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.

https://twitter.com/Hilario18631186/status/1605945002357506050

 

Turkey Run Retreat, Me and My Shadow

December 22, 2022

 

Lots of learnings on our four-day, three night retreat celebrating my 80th birthday.

1. It’s not hard to let go of screens. (That surprised me. I thought I’d be furious with myself for leaving ipad and computer at home.)
2. It’s easy and fun to travel and retreat with puppy Shadow as my companion.
3. Indiana has 33 state parks! 12 of them have beautiful inns, like the one we stayed in. Most of these parks and their infrastructure were created by the Civilian Conservation Corps back in the 1930s.
4. I had to come to terms, once again, with my “age” as a determinant of what I shall allow myself to do.

 

The 4th point is the one that started to depress me, until I woke up to the fact that, hell, at 80, I’m still walking/hiking, with no limp, no pain, and plenty of energy, four to five miles per day!

It was the first day’s hike that put me in mind of the above limitation. We were hiking inside a ravine, where you have to go back and forth over a little creek to stay on the trail. Each time I crossed the creek, I would have to step on rocks, and hope that I didn’t slip . . . Likewise Shadow, hope he wouldn’t slip . . .

Here’s a ravine that reminds me of the one we were in. (Not my photo. This one from the Turkey Run Fan page on fb.) The difference being that there wasn’t as much ice on our hike as here.

On that entire hike I saw only one other party, which reminded me of the fact that for the past few years I have not gone into remote areas, unless with another adult. And here I was, disobeying my own rule, mainly because I didn’t notice that I was in a “remote” locatioon, due to the fact that it’s winter, and very few people were at the inn.

Right then and there, I resolved to bring my phone with me on further hikes (it doesn’t count as a forbidden screen, since it’s not hooked up to the internet), just in case I fell and couldn’t get up. I could always call the front desk of the inn and say I had fallen on trail 2.

So that was a sobering moment. But it didn’t stop us. It just made me more cognizant of picking the right trails.

I decided to stick to “moderate” trails, and/or “moderate/rugged,” and at the rugged part, either turn back or figure out how to do it.

What I couldn’t do, for example (another fb photo):

 

Actually, I could do it, but not Shadow, unless I carried him. Too dicey. (I did not encounter winter weather like this, however.) And even I would prefer not to do it, unless someone else was with me.

There were a number of trails that included stairs like this . . .

That’s what I love best abut the place, so many tiny ecosystems at bottoms of magical ravines!

On this map, we did trails 2,4,1,6, and most of 7.

On the final morning, yesterday, we took trail 1 along the river, and were graced by bald eagles, sitting silent in ghostly sycamores along the bank.

This trail too, featured a ravine to its side. See the tiny frozen waterfall at the top? (We did not venture up there.)

Back at the inn, I spent my time reading Not In HIs Image, plus various esoteric materials I had brought with me (decades-old psychic readings by others, for example, and “Astrosonics,” by Michael Helius), plus a book by one of Gurdjieff’s disciples, dipping into and out of it. My main reading material in the dining room was the first book above. A wonderful companion during a meal. I’m now one third of the way through it.

One final note, and this is weird. The beautiful statue of a woman, Juliet Strauss, one of the founders of this particular state park, includes a number of animals around her feet; aa peculiar collection of animals, including not just a lion and tiger, but a monkey! And a pig! And her hand is grazing the top of a peacock’a head.

Then, I discover, the artist had featured those particular animals for a reason, calling the statue itself, “Subjugation.” I wonder if Juliet herself would have liked what that statue was meant to depict.