Christmas, Yule, Solstice, Saturnalia and the Traditions of Light

Celebrations of the light at this time of year have been natural developments for humankind since ancient times. By the time of the Harvest Moon in September every year, the Fall Equinox begins the shift of the time into the longer nights, the colder weather and the transition into winter.

You can see how all this began. During the deepest, darkest, coldest time of year, the Sun pauses for a moment and then begins to shine more light on us in doses that seem imperceptible at first, then increase. It is for that reason that we express hope for the coming year by bringing evergreens into the home to affirm that even now, we know that the world will warm up and turn green again and that the bonds that connect us will help us survive and prosper.

Ancient Romans celebrated Saturnalia, a week long tradition of holiday parties from December 17-23, which encompassed the time of the Winter Solstice. People were celebrating their abundant harvests and successes and bringing light and joy into their homes and their towns and giving thanks to their god Saturn. There was much frivolity, drinking and sexual play, mischief, music, dance and feasting. Today, many of the old pagan customs have survived as folk lore.

Ancient Germanic people give us the word Yule, which was a 
12 day celebration held at this same period of time. It was from these people that we got the traditions of the wassail, yule log, bringing evergreens inside the house, wreaths, garlands and trees, as well as the roast boar, which is why some people prefer ham as a holiday meal. The toast Wassail! means "to your health" and was usually made with a hot cider, often spiked with alcohol, of course.

It was in the 4th century that the new religion of Christianity had tried unsuccessfully to get the people to give up their old pagan traditions, so they moved the feast of Christ's birth to the same date as these old pagan holidays. So they simply declared all celebrations at this time of year to be celebrations of Christ's birth. The church used the psychological ploy of "if you can't lick 'em, join 'em."

Metaphorically, it all fit together. Saturnalia, Solstice and Yule were all celebrating the return of the Sun, because technically, from that day forward, the amount of sunlight in a day begins to grow, although it is not really visible until February 1, Groundhog Day. For Christians, the holiday was about the return of the Son, referring to the son of God. 

The parallel traditions work well together, because from both perspectives we bring light into the darkest time of the year by bringing light and joy into our homes. We light candles and fireplaces, decorate with lots of electric lights, and we invite family and friends into our homes to bring the light of good spirits and warmth. In the better aspects of Christianity, the holiday is about sharing love and good will and lighting the way with positivity and a giving spirit. The addition of Christmas to the previous holidays continued the concept of the spreading of light.

The themes in all of these traditions were about lighting the way for others, giving and receiving, and great expressions of joy. 

The holidays in the quarter of the year that encompass Halloween/Day of the Dead, Thanksgiving, Christmas/Yule, and New Year's are the most emotionally charged holidays of our year. 

Everything from traditional family recipes for treats and special food and drinks, to gift giving to seasonal songs are a part of this combined heritage. 

Just as the predominance of Christmas overshadowing Yule, Saturnalia and Solstice while absorbing elements of them, during the last century or so, various commercial enterprises came to overshadow spiritual elements of sharing the light. In a way, it is easy to understand how our bubbling over with expressions of joy, love, friendship and generosity at this time of year gave birth to the slew of Christmas themed movies and popular music.

However, as we return to the core of the traditions, we share light with others, lighting the way with not only decorations, music and special treats but the humor, open heartedness and sense of connections, welcoming and helping each other.

As we revel in the celebrations of light at this time of year, it is an optimum time to reflect on what old habits, relationships, and difficulties we want to burn off in our fires, and what kinds of light, love and joy we want to continue to expand in our lives during the coming year. 

May you enjoy all of the ways we energize each other's lives in the spirit of this season, and may we continue this throughout the year.

Lighting the Way

 

 

One of the beautiful aspects of this time of year are all the lights that decorate both public places and our residences. The lights work a sort of magic with us, inspiring us to simply enjoy moments of visual beauty and also trigger moments of reflection.

Reflection then lights our way forward, just as lanterns along a path do. Thoughts prompted by the winter evenings and lights find us making ourselves cozy at home in the evenings, and as we relax with a warm beverage, a fire or candles, we may suddenly find our minds recalling a person we have not seen in a long time, or things that we did long ago.

At these moments, remember what the best aspects of that person are (or were) and how that helped you on your path. When recalling something we have done that we are proud of, and things that brought us great joy, notice how our hearts fill with love and the warmth we feel is directly related to those memories.

Now as we contemplate what we are about now and what we are going to do and wanting more of in our life, keep that same warm feeling of joy, pride, satisfaction and peace permeating those thoughts about what we really want now. This is the fire in the belly that fuels our engine and propels us forward.

So in this way, the outer lights lead to our inner light and propels us forward. Bear in mind that when we light the way for ourselves, we also light the way for others. When they see us enthusiastic and enjoying life, they may get inspired to pursue their dreams too, in addition to picking up attitudes from us, like our habit of being grateful and happy every day.

The magnificent holidays that come at this time of year are invested with many fond memories and good thoughts and so we literally and figuratively bring light and joy into our lives during the deepest, darkest, coldest time of winter.

We bring the light inside to remind ourselves that this darkness is seasonal, and that as it passes, we shed burdens and redirect energy as we reconnect with people and create new events. As we dance, sing, tell stories and jokes and the atmosphere is filled with lightened spirits and humor, we light up wherever we are.

In our fires, we can burn off those things we are done with, whether they are things, attitudes, or ideas. And then we can light our way with fresh energy, warmth and light, letting go of what no longer serves us while welcoming in that which will expand our sphere of influence for the better.

There are not just little bits of light reflecting off decorations, windows, ice and snow but off of us as well. When we light up, we invite more people to share in our energy and we see more smiles all around us as we light the way for ourselves and others.

November, the Month of Gratitude

November to me is an entire month of celebrating gratitude, with the civic holiday of Thanksgiving as the crowning event in the month. This year I am also happy to see a growing list of companies that are closing for Thanksgiving so that their employees can also spend time with their family and friends, reversing the ugly trend of just turning this magnificent holiday into just another shopping day.

One of the best things any of us can do to improve our lives on a daily basis is to cultivate an attitude of gratitude. It helps me to maintain a pleasant atmosphere and improve the results I get in my business. How does that work?

Easy. When you smile and are easy to get along with, people like to talk to you, do business with you and be kind and happy in return. When we express gratitude to our spirit guides for all the help and good they have brought into our lives, they appreciate our expressions because that makes our interaction more of a dialogue rather than a one way communication from someone who only calls on us when they want something.

I am grateful for having a good landlord who keeps the building where I live in good working order.

I am grateful for an auto repair shop that keeps my car in good working order and is honest and efficient, so I am happy to recommend them to family and friends.

I am grateful for the helpful and knowledgeable people who work in the grocery stores where I shop because they help me find things and offer useful advice.

I am grateful that my chiropractor, massage therapist, doctor and dentist are all people who not only do their work wonderfully well but they also have good attitudes and I am happy to work with them.

I am grateful that I have family and friends who live nearby and I enjoy spending time with them, and help them when needed.

I am grateful to live in a city that does a fine job of providing service to us, including the rec centers and the library which I use daily.

I am grateful for all my clients who have provided me the opportunities to serve them, and in turn I am grateful that being able to do so helps me make a living by doing work that I love.

Notice how when we express gratitude that everyone seems more cooperative and pleasant.

Notice how when we express gratitude that more and more unexpected good things happen for us or to us.

Notice how when we express gratitude that even things that at first seemed difficult or troublesome can often produce something good before it is over.

Notice how expressing gratitude fills the air around us with vibrations that are loving, kind, cooperative, compassionate, happy and good natured and these vibrations draw more of the same back to us. Like attracts like. Law of attraction. Sympathetic vibrations.

So if there is one thing that I could share with each one of you that would help you create more positive and beneficial results in your life right now and every day from now on, this is it.

Express gratitude every day, and watch developments in your life blossom and thrive.

Discover more joy every day, in every way. Life is good.

Welcome to the month of gratitude and Thanksgiving!

October, the Month for Spirit Dances

Here we are at Halloween, a beautifully dark fall evening. What began as a Celtic holiday, Samhain, for remembering our dead and wishing them well on their journey into the next world, is also celebrated by Mexicans as The Day of the Dead. Two different cultures, half a world apart, yet at the heart of the holiday is exactly the same sentiment. For those of you who wish to make the journey, The Longmont Museum always has an excellent exhibit created by various members of the community, which features displays created for the Day of the Dead. I go every year because it is always an inspiring display.

In the Mexican tradition, people set up a table with a photo of the person they wish to remember. On the table, they have a plate of that person's favorite food, plus other things they enjoyed during their life. So the table could include a deck of cards, a favorite book, a musical instrument, piece of sports equipment, whatever would help remember that person. In the Celtic tradition, there was the Dumb Supper, which is when a place was set at the table for the person who died. And perhaps a photo of that person would grace the room. People might tell stories about that person or sing a favorite song of theirs. In both cases, the idea is that we are inviting the spirits to join us in preparing a going away offering to that person, acknowledging that we will miss them and wish them well on their journey into the next world.

The Day of the Dead celebration traditionally features a character named La Calavera Catrina, a skeleton wearing a fancy hat and a dress who is dancing her way from this world into the next. It is an affirmation that life goes on for our spirit when it leaves the body.



All month long we dance with the spirits whether we actually do one of these rituals or not. As we head into the dark and cold of winter, we acknowledge that we are interacting with spirits as they take one last look around where they used to live.

We also dance with spirit in other ways. We dress in costumes and take on another persona for evenings when we go to Halloween parties, and there are Halloween parties all month. Our spirits dance as they play out some other character that we would rather be for an evening. It is a way of summoning other spirits while we let our imaginations play and for a brief while we try on the feeling of being someone else.

We also dance with spirits as we face the onset of winter, and we see in nature the trees and shrubs whose leaves have turned many beautiful colors that are now letting go of its summer adornment, and the leaves fall to the ground, revealing the skeletons of the trees.

Many of us engage in our semi-annual sleep disturbance brought about by the silliness known as daylight savings time, so we set our clock back and enjoy the darkness. This is also a season when I crave a night of classical music that summons richness and the orchestration of many different instruments, many different sounds into one coordinated sequence of movements celebrating harmony and beauty, especially in pieces featuring a violin as the lead instrument.

We let our playful spirits use parts of nature to make colorful and whimsical decorations with pumpkins and leaves. Color and music dance with our spirits too. Our spirits really feel like dancing in the season of colorful change that we are celebrating.

It is fun watching all the little kids in their costumes continuing the tradition, even though they do not know yet the roots of the traditions they follow, that of the soul cakes and the dumb supper. They celebrate the harvest of candy, and it is a great holiday for kids as a fun time to dress up and get treats from their neighbors.

Falling leaves signal the shift in seasons with more certainty every day, as less leaves are on the branches and more on the ground. We celebrate all that we have harvested this year as well, and we have some food on our shelves for the winter and we work and look toward the future, pulling a card for the year.

We know that this lifetime will end one day, and these festivities encourage us to celebrate the life we have now, dancing with the spirits of those in our lives now, the spirits of those who have left recently, and the spirit of things to come.

Spirits always dance in this season, and we dance with them.

The Magic of Saying Yes

An interesting development I have noticed is that my spirit guides are prompting me more and more to say yes to unusual requests.As a result, the results are usually very beneficial.

One example is that for many years, my past life sessions were mostly regressions. This process just takes a while, and must be done in quiet, thus requiring a private session lasting one and a half to two hours in length.

However, many clients kept asking for a shorter faster method. They wanted to know more about their past lives but they wanted to find out something within shorter time frames. So I began doing clairvoyant past life readings within the confines of the metaphysical fairs that I do and also shorter clairvoyant readings at my home office or via Skype. I need the visual contact in order for the clairvoyance to show me pertinent information for each person. And I am getting confirmation from the clients that these are very effective and helpful. For those of you unfamiliar with the term, clairvoyance is simply clear seeing, using psychic vision and no other tools. My spirit guides are helping me bring through excellent readings for my clients.

Recently another unusual choice was when the Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art invited me to participate in a special program this summer doing readings with a poet whom they assigned. I have never done anything like this before, and the performances turned out fantastic. The museum and the clients were thrilled with the results. The assistant curator described our collaboration as amazing and we were invited to do this not once, but three times. The poet and I are open to doing more of this and are looking for more opportunities of this nature.

A third request seemed very odd yet, I immediately felt my spirit guides to say yes. I was at a business expo a couple of years ago and a woman was manning a table to recruit help for the home health care service she was working for. I was set up as usual to do tarot readings. So this woman came over and got a reading, and remarked that she thought that maybe some of her co-workers might also be interested in getting readings. So the following week she called me and I thought this is what she was calling about. But her reason for calling was much different. She told me that she had two male patients who needed a male caregiver and all of her staff was female. She asked me if I had ever thought of doing that kind of work. I said no, I had never thought about it. I did not know why, but I felt certain that spirit had sent her to me and wanted me to help her. So I said yes, and for a year I took care of these two men. I did it part time in addition to my readings. The pay was awful, which is why caregivers are always needed, but that was not my reason for doing the work. I also did not tell most people that I was doing this. I did it for one year and it was an unusual learning experience.

I have a few more experiences that I will share in another post, but the key point is this. Often when we are presented with an unusual request, spirit is behind it. There is some life lesson that they want us to learn. Even when we may say no at first, the question may be asked again. Spirit may be presenting these opportunities because we needed some other stimulus for opening our awareness and raising our perception. Saying yes to even the odd or at first unappealing requests may open doors that yield psychic treasures, amazing real life developments and gratifying discoveries.

Saying yes keeps our energies flowing.

Death as a Gift

Earlier this year, a new neighbor moved into the apartment next to mine. He was a polite and pleasant person, so we would get together and chat a couple of times a week. 

Then Saturday morning, just as I was heading off to work, a stranger stopped me and asked if the dumpster by the parking lot is the one we are supposed to use. I answered his question and then told him that I didn't recognize him and wondered who he was. He then told me that his brother had just died two days before of a heart attack. He said that he had called 911 but that he was gone by the time the ambulance got there. He was talking about my neighbor. 

I was shocked because he did not look like he was struggling with physical health. In fact, he had just gotten a bicycle a month ago and was enjoying riding it. 

How odd it seems when a person a good bit younger than myself, about a dozen years younger, was just hanging out and talking with me just a few days ago suddenly dropped dead. Sudden deaths and young deaths are always the ones that jolt our consciousness the most, compared to a person who we know has been struggling with a serious disease for a long time.

A quote that I have found helpful in these types of circumstances is one by the groundbreaking and influential author Carlos Castaneda.

“Death is the only wise advisor that we have. Whenever you feel, as you always do, that everything is going wrong and you're about to be annihilated, turn to your death and ask if that is so. Your death will tell you that you're wrong; that nothing really matters outside its touch. Your death will tell you, 'I haven't touched you yet.”

― Carlos Castaneda, Journey to Ixtlan

When we are jolted by the unexpected death of someone near us, I keep my perspective by knowing that I am still alive because it is not my time to die yet. This awareness wipes out the fear that a person may carry around for a while when they think thoughts like "I wonder how much time I have left?"

Knowing that it is not our time yet, we can get up every day and embrace the fact that we still have more time and more to do, and take a look at what those things are that we most want to do. This helps us make the important choices and silences the question that some people ask when they ask "I wonder what I am supposed to be doing?" You are supposed to be doing whatever you feel is most important to do. Amazing how the answers change when we tell ourselves that it is important to act decisively and shake off lethargy and clarify our visions for ourselves.

In this way, death can be a gift reminding us to be more conscious in appreciating and fully living this day we are in. 

Is Your Heart as Light as a Feather? Part 2

I don't know about you, but I feel as if I have lived more than one lifetime in this lifetime.

Yes, I feel that there is truth and useful information in recalling and considering our past life stories.

Yet, when I look at some of the events of this current lifetime, I can see them from a distance, as an outside observer, and it is as if several other people have lived lives using my name and my current evolution is light years apart from those earlier lives.

In my experience, my spirit guides are becoming an increasingly active influence in my readings. They are assisting me in delivering ever better readings.

The individual mentoring sessions I am doing with those clients who are working with me in ongoing ways are producing ever better results. How is this happening?

Think of it this way. We often think of talking with spirit when we want something. But to develop this communication, it must be a dialogue, a two way street.

Consider, when we have a friend who only calls on us when they want something from us, after a while, do we get tired of getting calls from this person? Yes, of course, and eventually we drop them and replace them with new friends.

So too, with our spirit guides. When we take a little time to thank them every day for what they have done for us, and spend a little time just listening to them, they are more receptive when we ask for some help, same as real life friends who are there when we need something same as when they need something, as well as sharing the joy of companionship.

It pays to remember the law of attraction, like attracts like, sympathetic magic, we get back what we put out.

Who are your friends? Who are your spirit guides? Do you feel that this current version of your life is a vibration higher than our earlier life? Are we experiencing more joy? Are you operating from a higher consciousness? Is your heart more open now? Are you less judgmental and more compassionate, more kind, more considerate?

Are your current experiences resonating in a whole different way than earlier experiences?

Is there more joy and peace in your life now? Would you like to have more of that feeling? Notice how many of your choices come from love and how many come from fear. Watch how the flow of energy in your life shifts when you make more choices out of love.

Notice how your spirit lifts you up. Notice how you feel like you have a whole new life while you are still living in this one, except you now feel yourself living on a lighter level seeing everything in a whole new way.

Would you like that?