Merry Christmas; He's Back and So Am I

Last night, I was watching and comparing various versions of “The Nutcracker Ballet,” on the sofa with Shadow the cat sleeping peacefully beside me. I had decided to spend Christmas quietly at home. We suddenly heard a crash that sounded like an explosion in the kitchen behind us. Shadow sprang up, her hair stood out and I also jumped up but was afraid to turn around. Then I cautiously approached the kitchen expecting to see a hole in the roof, or some other major catastrophe.  At first, I saw nothing, so checked the garage; still, nothing unusual. Then I noticed a hand drum on the floor. That drum had been hanging on the wall high above my desk for fifteen years. I seldom noticed it. I took its flamboyant leap from the wall, as a direct communication from PQ. For as long as I’ve known him, he has thrown things around in my house when there was an important emotional communication coming. He once threw a glass cake stand off the refrigerator onto my printer breaking the cake stand, printer and the glass top over the desk.  On another occasion, he threw a clay Mexican Adam, Eve, tree, and serpent off a display stand. He played rhythms through the smoke detector several times, as well. All these things happened when we had been separated for a time and I was thinking about him.

This has been the best Christmas I’ve had for years! Yet, I am alone in this house and have been since my PQ left this always challenging dimension for an address I don’t have. His whereabouts were not only a mystery but there was no communication from his side. I was beginning to think he was glad to be rid of me.  Then, last week I was working at the desk in the kitchen. The PBS News Hour was on TV delivering bad news, as usual, but I was feeling unusually good. At first, I didn’t notice the TV noise while trying to write. I don’t turn the TV on when I’m writing. But I was in my house, I mean really in my house in a way I haven’t been since PQ left. He was watching the news as he did every evening and I turned to ask him a mundane question. It was then that I realized that he wasn’t physically sitting on the right side of our couch which was always his throne. It took several minutes of bewildered disorientation before I understood. He’s back!

I don’t need to know just where he is hanging out, or why he went away for over a year. I don’t think time exists from his current perspective. There must have been some adjustment, even though he took his departure from this physical world with enormous grace and even a sense of humor. Yes, at first, he fought the reality that his body would never work the way he wanted it to work anymore, but he was also funny and brave. When it became clear that the body was done, he left it.

I don’t know how to articulate my joy this Christmas. I have done very little to celebrate. I did some minor decorating, that started with two poinsettias picked up on sale at Walmart and then the artificial Christmas tree’s box fell off its shelf while I was looking for something else, so I took it as a sign, and yesterday I made some Biscochitos, the traditional New Mexico Christmas cookie. It was an impulse, and I didn’t bother to look up a recipe, but they turned out perfectly. However, that is all I did. No cards, gifts, or holiday plans. I wonder if that isn’t why it’s been lovely. I’ve had no design, no expectations, no elaborate decorating, and no social events. My Christmas dinner consisted ad hoc from frozen fried chicken, instant mashed potatoes, and frozen vegies, with a glass of Chardonnay.  It was perfect, spontaneous, and even though it was just me and Shadow kitty, I found myself giving my thanks to Creator, talking to PQ, and relaxing in the beauty of being nowhere, and everywhere, all by myself and with everyone.

 

 

 

CHRISTMAS: A Back Story

I'll start this Christmas story with the Jews fleeing Egypt under the leadership of Moses: There are many God stories in Egypt which have the same source as Judaism and later Christianity. Their main players have different names, but they have remarkably similar roles. In the ancient stories, there are several layers of meaning, so its best not to get prosaic and literal when reading them. That doesn't mean they aren't true just because the ancients were aiming for a deeper truth that historical facts don't reach. There is no physical, historical evidence that the Jews were physically in Egypt as slaves or spent forty years wandering in the wilderness, but I don’t think literal history is what this story is about.

The Jews learned much from the spiritual teachings of the Egyptians during their years of searching for their place. Who knows how far back the Egyptian religion went, possibly inherited from Atlantis originally. The Jews became enslaved to their experience of these teachings. All religions seem to deteriorate into dominating rules and empty form over time and need a reboot.  Moses, who was as much Egyptian as Jewish, received the insight that it was time to exit a system that had become enslaving, as orthodoxies tend to do.

After escaping from Egyptian slavery, the Jews wandered in a desert for forty years. It sounded good when they started out, but they weren’t quite ready to move to the next level of spiritual development and in fact degraded to a previous age of belief as soon as they were weary and scared. They got suspicious about Moses, once their hero, now the guy who led them into possible destruction. What did he get them into!  The past seemed safe at that point. They went back to worshiping the idol of a calf, symbol of the age of Taurus, instead of the Ram from their current age of Aries. People revert to old ways when they are frightened.

But, what about all those Egyptians in Pharaohs army that their God killed in a flood so that they could escape slavery. Wasn’t that evidence that their God freed and protected them? Yet the enemy is inside of us and how do you kill an internal enemy.  The Old Testament is filled with stories of the Israelites killing enemies and enemies just keep popping up. Their God gave them all this land and the directive to get its current tenants out of the way.  It seems like a serious case of inflation, possibly in reaction to feeling like slaves, but they get away with it for a while.

Alas, humans still haven’t got the message that the enemy is in the mirror. The Israelites believed God gave them a special dispensation to take this land on the other side of their desert experience. After all they had been through, they deserved it. God promised it would be a land of milk and honey. I think its interesting that both milk and honey are baby food. Was God hinting at something?  I know, the image in the mirror looks pretty threatening! Now I’m thinking of animals and how they react to mirrors. Have you had a kitten that saw itself in a mirror for the first time? I have, it’s terrorized and outraged.  It goes into, “I’m much bigger and tougher than you think”, mode with its back arched and tail hair expanded as big as possible. It hisses, shows its teeth and if it’s a brave kitten, it may launch an attack on that evil interloper.  We laugh at the kitten because we know the truth. But what if we are dealing with ever more sophisticated mirrors on our evolutionary journey.

The story of the Christ is another reiteration of what people do with a mirror. There are two parts to our nature. A part that wants to evolve and become greater, stronger, more beautiful, more godlike if you will, and a part that believes it must protect itself from the destruction of change, and competitors  who pose as a  death threat to our naive younger self. We don’t want to sacrifice who we are now, for someone we don’t know.

Okay, now let’s approach the Jesus Christ part of this story. This is a delicate issue. Jews don’t buy the gospel stories at all. They had a different expectation for a redeemer. It was much more historic and heroic and involved getting rid of the Romans so that they could go back to where they’d left off being Yahweh’s chosen ones. They had plenty of company. Everybody not Roman wanted to get out from under their boot. What an insult it must have seemed when Rome eventually took over a Jewish sect that followed a Jew who embodied a more transcendent spiritual solution to their problem.  This didn’t seem serious at first, and then even Roman citizens found this new teaching compelling. The Romans did their best to kill it in the bud, and when that didn’t work, they set about using their specialty. Romans were true masters of, “if you can’t lick um, incorporate um.” And that is what they set about doing.

There are two opposing aspects of human nature. One part protects itself from change, which is a kind of death to one’s future. We want to be bigger, stronger, smarter but not if who we are now must be surrendered.  Everybody knows, death and birth go on without our permission, although humans are constantly trying to control both.  What is the real deal about death and rebirth? Now you see me, now you see a different me, now I’ve disappeared. The ancient symbol of the Uroboros, that snake eating its tail tells the story.  I find myself getting very attached to treasured memories of the past, but of course, my memory also makes its own stories about the past, which is often better and sometimes worse than the original. Even our planet, had a beginning, is moving toward an end, and maybe it will all start over in another cycle, or another universe. Probably there are endless possibilities. The world bites its tail, and so does the cosmos. According to Hindu cosmology, we are in the last stage of the great Yugas, the Kali Yuga and have been for thousands of years, so don't expect relief anytime soon. But where much is suffered, much is learned. Creator's expectations for this round are very high, so we can feel honored to be here now.

After Jesus was born, those famous wise men, (nobody knows how many there were. Only the gifts were three) saw an unusual cosmic configuration. A piece of brilliant light against a dark sky. I can really get into that symbolism, and it gives me goosebumps. Perhaps, as astrologers, and in those days all wise men were astrologers, they had been waiting for this aspect, or maybe it was a comet. Either way, it’s a great symbol. As wise men they were aware of events as signs from a higher reality and saw beyond what non-initiates saw. They came from the east from which the life-giving Sun rises and set out to find the source of this vision.

The gifts the wise men brought to the child were gold, frankincense, and myrrh. Gold is incorruptible and symbolizes the Sun the life and light of our world. Frankincense wafts lightly in the air and awakens the higher mind to transcend the lower mind, so that we can “‘go another way,” like the wise men. Myrrh is an embalming spice. It stands for preservation and protection beyond death.

Next, we get to the antagonist Herod, the Roman appointed ruler of the Jews.  Like all ambitious politicians, he had a god complex. The wise men made the mistake of letting Herod in on their intentions of finding this new baby born to be “king of the Jews”.  He asked them to come back and share all about their visit. He pretended to be genuinely interested in any good news.  When it came time to leave, an angel warned them to go home without telling Herod.  Of course, Herod, like most dictators assumed he was a god and thus immortal, and saw this coming “king of the Jews,” as a threat to be eliminated.  In the gospel of Matthew, he is said to have ordered all boy babies under the age of three to be killed, to avoid losing his thrown. There is no evidence this happened literally, but it makes the point that dictators, instead of being like gods are more like male lions, or even tomcats who kill kittens that aren’t their progeny or may threaten their dominance.

Around the same time an Angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and warned him of Herod’s plans. The angel said, “get up and take the child and his mother with you to Egypt and stay until I tell you to come back”. Why Egypt? Was it a place outside Herod’s purview? Yes, but maybe there was something important to touch base with there. Possibly another deeper knowledge was revealed about why the Jews had to leave and find their own way. It was again time to find a new way.

Matthew doesn’t say how long Jesus and family were in Egypt, but I think it’s quite interesting that spiritually there is completion of a circle here. Scholars speculate that Jesus was a student in Egypt.  Many of his teachings have an Egyptian flavor. After Herod died, they came back to Israel. Unfortunately, Herod’s son who wasn’t much better was in power so they decided to go to a different town, Nazareth and that just happened to fulfill another prophesy, that he would be called a Nazarene.

Matthew was a Jew, and his gospel was aimed at Jews. Yet some scholars see in the teachings of Jesus an Egyptian influence. It makes sense to me. That was really a starting place for this spiritual drama. There is a Hindu teacher who says that if you want to get to the truth in a religion, you should find its founders tracks but rather than following them forward you should back track them to their source.   

When I was a child, I found Christmas entertaining. The colors were magical, the decorations seductively laced with mysteries that teased but never revealed, yet putting Jesus and Santa together seemed like a disconnect. Now as an adult, I’m aware that those savvy Romans once again saw an opportunity to meld the pagan celebration of hope in the cycles of Mother Earth, with the Christian, teachings of the Christ’s birth, death, and rebirth. The story soars above the Jews, the Romans and even the Christians as believers in the facts of a story that isn’t about facts. Those wily Romans may have outsmarted themselves.

  

 

 

 

 

THIS SUBSCRIPTION HAS ALMOST EXPIRED BUT I PLAN TO RENEW

I’m writing this on the kitchen table while PQ paints on the other side. Outside the sun is setting and the bare dark branches contrast against a silver blue sky. Everything is grey and white out there, but the skeletons of trees and bushes reveal their fractal essence.  I love summer, but this is beauty in repose. Much of the winter world lives in secret.

This time of the year is a transition from one life cycle to another. Winter is the darkest, coldest and most hidden time of the year. We celebrate for the birth of a new beginning in the form of the coming yearly cycle of seasons. Hope for this new cycle of life was the purpose of the winter solstice celebration of our ancestors and was full of color, light and flavor to show faith that Mother Earth would wake up gain. It was then appropriated by the young Christian church, which was also based on apparent outward death and rebirth. For me, renewal is the essence of Christmas including the week before the New Year’s birth. We all hope it is a kind of rebirth of our hopes and dreams, and another chance at doing better. This is the thought behind the tradition of New Year’s resolutions, something I never do. However, I reflect on the meaning of the previous year and attempt to understand its influence on life, which automatically morphs into thoughts of the future.

As I write PQ is working on a new pen drawing. This is a media he made his own this year. Each one is better than the previous one (or so it seems to me). He continues to paint jackets and recently designed a logo printed on T-shirts for a men’s club in California. I on the other hand, have only finished two new paintings this year, while distracted with the mundane duties of life my imagination hasn’t had much time to flower. Having said that, I suspect that there is a deeper personal change that exists as a bud preparing to flower. There are winters of many kinds and I hope to have a renewal of the spirit of art in a coming spring.

The heart beats of the cosmos as well as the natural and supernatural breaths of life come on many frequencies. From the highest that we can’t hear to the lowest that we also can’t hear. This fact encourages me not to become too concerned with the down times before Mother Earth’s next breath and heartbeat, these will always come even if within a great age by our miniature human reckoning. Unexpected disruptions and political discord have occupied the mainstream consciousness this past year. Simply put, there are seasons within seasons and sometimes the historic outer seasons of winter are very long indeed, but we must remember that even in the dead of winter there are interruptions of mild and sunny days. 

I look back on my worst days and realize that they pushed me through the shell of one seeming reality after another.  Sometimes the broken wall held a mental construct, sometimes an emotional expectation or dearest hope and a few times all the walls came down at once. I could feel persecuted by God and fate, and sometimes I did, but finally there was a new and enhanced world on the other side of the shattered wall.

We too often look at unexpected problems and failures as the demise of happiness. On a national and world stage no one could argue that there is disarray, destruction, wrong headedness and a great deal of suffering.  

This past year, I have also been aware that the cosmos and our world seems to be something of a seesaw ride. One aspect of life goes up while another goes down. One great breakthrough also brings along with it, problems that no one anticipated. Too much sugar is toxic and so is too much protein.  Balance is a challenge for every change. Positive and negative are inseparable. We can regret it, fight it, bury our heads in the sand and ignore it but it is inescapable. In fact, the relationship of opposites seems to fuel the engine of creation. 

Balance is the environment of life and beauty, but it is always in process and movement challenges balance with each step. We live in a world and cosmos that instead of being created is forever in the process of creation and we as little atoms in the great cosmic body are also in creation. By the way atoms don’t die, but they can morph. That’s one reason I believe in reincarnation. There are others as well, but I’ll save that for another time. Now the sun is setting, and darkness is taking over. Just remember that the sun will rise again. This is the vital message of Christmas.

Have a wonderful Christmas and transition to a New Year of inner peace.