Drifting Thoughts on Some Eve….

 

“It was the Yuletide, that men call Christmas though they know in their hearts it is older than Bethlehem and Babylon, older than Memphis and mankind.”
— H. P. Lovecraft “The Festival

 

I make no claims on this holiday nor does it make any on me. Oh there will be presents yet this day in my youth was what my friends did rather than light candles and eat chocolate coins. I’d see their trees and eat their cookies but felt an odd disconnect. We had a fire in our fireplace and no one was gonna brave that to put toys under a nonexistent tree.
For the past several years, I did the family thing. Tho my personal beliefs (long shed of menorah rituals as well tho some of mine still used candles) did not encompass this night, my partner did so I played the pretend game for the kids tho they seemed to worship the man in the red suit and I laughed at the dyslexic joke and I decorated trees and gave tribute to my kids and the spirit of familial warmth and material avarice.
Now the kids are about grown, well beyond beliefs in reindeer and the disconnect returns. I pay honour to the changing seasons and the annual balance and swing of light and dark. Yet this particular day I still feel a bit of a disconnect. it seems more construction and the motions that people go through not very joyous as much as a need for completeness. I tend to prefer a bit more authenticity in my rituals. I know that that is my responsibility to find it and I do yet that was days ago.
I will not force myself into joy or connection. I take joy in moments and not in dates and I wish everyone the joy of the moment. Still in the quiet echo of my thoughts, I let the day drift by observing but unobservant.
Blessings, G

 

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Playing the AnglesPlaying the Angles by G A Rosenberg

 

Aztec SunAztec Sun by G A Rosenberg

 

RepercussionsRepercussions by G A Rosenberg

 

Pagan For the Holidays

 

“To be pagan and claim personal affront at the idea of Christmas more so than at Ramadan, Yom Kippur or any other Abrahamic or Eastern religion is not an indication of free thought. Indeed it indicates that one is still a slave to one’s upbringing.”
— Randall Wolfe

 

I’ve been thinking quite a bit about the idea of holiday celebrating this past few weeks. I tend to find much about this time of year questionable. Roads and stores are crowded. People seem a good deal crankier and less likely to smile as they look for the perfect way to express to their loved ones in a material way how they want to be perceived as caring about them. People try hard to maintain their roles in each year’s extended family drama. Kids seem more anxious and stressed about what they are getting and whether they have lived up to some perceived standard of behaviour and will be thus rewarded. The list can go on and on and that doesn’t even touch on some of my religious objections.
I freely admit that I do not subscribe to the Jewish, Christian or Islamic faiths. If I had to describe my beliefs at all it would be as wildly eclectic with strong pagan and thelemic leanings. As most who read this blog know, when it comes to faith and universal understandings I have many many questions and relatively few answers. This is not from lack of knowledge of the different options out there, indeed I have studied many of the world’s religions in farther depths than most of their adherents. Thus the questions arise.
Still I try to find meaning in every day I am alive and I applaud others who do the same. If they do this by connecting within a cultural framework and it means something to them that is awesome. Thus I have no problem exchanging “Merry Christmases” or “Happy Chanukahs” or “Joyful Kwanzas” with those who celebrate and I do not trod on their traditions. It is not my business what anyone else chooses to believe and any reason is a good one to celebrate. I graciously accept presents as tokens that someone thought me worthy of their time and I give such tokens as I have because for some a gift at a particular time of year means “I love you too” in a language that they can understand. If this is hypocrisy than it is a small one that I can live with.
The Northern Hemisphere is about at Solstice. The time of least light and greatest darkness. Many cultures celebrate the return of the light and the progress of the seasons no matter what mythology they attach to it. I wish all a pleasant Yule and solstice and a wonderful re-manifestation out of the dark in whatever form it takes.
Blessings, G

 

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Lord of the GladeLord of the Glade by G A Rosenberg

 

Drifting through the Fractal SpacesDrifting Through the Fractal Spaces by G A Rosenberg

 

Ghosts of Christmas’ Past

 

New light has entered.
At winter’s darkest moment
a glimmer remains

 

Happiest of Solstice times to all of you, my friends and family… Thank you for the laughs, the learning, the tears and for showing me more and more the truth of Shared Joy, Shared Pain and Shared Knowledge.

 

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Christmas NightChristmas Night by G A Rosenberg

 

Cavern Christmas 2011Cavern Christmas by G A Rosenberg

Quote of the Day – December 25 2011

“Faith is a state of openness or trust.”
Alan Watts

Finally a quote on faith that works for me. It seems so often that people use their faith as a reason to close off to anything that may challenge or contradict it. I see faith as being an open dynamic principle, one that can change and grow. My faith in the universe and in my source grows daily, also my faith in myself. Does that mean that my ideas of the nature of what source may be stays the same, no I hope that I understand more and more the nature of.
Hope everyone reading this has had a joyous and blessed changing of the seasons, no matter what name and symbolic significance it has for you.
Namaste, G

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Cavern Christmas 2011 by G A Rosenberg