How, for me, Solstice eclipsed Christmas

December 24, 2022

 

Back in the 50s, when I was still a kid, I remember loving Christmas so much that I dated each year from Christmas to Christmas. Which, now that I know more, was close to the ancient tradition of dating the year from Winter Solstice to Winter Solstice.

Back then, our large family (eight kids, with me the oldest) observed all the standard traditions, with the tree, the decorating of the tree, the gifts underneath the tree, Christmas carols, Christmas morning breakfast, Christmas dinner later with pumpkin pie, and holiday lights outside. Plus, a subtle, pervasive current of joy and wonder that seemed to envelop the whole world. But what especially moved me as a child, was the tree’s fresh evergreen scent. Of course I didn’t realize that evergreen trees and branches were symbols of immortality, due to being able to thrive through even the coldest seasons. Symbols that hearken back literally thousands of years. Was this scent the source of our joy? Was this scent the instinctive trace of an immense, mysterious human lineage?

 

 

Not surprisingly, the idea of a plastic tree — one which didn’t leave a mess, which didn’t need to be watered, or hauled on top of the car year after year — still turns me off. (Unless, that is, as I found out from sister Paula yesterday, you keep your plastic tree, decorated, up all year long — in the library, relatively private — and when in need of cheer, just turn on the lights!)

A decade later, I was in my 20s, with a narcissistic husband and two young sons. I still dated the years from Christmas to Christmas, but now my experience of the season had drastically altered. The supernal meaning of Christmas had catapulted, for me, into a black hole. (Brief explanation: I had married a man I admired for his talent, but did not love; and my sons were both “accidents.” In short, this freedom-loving double Sagittarian felt utterly imprisoned, my life over.)

Yet I knew I had to keep the spirit of Christmas going, for Sean and Colin. The prospect of which, and then, at Christmas time, the reality of which, filled me with dread, gloom. As a result, I had to fake cheerfulness, and all the traditions I and my family practiced earnestly and joyfully as a child. (Christmas was not the only time I had to “fake it” to get by. My dreams were full of masks. Little did I realize that 60 years later, so would the whole world be.)

In my 30s I discovered the goddess, paganism, gnosticism — and Winter Solstice! Plus, I began to study astrology, so the idea of an annual mysterious, magical moment when the night, having fully eclipsed the day, paused, and began to recede, took on the fullness of meaning.

Solstice eclipsed Christmas, for me; as it has ever since.

 

 

 

TWO STORIES FOR CHRISTMAS: Who We Really Are

December 23, 2022

 

On this day, two days post-Solstice, and the final New Moon of 2022, when Jupiter has just moved from Pisces into 0° Aries, squaring Sun/Moon at 1° Capricorn, let us begin again — with expansive (Jupiter), fiery (Aries) determination (Capricorn).

Let me offer two reminders that hearken back to Oneness. I’m sure you’ve read about the first one before, the one that, if we could only remember WE, THE PEOPLE, ARE IN CHARGE, changes the world.

Thanks to Fred Burks, for this rendition.

 

Inspirational Christmas Story

The Christmas Truce
by David G. Stratman

From his book We Can Change the World

It was December 25, 1914, only 5 months into World War I. German, British, and French soldiers, already sick and tired of the senseless killing, disobeyed their superiors and fraternized with “the enemy” along two-thirds of the Western Front (a crime punishable by death in times of war). German troops held Christmas trees up out of the trenches with signs, “Merry Christmas.”

“You no shoot, we no shoot.” Thousands of troops streamed across a no-man’s land strewn with rotting corpses. They sang Christmas carols, exchanged photographs of loved ones back home, shared rations, played football, even roasted some pigs. Soldiers embraced men they had been trying to kill a few short hours before. They agreed to warn each other if the top brass forced them to fire their weapons, and to aim high.

A shudder ran through the high command on either side. Here was disaster in the making: soldiers declaring their brotherhood with each other and refusing to fight. Generals on both sides declared this spontaneous peacemaking to be treasonous and subject to court martial. By March 1915 the fraternization movement had been eradicated and the killing machine put back in full operation. By the time of the armistice in 1918, fifteen million would be slaughtered.

Not many people have heard the story of the Christmas Truce. On Christmas Day, 1988, a story in the Boston Globe mentioned that a local FM radio host played “Christmas in the Trenches,” a ballad about the Christmas Truce, several times and was startled by the effect. The song became the most requested recording during the holidays in Boston on several FM stations. “Even more startling than the number of requests I get is the reaction to the ballad afterward by callers who hadn’t heard it before,” said the radio host. “They telephone me deeply moved, sometimes in tears, asking, ‘What the hell did I just hear?’ ”

You can probably guess why the callers were in tears. The Christmas Truce story goes against most of what we have been taught about people. It gives us a glimpse of the world as we wish it could be and says, “This really happened once.” It reminds us of those thoughts we keep hidden away, out of range of the TV and newspaper stories that tell us how trivial and mean human life is. It is like hearing that our deepest wishes really are true: the world really could be different.

Christmas in The Trenches – Song

To listen to this inspirational Christmas story in song: click here

Words & Music by John McCutcheon c. 1984

This song is based on a true story from the front lines of World War I that I’ve heard many times. Ian Calhoun, a Scot, was the commanding officer of the British forces involved in the story. He was subsequently court-martialed for ‘consorting with the enemy’ and sentenced to death. Only George V spared him from that fate. — John McCutcheon

 

Yes, let us remember, re-member, put ourselves back together again, with the whole of the living Earth. Connection, even communion, isn’t just intraspecies, but interspecies as well.

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