A new year has started. Before all the Christmas has been scraped from our homes, I'd like to tell you about a certain revelation that I had this Christmas.
About a week before the big day, I was having trouble sleeping. I would wake about 3 AM and lie in bed, eyes wide open, my brain on overdrive! So much to do, so little time. Days before this point, I was just meandering along like Christmas would never come. I was thinking other thoughts.
Then, one day as I was driving to work, I came back to reality long enough to ponder this question: "I wonder if I have enough time to send out Christmas cards?" And then that inner voice that speaks inside all our heads said "You sure do spend a lot of time living in the past.... not dealing with past issues which ends up messing up the present and future."
This stunned me and it was a good thing that I was sitting at a red light when this piece of juicy truth crossed my mind. It was as if at that point my brain engaged and a decision was made..."No, not this year." Simple. I love my people but no cards for you! It was the reasoning of Yoda "Do or do not do." And the card question was not the only ponderance that dropped off the docket. Suddenly my brain felt free.
With this clear thinking guiding me, I started getting in gear for the holidays. Then a few days later, maybe 5 days before Christmas, I stood at my kitchen sink washing dishes and I happened to look over my shoulder at my entry foyer. The creative spirit inside me said "That foyer would look so pretty with some of those paper snowflakes hanging all about - you've already got them cut and laying over there in a box. Just imagine them fluttering in the breeze. You could call it a snow cave." And the other part of my brain said "I'm running out of time. I really don't have the time to do it this year. Next Christmas I'll bring the pizazz to that foyer!" And the other part of my brain ended the argument with this "Sarah, you don't know that you have another Christmas." Talk about clear thinking!
OK, I start decorating like there is no tomorrow. It's garlands, snowflakes, decorated trees, angels, reindeer - the works. And with all the pondering that had already got me in this mess, it went deeper. I began to wonder why we do all this stuff at Christmas time. A lot of people will simply say to honor the birth of Christ. OK that takes care of a little over 2 thousand years. But northern folks were celebrating Saturnalia before it became Christmas.
Let's move on to the morning of the 24th. My kids and their families came to our house for Christmas brunch. We ate great food, visited a while and then we had our Christmas program... which is a throw back to my Grandmother who always had a Christmas program for her huge family. My 4 year old grand daughter said a poem that she learned in preschool. And then (even with a huge headache from thinking too much and heckling from my husband and youngest son - the peanut gallery) I began....
"I have a couple of things that were reveled to me this past week. And I am sure that if I had a spare brain to help me, I could prove 6 degrees of separation from Santa Claus and the power of magical thinking." A couple of my kids giggled. And I pointed out to them that I knew that when a woman gets to be my age (60 in March) that a statement like that could send a family looking for outside services. My headache twinged. Getting back on track, I assured them that I need more time to develop that thought. Instead, I wanted to talk to them about the "Snow Cave." This brought a little heckling from the peanut gallery.
I flinched then regained composure. I told them about the "Christmas card and the next year Christmas" revelations. And I put the pondering of why do we even do this thing called Christmas. How does that tie into the Snow Cave? I posed the question. If people have evolved physically to acclimate to their environment, do they also evolve mentally? Is the winter celebration a form of evolutionary mental health defense? Consider this. Thousands of years ago, around the Winter Solstice, people were celebrating. They brought evergreens into the home for greenery. They lit bonfires for extra light. They prepared special foods. Some experts say that Saturnalia and the celebrations before that were about thanksgiving for the harvest. Yet, by the Winter Solstice, the harvest had been done for months. Especially in the colder climates. These folks had their harvest in, they had their wood ready for the winter. If any group was aware of the yearly cycle of the seasons, these northern hemisphere people were aware. They knew the Winter Solstice meant that the dark, gray days were ahead. They knew the Earth that had given them the harvest to feed them and the wood to warm them was now ready to kill them. But they were a tough crowd. They did not flinch at the cold, hard truth. They were not afraid. The winter celebration was their way of looking winter in the face and saying "Not only are we not afraid but we are throwing a party to celebrate the return of your challenge...what the heck, let's just make it a festival!"
From this thinking about families gathering together, in a dark, frozen world, to regroup and show their defiance, my mind went to the image of Christopher Reeves as Superman. Superman battling his enemies to the point of almost being conquered himself. And he journeyed to the frozen Artic - to the Fortress of Solitude - to speak with his father - now long gone - along with the entire home planet of Krypton. There in this ice cave, Superman looked to the wisdom of his ancestors to give him renewed strength to fight back against his enemies. So the simple snow cave in my foyer was a way to urge my children to stay defiant against their modern day enemy - to celebrate their own, personal challenge which is basically, stress. So our Snow Cave was our way to regroup and let winter and all other forces that would do us harm know that we will not be defeated! What does not kill us will make us stronger!
The peanut gallery had grown quiet and several in the group listening to me, just looked at me like "Yeah, that is somehow making sense."
GOOD TIDINGS!
