes to wear, in addition to being blessed with so much love and caring.
Yes, Virginia there is a Santa Claus.
December 11th, 2008
and my, how things have changed. For a start, I am still here and holding my own against all odds.
The miracles since I wrote the above piece are staggering. So often we dismiss the good things, the miracles, and dwell on the negative, sitting on our pity pots in the dark, not realizing we can get off the pot, open the door and walk out into the sunshine.
The chimney has been fixed. The roof has been fixed. Almost all of the materials from the fallen barns are gone. We have a new used vehicle which works very well. I have an electric scooter which allows me more freedom. We were able to go to Quebec in July to spend some time with two ladies who are very, very important to me. We have obtained new financing which will sustain us for some time to come.
Eve after all these years, I still forget to count my blessings, and return to my pity pot far too often.

The Smile

It seems that once I start writing, I can not pass a keyboard.

The Price of Christmas

While watching the Food Channel the other day, I saw a commercial talking about bringing back the magic of Christmas. Before the smile could reach my lips, it continued to advertise a musical gingerbread house for $19.95 as well as singing snowmen, snow globes and other items available at a special price when you buy Hallmark cards.

The magic of Christmas has a price tag and it is $19.95.

A Simpler Time

I have been blessed with the opportunity of experiencing rural life as it was a hundred years ago. My grandparents were second generation settlers in rural north-central Ontario. They spent their adult lives farming, hunting, trapping and making whatever they needed. Use it up, fix it up, throw it out, do without.

In their old age, they moved to the edge of town into a house that the town council had built for my great-grandmother. She had been the first white woman to settle in the area. There was no electricity, no plumbing, and no water on the property. I spent my earliest years with them.

Crossroads

We are at a crossroads. The fate of our world depends on what we do now. The forty nation summit is a first and hopefully the first step in uniting our whole world in a common goal, that of saving our earth and saving ourselves in the process.

We can not go back to a simpler time but if we all co-operate, perhaps we can create a world where ninety percent of the world’s wealth is not in the hands of ten percent of its people, a world that does not wage war in the name of peace, and a safe world we can be proud to raise our children in.

Are we prepared to give up many of the luxuries we have here in the west and work with the emerging nations to improve their standard of living? We also need to make sure that everyone knows our opulent lifestyle can no longer be supported, and obtain the agreement of the third world countries that they can not aim for what we now have.

All must be equalized. We need to reduce our requirements at the same time others accept that they can not achieve what we are relinquishing for the good of the planet. If not, no one will have a comfortable life style. Technology has achieved a life of it’s own, evolving faster than our resources can keep up.

And then I watched the Suzuki Diaries and the smile came back.

Dichotomy

A recent comment here set me to thinking and clarifying my opinion.

I believe in both destiny and free will. A bit of a dichotomy, I realize, but we do have free will within the landscape we have chosen for a particular lifetime. I believe we choose the circumstances of each birth, depending on what we need to learn, or to contribute to the world. That is the map we are born with. That is destiny. Within this map, we may choose to go anywhere. We may follow the course we ourselves set, or we can change how we react in our world. That is free will.

For instance, I am a Caucasian Canadian living in the world as it is in the 20th and 21st centuries. I may act in any way I wish to events and circumstances in my life. I can try to live a life that helps to make the world a wee bit better place for my having been here, or I can ride rough shod over anyone in my way in order to get whatever I desire. I will also reap the rewards or punishments for the life I choose to live.

However, even if I wished it with all my heart, I can not become an Australian aboriginal, or a native of India, or change the birth circumstances I have chosen. I may well have chosen or will choose a different life map in another lifetime, but not in this one. I have already made those choices.

So, yes I do believe in destiny and I believe in free will. I also believe that "truth" evolves for each person. Our truth is the only true at a given point in our Journey. As we evolve in our spiritual understanding our truth changes with it. Growth requires struggle of a sort. We need to make an effort to rise above the easy path. The free will we have allows us to choose the easy way, the baser instincts, or to take the high road. There is nothing to force us to grow in any given lifetime. The choice is always ours.

As always, we learn from all that makes us think, and you make me think. It is the the comments that challenge our understanding which facilitates our growth. Thank you all for helping me grow.

Alone for the Holidays

My heart aches when family moves on and one is left alone on holidays.

My family has become much smaller over the years. Here in Nova Scotia, there is only my daughter and her partner. In Ontario where I come from, there is only my sister and her husband. Papatoes' parents are both gone, but he has found a sister and her family in New Brunswick. As you know, I have a large family "by choice" which makes the holidays more boisterous and full of love and new life. There is even a new granddaughter on her way early in the new year.

With so many families fracturing and scattering all over the world, it becomes even more important to have such chosen family. We of the older generation become surrogate grandparents, parents, aunts, uncles and so on. It allows us to pass on some of what we have learned over the years, as well as providing a semblance of the old extended family for those without.

One of my fondest activities before Christmas is getting together with the little ones and doing baking for the holidays. The girls are so proud of what they have made and I have the opportunity to share.It is my firm conviction that our future rests in the hands of our children and if we do not invest in their upbringing, who will?

The Pity Tree

I was released from Intensive Care in the morning of Christmas Eve, 2005. Since my fate was rather unclear during that time, no real arrangements had been made for Christmas at home.

We always put our tree up and decorated it very close to Christmas since we keep it up until New Year's Day, which is not the same as the local tradition of erecting and decorating the tree around the end of November.
My DH and daughter scrambled to do a month's worth of preparations in one afternoon. They took off to find a tree lot that had any trees left at all. No success, but with hope they visited a distant neighbor who grows trees and usually has them for sale in his front yard as well as his wholesale business. All trees had been sold but he had banked his house with leftover trees and trimmings. He gave them one of them, a short, spindly, sad looking tree ..................... but our "pity tree" was the most beautiful tree ever, and they told me I was the best gift ever.

Each year the tree is the best ever, the food the most delicious ever, and the love in our home always feels like it is the most ever. I pray that each and every one has the opportunity to experience such blessings.

The Magic of Christmas

With the current economic crisis, Christmas this year will be difficult for more families than usual. I wrote this after Christmas 2005, when I returned from hospital on Christmas Eve. I was not able to either orchestrate or participate in the preparations for Christmas.Making Christmas.

Regardless of whether Christmas is a religious festival or a simple gathering and celebration of love and family unity, the important thing is to celebrate it in a way that brings joy to all involved. Almost all religions have a Celebration around this time of year, and even if one is not religious, my partner tells me that there is a winter festival called Festivus, which is the Festival For The Rest Of Us.

After all these years, a set of circumstances and a lot of contemplation brought me to the conclusion that the ability to make Christmas is not built into the genes, it is a learned skill, usually learned in the bosom of a family who makes Christmas as their elders did for generations, with updates on techniques, of course. Those who did not grow up under such circumstances, find it very hard to learn how to make Christmas. They have probably always gone looking for Christmas at friends and more distant relatives homes, or grown up hating Christmas.

For the first time this year, a whole series of stray thoughts fell together to create a picture of how Christmas is made. I have a very dear friend who never experienced really celebrating Christmas growing up, who has a hard time figuring out how to make the Holidays a season of love and joy. He used to get up in the morning and after breakfast, go visiting to find Christmas. Now in his older years, he has found himself in the position of having to struggle with making Christmas.With no memories of warm caring rituals, such as making special foods and meals, car rides to look at the lights, finding and decorating the tree as a family, or the fun and anticipation of having the family all together at this season, or picking and wrapping gifts he hopes will delight the recipient, he is at a loss as how to start making Christmas his own.

I grew up in the country, in a very financially poor family, however we did go all out to celebrate Christmas in the best way we knew how. We cut and dragged in our own tree, set it up in a pail of rocks and added guy wires so it would not fall over. We made popcorn garland, white tissue paper icicles, tinfoil glitter, and wood and pinecone ornaments, with a few treasured glass ones saved from year to year. We made fruit cake, aged it for 3 months in air tight tins and made cookies and special pancake breakfasts and a turkey for Christmas Dinner, the biggest one we could get so there would be leftovers for weeks. I no longer follow that particular tradition.

I don't believe it matters what the traditions are, as long as they are family traditions, filled with loving memories to be recreated each year along with the current year's tree, trimmings and new traditions.When my children were small, we made decorating the house a big deal, with every nook and cranny filled with glittering decorations, saved from year to year. As they grew, the amount of decorating was reduced until now, in my later years, we still do the tree, some table and wall decorations, and a small outside decoration at the door to welcome people in. Even when lights became available for both tree and outdoor use, it did not really appeal to me as growing up there were no lights. We now have lights on the tree, but still do not do the outdoor lights. We do, however always go for a car tour to look at all the outside lights that people put up and when we can, take pictures of the major displays. I always feel like a small child, eyes wide in wonder at all the light and color. I almost have to come home and put Alka-Seltzer in my eyes to calm the optical indigestion of having done so much looking.

In the natural progression of things, the children grow up, move away from home, but come home for the holidays with great anticipation of recreating the magic that was Christmas in their youth. When they marry, they blend the traditions of both families, to begin a new tradition of their own, and often spend Christmas Day with one family and Boxing Day with the other. Then when a new generation of children comes along, the young people begin having their own Christmas Celebration at home with the children, inviting the grandparents to come and participate, seeing the magic and wonder through eyes of children once more. At that point, the older generation has done its work and can sit back, do minimal decorating, minimal cooking then spend extra hours finding just the right thing to tickle the grandchildren on Christmas Morning.

As we age, the other thing that happens is that we lose loved ones from year to year, making Christmas a bitter-sweet time, a time of remembering those who have passed on as well as a time of making new memories for the younger generation. How we handle this will determine how the new generation handles it in future, so even this is an important part of the Christmas Tradition that we make.

Those who have children and do not know how to make Christmas, owe it to the next generation to find out, figure out, look around, whatever has to be done to learn to make Christmas, with new traditions, new rituals, new family processes that can be used to make Christmas for the children. There is a huge buffet of rituals out there to choose from if being totally creative is too difficult. If this is not done, they will not know how to do it when they grow up and the rituals of either hating the whole Holiday season or having to go to their friend's homes to find the Christmas Spirit are perpetuated.

May you all have a wonderful Holiday season and the New Year bring joy, health and success in all you do.

The Christmas Tree

You do know the important stuff .... and I am sure you will make new traditions with the kids as well as continue old ones that bring back happy memories for you. I would be delighted to read about your preparations, traditions and successful activities. We all learn by sharing and to share traditions helps others to find new traditions.

Getting the Christmas tree brings a smile to my face because it was always a big deal with us. Our daughter would go with her dad to choose the perfect tree. Sometimes it would be to a tree lot set up on some corner, sometimes a trip to the woods to choose just the right one, etc. Each tree had a story of it's own. My fondest memory of tree choosing is from the first Christmas we spent in this house, 22 years ago. We have about 30 acres with some cleared and some still forested. The weather that year was not the best, we had snow on the ground and a cold, wet drizzle falling from a leaden sky. Dad and daughter dressed in their warmest clothes with long johns or sweat pants under jeans. They hiked back to the edge of the forested area, saw in hand, and started to search for that year's perfect tree. After about half an hour of tramping through the wet snow with rain on their faces, they found just the right tree, cut it down and dragged it home. Back at the kitchen door, they realized they had hauled a 16 foot tree home, and that they were wet and cold to the skin. With some hot chocolate to warm their insides, they started to change into dry clothing. Our daughter had been wearing a pair of her dad's red sweat pants .... the color ran and she was dyed red from the waist down. With renewed zeal they went out to hack the tree into submission, removing about 6 feet of the bottom. Once set up in the corner of the living room, it was (as it is each year) the best tree ever. While decorating, they talked about where they had found this perfect tree, and we all realized that they had cut it from the neighbor's property. We had a rustled that perfect tree!

Your turn ....

Kids and Christmas

As we get peppered with the Christmas merchandise in the stores, we don't need that reminder, but we do need to think about Christmas for the kids.
I know it is difficult right now with all the financial uncertainty. Added to that, it is always a difficult time since it seems to hi-lite any dysfunction in the family unit, and what family unit does not have some dysfunction!

The stores drown us in musak and commercialism and if we are not aware, we can lose sight of what actually makes this Christmas magic. We are in danger of forgetting that we are the ones who have to provide it and what we teach them now will be what they remember and pass on when they are in charge of making Christmas.

I know that you who are parents and grand-parents, it can be a very emotionally and financially draining time. It does not have to be. We just need to remember back to the magic of our childhood Christmases.

Each autumn, I end up writing an article about kids and Christmas. If you would like, I can post them here.

To you who are parenting and dealing with all the difficulties that entails, I pray for a blessed Christmas filled with joy and awe.

Solo

The Missing Magic of Christmas (Written in 2006)

I am not hearing kids talking about making garlands for the tree, going to get the tree, making gifts, making decorations, any of those things that made the Christmas Season magical. I am not hearing about families looking forward to missing members being home for Christmas. Even for those who are not practicing Christians, Christmas is a season for celebrating the love of family and gratitude for all we have, of sharing with those less fortunate, remembering those who are far away and can not be with us at this magical season.

It is hard to believe that December is not yet here, but Christmas wish lists are everywhere. I am not sure when and how it became so commercialized, but I really dislike seeing the "Gimme" mentality at every turn. It is another symptom of the magic going out of the lives of children.

The big news items over the weekend are about Sunday Shopping, just in case 6 other days a week are not enough to buy all the stuff little Johnny wants for Christmas. Pressure is put on parents to get the latest and greatest toys, brand name clothing, and any other thing that a person can write on a wish list. If these items are not under the tree on Christmas morning, you are a bad parent, incapable of satisfying the needs of your children. If your children do not go to school with the right manufacturers label all over their clothing and book bags, your parenting skills are again brought into question. The kids who don't have these things are teased and put down by the "have" kids.

It is so prevalent that even charity has to come in extra large. Our local mall has a "Giving Tree" each year, where Social Services writes the first name of a child and his or her Christmas Wish gift on a card. You can take a card, buy the gift and give it to Social Services to wrap and give the needy child for Christmas. After reading through all the cards on the tree, I had to walk away unable to afford any of the gifts even for my own family. All requests came with brand names, all the brand names were at the top of the price field. It seems that if children do not go to school wearing the right clothes, carrying the right accessories, they are shunned by the ones who have it all.

My wish is the same as it is every year. To be surrounded by family, to have everyone home, safe and well. Only twice has this not happened. The worst Christmas ever for me was when my daughter was stuck in Montreal, the second worst, she was working and could not come home. We got up Boxing Day morning, packed up Christmas and took it to her. So it was the Worst Christmas Day but the best Boxing Day.

My daughter also feels that the most important thing is to be together and she looks forward to all the good food, good company and the love. It would not matter to her if there was nothing under the tree...and in the past, there have been years like that. The first Christmas we spent together was one of those, We gave my DH a pair of slippers, one from me and one from my daughter. It was so full of love that when we remember it, it is the love and caring that stand out, not the being financially so badly bent.

My DH is also happy when we can all be together, and looks forward to Christmas Brunch, which he is in total charge of. We always cook from scratch, but over the Holidays, we make an extra effort to make those things that are family favorites, require a lot of prep. and do not get made throughout the year. Extended family by choice also drop in over the holidays.

We have always made it a point of getting the larger necessities for Christmas plus a few small gifts. We always put together a large care package for our daughter, with food staples, personal care luxuries, and new and different foods to try. She says it is the most exciting gift, going through it on Christmas Morning. There is also usually someone who has no where else to go, who shares our Christmas with us.

Anything above and beyond these basics is great if it happens, but not at all necessary, or even missed if it does not.

It's ALMOST Too Late

With the season come thoughts of children in our culture. I have also thought much about the violence done to our children. The violence is fueled by people's desperation, among other things. There are so many now who are unable to support themselves, let alone a family. It will continue to get worse until some kind of balance is restored in our world.The children are our future at the same time that the magic is disappearing from their lives. If we do not work to bring it back, even the children are doomed to a bleak future. I have to believe that a balance will ultimately be reached, but the world as we knew it ended on 9/11.

If we take a lesson from history, we see that civilizations rise and fall, but the land endures. If it were not so, we would not have archeology. Each puts its stamp on the land, only to deteriorate into ruins or even oblivion. Sometimes a stronger civilization suppresses a weaker one, sometimes it has simply become so large that it has grown beyond its ability to feed its citizens, and sometimes we do not know what catastrophe has caused it's collapse.

We are part of the first global civilization and I believe we are near the collapsing point. A number of powers within our global civilization have already risen and fallen, forced down by others joined together for the purpose.If we are not to follow previous civilizations into oblivion, we need to change the way we see and treat our planet. As I have said so many times., our children are our hope for the future. We need to teach them by example to love and respect all our planet contains, as well as the planet itself. If we do not learn, the next world power will rise from the third world countries and we will be dust.

The reason I say this is that we have become so dependent on technology that can not continue to be supported by the finite resources that we are rapidly exhausting. The third world has not developed this dependence and can survive and grow in a low tech. climate. What are we doing to help insure the continuance of our world!!!

It is ALMOST too late for us.

The End of Days

With the anniversary of 9/11, my mind turns back to the state our world is in. Nothing has happened since that would make me change my mind. We lost our innocence on 9/11 and like the genie, can not be put back in the bottle.


The End Of Days

This was written in September 2002, in response to the predictions of total anarchy, the end of life on Earth and even the end of the Earth itself. People were stockpiling food, clothing, tools, weapons, anything they could imagine needing when they woke up tomorrow to utter destruction.
One of the first prophecies of the end times came from Nostradamus and had to do with the Jews going home, which they did a number of years ago. The Middle East has not settled down since. Another of his prophecies had to do with the mark of the beast on the forehead of a world leader, and was interpreted to mean the birthmark on Gorbachev’s head. Much was written about the bear and the eagle, possibly referring to Russia and the U. S., or perhaps China.
Even the book of Revelation in the Christian Bible referred to the end times in graphic detail. More of these prophecies are coming true with each passing day, the end of the world as we know it is more and more certain. Operation Desert Storm brought us closer to the end as did the American declaration of war on terrorism.
Iraq is heating up. India and Pakistan are at the ready and both have nuclear weapons, in part, thanks to Canada giving freely of our technology to make nuclear reactors to generate electric power. China is ominously silent. Both nuclear and chemical weapons exist in abundance. The ability to deliver such weapons anywhere in the world is an accepted fact.
The attack on the U.S. September 11th last year signalled the end of innocence and freedom as we know it. More and more freedoms are being taken away in the name of safety and the populace is accepting gladly these changes. The world economy is shaken to its very roots. The U.S. economy is heading for a very real, very drastic upheaval as the bills for the aftermath of 9/11 come due. The Japanese economy teeters on the brink. Even here at home, we lose services at a steady rate without making any real dent in the national debt. More of the world’s population slips below the poverty line every day. Starvation is no longer a Third World prerogative. It is happening right here at home.
Everywhere there are predictions of dire events, global warming, untreatable disease, floods, droughts, famine, earthquakes, destruction of our environment at an incredible rate, holes in the ozone layer, extinction of more and more species of both plant and animal life before they can even be catalogued.
I think it is obvious that if we do not succeed in wiping ourselves off the face of the earth, Gaea will have a flea bath and certainly reduce the number of Earth’s inhabitants drastically.
There is truly no way to prepare for what is to come. Because the course of history is cyclic, civilizations rising and falling, going all the way back to the decimation of the dinosaurs, Atlantis, Egypt, Athens, Pompeii, Rome, the Biblical Flood (a version of which exists in all religious histories), the European Dark Ages, the British Empire, the Russian Tsars, and now the USSR, Aztecs, Incas, and the list goes on, Life itself is in an eternal spiral of becoming, such that with every turn of the wheel, civilizations fall, but with something left over to begin again with, I believe our emphasis must be not on saving life, but on saving souls. Death, is the eventual outcome of all births, and as we know, death is simply a rebirth on another level. Panic is not called for; we are simply living in the end times of another civilization.
Because it has become truly a Global Village, we are much more aware of what is happening than in the past, which means that the general populace is privy to much more “News” than even twenty years ago. I am not sure I would want to survive, at my age, to greet a “Brave New World” where living simply is a must, with no medical services, no system of care for the elderly nor any of the modern conveniences that make life easier as we age. I believe that is the job of the young. There will certainly be survivors to repopulate the world and start the cycle once more. It would be hoped that these survivors would be much more spiritually aware than past generations.
Perhaps our responsibility lies in trying to make for a more enlightened populace. People are definitely searching for answers, for a better way, for connection with the Divine, the Creator, the Cosmic All. That is why so many Eastern Religions have taken hold in the West, among them Buddhism, Baha’i, Hare Krishna, Transcendentalism, Wicca, Native Medicine, Spiritualism, and any number of fakes allying themselves with the New Age movement. I see our role as one of bringing light to the dark recesses of the human condition, in all possible ways.

Hurricane Aftermath

Current hurricanes and events discussed recently in a news group sent my mind back over the past few years. As I looked back, tears filled my eyes and dread still fills my heart. This article has not lost it's meaning. In fact, the situation becomes more urgent every day. We all must do all we can to curb the current trends.

Hurricane Katrinas Aftermath

This was written after Hurricane Katrina, with all the attendant destruction and loss of life. In the case of Hurricane Katrina, the lack of early response and the attendant suffering and deaths make it very hard to come to grips with.

There is an old saying that power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. There are no psychological profile tests given to the leaders we elect. We only learn the truth of their strengths and weaknesses after a catastrophe of such magnitude. Perhaps part of the blame for this is the Pollyanna attitude that “it will never happen to me”. Well, it can happen to anyone and is happening more and more everywhere. Last month, six commercial airplanes fell from the sky. There have been fires, floods, disease and all sorts of natural disasters piled on top of wars, political actions, rebellions and just plain anarchy.

I believe the world as we knew it ended on 9/11. Our innocence was lost, not to be regained. Until we stop ravaging our earth, the catastrophes will not stop. Until we use better judgment in our elected leaders, more and more people will be lost each time.

If we don’t soon start to deal with the roots of the problems, it surely will be the end of the world. Civilizations rise and civilizations fall, but never before with such devastation to our planet.

There is no sane way to view what is happening. Every thinking person on the planet is experiencing feelings of helplessness. We give until it hurts, then give a little more, but it is never enough! If we don’t find a way of thinking about these things, and doing what we can, we will collapse into madness trying. When I think about how different my world was as a child, the change is staggering, and happening so rapidly that I can not even catch my breath. Today’s children will live as adults in an even more changed world.

The only thing that saves my sanity and allows me to get up each morning and do whatever little thing I can, is the knowledge that there is a higher power, a higher purpose, that we cannot even begin to understand.

My role, my life can only be counted as a success if I bring positive change in the world that I touch. This is a very small world, but if we do nothing, it will rapidly become smaller. Individually, we cannot effect any great change for the better, but as an army of voices, perhaps we can at least lessen the damage by even a small amount.

Our children are our hope. We need to pay attention to them, try to raise them with an understanding and an appreciation for nature, life in general, and our fellow human inhabitants. Magic filled my world. We had no money, but we had so much love. The things I learned at my grandparent’s knee have lasted me all my life. The little, seemingly unimportant things, make the biggest impact. Who knows what ripples are caused by little acts of kindness.

An example of this is seen in my grandmother’s philosophy, that she lived by all her life. I lived with my grandparents for quite a while as a small child. They lived in a small clapboard house on a quarter acre of land cut from the public fairgrounds, built for my great, great, grandmother who was the first white woman in that small village.

They had been farmers, and my grandfather hunted, trapped for furs and did some blacksmith and carpentry work for a little money. In their golden years, when they could no longer farm, they moved into that little house with no electricity, or running water.

In fact, there was no water, it had to be dipped from the well across the street, and carried home by the bucket full. They grew a small garden, had chickens for eggs and Sunday dinner, a cow for milk, and a pig for winter meat. A neighbour half a mile away lived with an alcoholic husband and struggled to feed her children. Many times, my grandma would dress me as warmly as possible, wrap a cape around me and send me off with a basket of eggs or a quart of milk or a pound of butter for this lady and her children. As a result of my grandmother’s example, I have always tried to be open handed, giving away the last of what I had on more than one occasion. The Creator has always looked after me, not often providing what I wanted, but always providing what I needed, usually at the very last moment.

As I said, magic filled my world, but these days, magic has almost disappeared from the lives of children. Any time we can return some of that magic to them, we are helping them to grow up dreaming big, trusting in the Creator to provide, and having an open heart and an open hand in their dealings with the world. We cannot know what ripple effects it will have, only that it will be good.

And this is the last one for now

This is the tree and wild rose where the fairies live! At least it looks like they should.