Archive for December, 2009

Tucson Sunset, photo by Licia Berry 2007

As I’ve said in the previous entry, every new cycle is an opportunity to look back and celebrate how far we’ve come.  I don’t like the idea of beating ourselves up because we didn’t accomplish certain things (although I am guilty of doing that with some frequency).  What I DO like is taking an inventory of the life lessons I’ve learned, because that tells me I am alive.

2009 is one of those years I am hearing plenty of folks ready to say goodbye to.  As one reader put it, “2009, don’t let the door hit you where the good lord split you.”  I understand, it has been a banner year for hard lessons, an intense alchemical cauldron, a trial by fire.  What is left after the purifying flames?  What will emerge from the ashes?

I am still discerning the answers to those questions…and so far, I am very excited with what I am discovering.  The “me” that is emerging is the one I have been wanting to get to know.  May she continue to come forward in grace. 

In the mean time, I have compiled the short list of lessons I have been taught (and am incorporating) by the great teacher of the year of 2009.  I offer them here to inspire you to acknowledge your own lessons of this last year, and to thank the year for the reminder that you are alive, too.

~Licia’s 2009 Life Lessons~

2009 Lesson #1-When I align with what is right for me, change goes very smoothly because I am so supported by the larger energies of the universe.

2009 Lesson #2-Even when something happens that looks absolutely awful, I am still being supported. I will know this if I am open to this possibility. If I approach the “awful” thing with an open heart and ask to know the lessons, they will be given to me.

2009 Lesson #3- Love is all that matters. Love illuminates the path, makes life a joyful adventure, full of meaning. Absence of love breeds uncertainty and fear, makes the journey a scary, unpleasant question.

2009 Lesson #4-  Receivership. I was forcibly disabled, kind of a “Sit down and be quiet!” My usual running around, trying to be in control of various aspects of my life, was taken out in a hurry. My inability to do for myself + for others created an opening for me to receive assistance, to practice being taken care of.

2009 Lesson #5- Things don’t always happen in my time frame….in fact, they often don’t. There is a larger reality at work than the one I think up with my own mind and desires….and that reality will be the one that has the last say. In the end, it will be for my highest good.

2009 Lesson #6- Go where invited.  If you are not wanted, seen or appreciated, leave.  Go to where the love is.

2009 Lesson #7-  Some decisions need to be made that defy logic.  It may not “make sense” to follow a course of action, but truly supportive, growthful and loving decisions frequently don’t fit into a rational model for life. 

2009 Lesson #8-  Community has become very important to me.  Whereas I have been fine to be a loner and independent before, now I feel a strong pull to give and receive in community, seeking and finding and relishing my soul tribe.  Allowing myself to be “part of” is related to how willing I am to open up and be human with other humans.

2009 Lesson #9-  Deep rearranging, sloughing off, gathering and healing is happening for me this year.  So much subconscious process, the evidence of which is in my dreams and in the sensation of being underwater or in deep caves…a reminder for me that there is a whole lot more going on than meets the eye or than I am aware of consciously.

2009 Lesson #10-  In the past I have been hung up on “evidence”.  This has been a way for me to deny my inner wisdom.  Evidence does not have to look like something I can see, feel, touch or remember consciously.  It can include what emerges in dreams, the feelings and the body…these are also evidence.

2009 Lesson #11-  There is a collapsing of worlds occurring within me, and it is happening faster and faster.  This brings me great bliss when I align with it, and anxiety when I resist it.  I feel I am getting closer to cohesion within, Sacred Union Within.  The lesson for me?  All is in order….Let it be. 

Thank you for the lessons, 2009, and a blessed 2010 everyone!

Christmas is done, and I have this urge to take down all of the decorations and put the tree out for recycling.  I am interested in how many people I have heard express the same sentiment.  I am ready to move forward with my life!

2009 has been a banner year for hard lessons, hasn’t it?  Between relationships falling apart, health crises, job changes, geographical moves, and all of those INTERAL moves we’ve been making, 2009 was the year that rocked and rolled all night long.  Many of us woke up to a new reality within ourselves, and noticed that the world looked different.  It is amazing to look back and see all of the changes, and what a different land we live in now than just one year ago.

For me, this reflection is cause for celebration, and is done for the purpose of patting me on the back because I got through it (sometimes with grace, and sometimes NOT).  Another purpose of this reflection is to make sure I have given a respectful nod to the forces of the universe that were conspiring to help me learn something.

In ceremonial work we know it is important to thank what has been before letting it go, incorporating the lessons it has brought us…2009 has been a year FULL of learning opportunities for us.  It is kind and respectful to say thank you, just as we were taught in kindergarten.  You know how it feels to be properly thanked…it feels like acknowledgment.  This is a good practice, and one we frequently forget when we feel victim of some larger doing.  But the gift to us in remembering to thank even the hard stuff for what it brought to us is that it helps us incorporate the lessons into our psyche and breathe that hard-won wisdom into our lives.  

I am spending some time making a list this week of lessons I have learned; I think I will make some art about it, too.  My friend Elizabeth Barbour and I are also hosting a retreat on New Year’s Day to take some women on a journey to see what they are becoming, to honor what has passed and allow the new butterfly to emerge in 2010.  We’ll be making collages to ground our inner visions, and to hold those intentions for the entire year.  The larger energy is ripe for this self examination.  Can’t you feel it?  2010 is truly a year to begin again.

But if you can’t make the retreat, held in Tallahassee FL, you can still honor New Year’s Day intentionally and ceremonially.  Here are some suggestions:

Licia’s New Year’s Rituals:

• This week, sit quietly with your thoughts.  Ask yourself these questions, and journal about what you discover.

1. What were some life lessons taught to you this year?
2. Who/what were the teachers?
3. What wisdom have you gained?
4. Fully look these lessons in the eye…feel them stretch throughout your body and consciousness….breathe them through you.  These lessons are part of you, if you will let them be.  You can live a more authentic life because of them.
5. Fully acknowledge the teachers that brought these lessons to you…whether they be people, circumstances, spirits, elements of nature….whatever and whoever they were, they gave you a gift.  Thank them.

• On New Year’s Day, honor this new beginning by setting aside time to create something new to look forward into the year.  I meditate, journal and make a collage that I can display in my workspace.  Here are some questions I ask myself in order to make this time special and meaningful for the new cycle:

1. Who am I, really?  Who is the me that has been uncovered, scrubbed clean, by this past year’s events?  Who is the me that has emerged from the cocoon of my becoming?
2. What does my heart, my soul want to do, to say?
3. How will I live as the truth of who I am this year?  How will I live my life differently because of what I have learned?
4. What does my heart truly want to offer humanity?  How can I show up in this world that is experiencing so many changes in a way that supports the goodness in this world?

 I find these activities to be soooooo supportive to ending and beginning a cycle in a more intentional and loving way.  Taking the time to meaningfully take inventory and express my thanks as the old cycle ends helps me to welcome the new cycle in with fresh, eager and open arms.  I hope that you will give this gift to yourself as well!

I have a few precious moments of serenity as the boys have run down to the neighborhood park for a football game, and my sweet husband has retired to the haven of our bed for a much needed nap.  It is Christmas, again, and we were up late last night wrapping presents and making magic for our loved ones.  I am tired, too, but got more sleep than Peter, and truly, I have to enjoy these quiet moments when they are given to me.

 I enjoy Christmas for some of the feelings it brings…The decorating of the house for the pure purpose of enjoyment and sparkle and light…….The anticipation of seeing my children’s faces when they wake up Christmas morning….the fun of making gift baskets, imagining the healing I put into the cookies settling into the tummies of those that enjoy them… and the hunt for gifts I actually buy, looking for the perfect thing.  I like the feeling that comes when people smile at me and say “merry Christmas”, and I smile back and wish them a happy Christmas, too.  There is a feeling of something larger connecting us all, a feeling of something brotherly or sisterly, of goodwill.  It is the feeling of love that I am riding this time of year. 

I have the not so nice feelings, too….the trance state that I feel attempting to overtake me Christmas Eve like a dark undertow, a tide threatening to take me out to sea where I lose all sense of bearing and the way back to shore.  The not so nice memories of the drunken holiday wildness I experienced as a child, when there was no adult who was totally safe and responsible.  The feeling on Christmas that there is something I am supposed to be doing, something I am supposed to be, and yet I am not, so there is a vague sense of missing the mark.  Worrying about the people who do not have a family or loved one to be with on this day when the expectations can be so crushing to our fragile hearts.  And the grim dissatisfaction I get when I am reminded of the “reason for the season”, a story about a Divine Child, a story that has been bastardized and manipulated in order to wield power over the minds of those weaker than me.

Cynical, oh yes, absolutely.  You see, I was having direct experiences of God when I was 2 and 3 years old, and so when I was sent to a Christian preschool at age 4 and my teacher preached hellfire and brimstone and judgment, painting a picture of God as a mean and nasty all-seeing fellow in the sky, I was in a serious quandary.  “What she is saying does not match my experience.  Do I believe the adult who is supposed to be taking care of me, and upon whose sense of responsibility my safety depends, or do I stick to my inner experience of the All That Is as an unconditionally loving force that has nothing but good to offer to me?”  I chose to believe myself and my own experience, but to be somewhat quiet about it.

I would have liked to know Jesus.  My belief about him was that he was an enlightened man, much like the Buddha.  I believe when he said to love your brother he meant to love everyone, no matter what their beliefs were, no matter what religion they ascribed to, what sexual orientation they had, how they behaved in the world.  I believe he got it that one does not have to be “worthy” to receive the unconditional love that this universe provides.  That whole worthiness thing is something I think humans made up.  How can we be “worthy of unconditional love”, it’s unconditional!   I believe Jesus really understood at a visceral level that we are all One, just like my indigenous ancestors also knew in their walking life.  With every breath, we are affecting the One, with every thought and every action, we are pulling the strings of the web, and all will be touched in some way by what we choose.  I think I would have liked Jesus very much.

So when I hear the Christian ethic that feels so far removed from what I feel to be true about the man called Jesus, and I feel judged because I do not ascribe to those beliefs, it is hard for me to reconcile the anger I feel within towards those people that made Christianity what it is today, and my deep and earnest longing to feel my connection with ALL people, with ALL parts of creation because I feel my Oneness with All That Is.  Sometimes I will be quiet, turn my eyes away and smile, and other times I will change the subject, all because I am a good Indian and too polite to argue.  But then I get to discourse uninterrupted when I write about my feelings.  It’s tough for a southern girl who wants to be a good, loyal Daughter of the Divine to find her own way to Jesus, through all the obstacles placed before me since I was little…the judgment and rhetoric invented by people, not by Love.  But find my way to him I will….like everything else in my life, I will define and cultivate my own relationship with Jesus in the way that feels right to me. 

I honor the Solstice because it is a celestial event, not manmade like Christmas is.  It is well documented that Santa was a commercial invention, so I need not discuss it here.  Even the birth of Jesus has been determined to be in the spring rather than December 25^th, another convenient feathering into a pagan holiday in order to bring more pagans to the fold when Christianity was young and needing to convert followers.  For me, Solstice is the “reason for the season”, in that it is a turning of the season and a shift in our orbit, changing our relationship to the light of the sun, a symbol itself of Life. Yes, we do some of the Christmas rituals, and I think that it is largely in part due to the collective trance that I was raised in and now choose to continue to participate in to some degree.  But Solstice is the Holy Night for me, and the beginning of this truly magical season of remembering my connection to others, and showing them that I love them with generosity and open arms. 

I do take Christmas to be an opportunity to remember the Divine Child Within, and spend some time honoring that innocent, sparkling, all knowing One that resides within each of us.  This is a beautiful way to connect with the story of Jesus, at any time of year. 

I am continuing to define what this time of year is for me…to choose more and more consciously each year what I will participate in, what I will pass on to my children, how I will assist to create an unconditionally loving world.  Perhaps there will come a time that I do no “Christmas” at all, but only Solstice.   I don’t know.  All of these intellectual constructs and words aside, the guiding star for me is how I feel….what feels in integrity, and what feels like being out to lunch, a mere moving through the trance?  What I LOVE about this time of year is the feeling of magic and connection and internal-ness that comes with the onset of winter.  I treasure this turn of the wheel of life, and honor its coming, just as I will honor its going.  Perhaps if I focus on those feelings, my walk in the world will get clearer more light-filled at this time of year.

In the Northern Hemisphere, we are seeing the Winter Solstice today.  It is a special time of year for me….only because I feel the holiness of this energy internally.  It FEELS like the darkness, it feels like the time to drop the deadwood, it feels like the time to go into the dreaming time and dream our visions for our new cycle.  Our family had ritual last night, and I will have another today; each time, I choose to lovingly release an outdated or unsupportive belief or habit or pattern, and to begin to write a new story.  

“The winter solstice is the shortest day of the year and the longest night, known also as the Mother Night. It is considered to be the start of a new year and the rebirth of the new sun. We honor the power of darkness, the Divine Mother, the womb of creation. Yule is the return of the sun and rebirth of light. It is a time of new beginnings and a great time for dedication to new projects. We celebrate and welcome the rebirth of the sun Goddesses. Winter Solstice is a magical time for visions.”

Starhawk’s traditional Solstice Greeting: “This is the night of Solstice, the longest night of the year. Now darkness triumphs; and yet, gives way and changes into light. The breath of nature is suspended; all waits while within the Cauldron,  The Dark King is transformed into the Infant Light. We watch for the coming of dawn, when the Great Mother again gives birth to the divine Child Sun, who is the bringer of hope and the promise of summer. This is the stillness behind motion, when time itself stops; the center which is also the circumference of all. We are awake in the night. We turn the Wheel to bring the light. We call the sun from the womb of night. Blessed Be.”

The completion of the last moon cycle on the 15th saw me on my knees, raking through the deep sand and mud in the subterranean waters I have been visiting of late.  I swam with the dark fishes through underwater caverns, navigating dark, narrow passages as I searched for missing pieces of my life.

It has been a challenging few weeks for me; Thanksgiving kicked off some wild feelings of powerlessness, a waft of a former age, when I used to be a child.  Catching the scent of those crazy holidays with my family of origin and all of its ghosts was enough to trigger my inner child into being very present. 

She (my inner child) is alternately delighted with the holiday time, and so, so, so fearful and anxious and sad.  The old days were scary.  The evidence of that is her terror.  My job is to hold her hand and be as loving and capable a parent as I can to her.  Sometimes, it is hard to remember that I am both the parent and the inner child, though….when the little me has feelings, they can seem so big as to blot out the rest of the world.  It then becomes apparent it is time to don the trusty diving suit, plug into the oxygen machine at the surface, and go down into the depths with her, because she IS trying to show me something.  It is always the trick to remember not to dive alone.

In shamanic work, we know that retrieval of disenchanted parts of ourselves is a healthy and necessary expression of our wholeness.  This is seen in psychology, too, where the desire and intent of therapeutic work is to integrate the compartmentalized aspects of self. 

This is exactly what I have been doing when I elect to follow my inner child’s call down into the dark waters.  A kind of waking shamanic journey, we enter the earth through openings in the mountains, holes in the earth, and travel quickly through the rocks and soil, passing moles and earthworms, until we emerge into the caves and caverns deep underground.  There, we then must swim the great black seas that exist where the sun doesn’t shine, for at the bottom lies treasure.

There are dangers, though, to this work.  Sometimes, the immense pressure of this deep inner environment is enough to make my eyes want to pop out of my head.  I can feel the pressure of the vast waters and the miles of earth on top of me in my body, as I walk here on the topside through my day, shopping for groceries or driving my children to orthodontist appointments.  How interesting, I think, as I merge safely into traffic, while underneath I am reaching through dark crevices to see if a gem, or part of myself, is inside.  How odd, I notice, as I kiss my husband while I am digging through the primordial slime and hitting something of note with my fingertips.  I live in many worlds simultaneously.

In shamanism, it is important to have your lifeline attached when you go into the other worlds to retrieve those parts, or you can get lost.  I have fortunately chosen some very able and supportive helpers in my life who hold me and love me as I writhe around and wrestle with those dark creatures under the water that threaten to hold me down until I give up.  Just when I feel I am going to lose my life or my mind because something powerful and I have gotten ahold of each other, either my own soul and spirit give me the strength suddenly to bring the great beast to the surface, where I can look at it in the eye and see it is not going to kill me…..or some grace-filled creature or person in my life senses I am floundering and reaches a hand down through the layers of reality and pulls me up.  Thank Godde for love.

Now that the new moon cycle has begun on the 16^th, I experience a release of pressure.  I am back topside.  I retrieved some great bounty from the depths these last few weeks, and have now emerged with the spoils, breathless but alive and jubilant, at the surface.  Navigating the multiple worlds that I do, they all collapse into one world, the here and now, and I am more powerful because more of me is here, playing happily in the sun.

Relationship with Nature as a Step Towards Healing our Fear for Our Survival

My last entry scared even me….why would my inner guidance urge me to write about the fear for our survival that seems to be permeating even those of us devoted to bringing sweet thought to humanity?  Am I adding to the fear by talking about it?

I am soooooo Jungian in that I know that if something exists and I try to pretend it’s not there, it won’t make it go away.  It just makes it scarier.  Don’t you remember screwing up your courage to face the monster in the closet, and when you flew open the door and saw the closet was empty of the horrible visage you imagined, you felt a sense of how silly it was that you’d worried so much?  I find this now when I am thinking through a conflict that needs to be resolved with another adult…in my mind, it can be much worse than it actually turns out to be in real life.

I wonder if this is might be an appropriate metaphor for the immense concerns we have about the plight of humanity via the earth’s climate change, pollution, environmental distress, etc.  Some folks are yelling it from the rooftops because they feel that some others aren’t listening; and others are sticking cotton in their ears and pretending climate change is not happening. 

I’m not here to argue with anyone about climate change.  I am not a scientist or environmentalist or someone with an education about the many eons of history that this earth has been through.  All I can speak from is my own experience. 

My experience is this: when I was a child, I LOVED nature.  I was outside so much of the time, playing in the dirt under the sky, climbing trees, trying to get lost in the woods (never could).  I felt the eyes of the trees on me, felt the support of the ground under me, felt the love of the sun and the moon kissing me.  Nature was an every day friend, a trusted companion, a silent, neutral and accepting partner that had no agenda with me.   

No, the trees did not have a mouth like I did, but they “spoke” to me nonetheless.  No, the rocks and mountains did not have eyes like me, but they “saw” me nonetheless.  I felt seen, heard, accepted, respected as a daughter of this world.

And I have always felt that every aspect of creation has a consciousness.  It may look very different from what we think of as human intelligence…maybe not a brain that looks like ours, maybe not thinking linear thoughts like we do.  But there is for sure an intelligence that keeps things running in crazy orchestrated balance that nature performs every moment of every day since the beginning of time.

The presence of Nature that I felt loomed large…it encompassed me, surrounded and held me, cared about me, interacted with me.  It did not hurt me, unlike those other humans.  Nature was a host of other beings, entities, creatures that co-inhabited this earth with me.  Humans were NOT the most important….we were one of the many. 

In this way, I got to know the strength of creation, to know it and to trust it.  I had a knowing of the power of Nature and this planet to do its own work, to follow its own process.  It was my knowing, and I felt very secure in this knowing, that Nature was a wise and all-powerful co-inhabitor and conductor of the planet.

I reflected on this as I sat with my previous entry, wanting to fix it, wanting to offer suggestions.  The fear that humanity won’t survive hits me in the gut, hits me where I live.  I have two children, and I am invested in seeing them live their lives and have children of their own if they wish to.  I love this earth, and I love human beings, and I want us to be able to be together in harmony.

What I realized as I was thinking about this was that I don’t spend hours and hours outdoors any more.  I sit inside and work on my computer much of the day, sandwiched in between being mom and wife, which involves going outside to get to the car (an interior environment), leaving the car to get to the store or the school or other activity, reaching another interior environment…you get the picture.  I am not abandoning myself to the great outdoors anymore.  And I am feeling that loss of relationship with Nature. 

Then I started thinking about what happens when we aren’t with someone for awhile…we forget some things about them.  Guess what I forgot about Nature….how strong and self sustaining and powerful it is.

It didn’t take long to put it together that because I am not outside walking in the woods, I have forgotten Nature’s grounded, pervasive, kick-butt survival abilities, and instead I am feeding the fear for humanity’s survival by replacing my outside time with sitting in front of my computer, where the hyped up headlines blur past me and I hear the comments of opinionated folks on FaceBook.  Oh my, the drama!

 My point here (I will get to it eventually) is that we need some more outside time.  No great surprise of earth shattering insight here.  When we cultivate the relationship with the incredible power and sustainability of Nature, we might begin to remember that it is not so fragile that it will break in two weeks.  A lack of relationship with Nature is breeding fear.  If we look our fear in the eye, and see it is not an insurmountable problems we face, we might get off our asses and do something.  And, maybe have a good time doing it.

How many of us used to run around outside when we were children, loving the feeling of being part of a larger world, and feeling safe in it?

Nature is the balm to soothe our fears.  Yes, I do believe Nature will outlive us, probably by a long shot.  But we don’t have to feel we need to overcome it, or control it, or dominate it, or plead with it not to kill us…we can feel its incredible strength as an ally instead of something to be frightened of.

And from a place of integrity and balanced relationship, we can work on the problems that threaten to wipe humanity out in a way that is not so fearful.  We can tackle the problems together.

Because we’re ALL IN IT.  Some of us believe we are more enlightened than someone else, or more religious than someone else, or more educated than someone else, or have it more figured out than someone else.  And all of that may be true!  But regardless of all of that, we are all in this together.

In my inner guidance time this morning, I asked what to write about-my question comes in the form of “what to offer humanity today”.  I was interested that the guidance came in very clearly to write about the fear for our survival, and the suggestion to heal that fear.

The fear for survival is one that is a collective as well as individual fear that we are being faced with.  It is so deep under the surface of our daily walk that we don’t know it is there.  But the fear of ceasing to exist ranks up there as one of the greatest there are.

Naming this fear alternately seems so basic and yet such a revolutionary act.  We have so many other issues we are looking at; gay marriage, religious tolerance, racial affirmation, women’s rights, children’s protection, world peace.   I certainly have spent time and energy on all of these worthy pursuits!  But they all become a moot point if humanity no longer exists. 

What could be more basic, more primal, than our relationship with our Home?  The ground we walk on, the physical matter from which we came, is so under our noses that we cannot see it.  We take for granted what is the most beneficent force in our daily physical lives.

My sense is that it is important to name this fear.  I find that naming something within me is the first step towards healing it.  Otherwise, it has power over me because it is unconsciously driving me.  Naming a fear calls it to the surface of my attention, and allows me to look it in the eye, size it up, and deal with it.

The next step in healing after naming what is happening is to accept that this is going on.  I am surprised how often we will deny that something is wounded inside of us, and amazed by the expert coping mechanisms we will develop in order to continue to deny it.  It is only possible to change if we accept that there is indeed an issue first. 

The next important step is to make a choice about whether we want this issue to be an unconscious driver in our lives anymore.  This is a pivotal moment.  Once I can see something and name it, then accept it is an issue within me, I have the power to do something to change the situation or to let it lie.  I find that making the choice to change is a powerful decision that moves worlds, both within and without me, that support the change.

We are threatened like we never have been before…of course, there have always been threats to our survival, whether it was the herd of buffalo we stalked trampling us, or the famine, or the bomb…but now it is the very ground we walk on that is compromised. 

We cannot underestimate the intensity of the fear that we are all carrying, whether we are conscious of it or not.  Under the surface of our thoughts, under the skin of every decision we make, there is the question as to whether or not we will survive.  We make some very poor and short sighted decisions because of this fear.

If humanity wants to be around for more than another 100 years, then each of us as kernels of the collective must make decisions that ensure our survival.  Naming, accepting, and then choosing to change the issues that prevent us from having a balanced relationship with Home is the way to heal.  The earth will go on without us, that is for sure.  But if we want a world for our descendants, we have to get right with Home.  There is no escape.

In cultivating respect for our partner in physical existence, the Earth, we must heal ourselves and ensure a future for our species.  In healing our own fear for our survival, we can begin to create this ideal relationship with Home.

Everything we shut our eyes to, everything we run away from, everything we deny, denigrate, or despise, serves to defeat us in the end. What seems painful can become a source of beauty, joy, and strength, if faced with an open mind. Every moment is a golden one for him who has the vision to recognize it as such.

-Henry Miller

Licia Biker Santa, by Terri 2009

I wrote this back in 2006, when I was fiercely examining how to reclaim the holidays as my own delightful invention, rather than something belonging to someone else that I was trying on. 

Many of us seem to blindly follow the crowd, as if in some sort of trance, when it comes to holiday time.  I certainly did this for many years!  But the anxiety and disgust that I started to feel about the holidays clued me in that something wasn’t quite right in my relationship with what could be a truly joyous time of year. 

You see, in order to see the culture, we must step outside of it.  Whatever it is that we are enmeshed with, it is very difficult to get clarity about the relative health of the situation unless we remove ourselves from it.  The extrication can be messy, especially when we are dealing with families and the high expectation of holiday time. 

It’s not an easy road to walk to look with a critical eye at the unconsciousness that can abound this time of year.  But I feel it’s better to deal with the discomfort that comes with the truth than to live with a lie. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Here we are again!  It’s the holiday time, and it never seems to fail to come back every year.  In my healing work, I think of things coming back over and over to prompt me to look at something about myself that needs some love and perhaps a change for the better.  I wonder if the holiday season might be a ripe opportunity for this kind of self reflection?

I think of the holidays as a time when we lose our center so easily!  It’s when the family trance comes over us like a mist, and we move about like robots following our marching orders.  Where are those orders coming from?  We are indoctrinated early to associate the holidays with over-consumption of all kinds.  We buy in to the idea that we must get together with families and that we must all have a wonderful time together.  We keep expecting the magic and mystery of the holidays to fill our hearts, but more and more of us are barely surviving until after the New Year, when we thank our lucky stars that we made it through one more holiday season.  ENOUGH!

I have come to see the madness that begins at Halloween and lasts through January 2^nd (here in the U.S.) as an embarkation on a crazy, out-of-control bus.  If you ever saw Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, you might remember the wild bus ride that Harry endures when he is whisked away from his ordinary muggle-life to another year at Hogwarts.  As Harry alights on the bus, the driver steps on the gas and the bus careens at insane speeds through traffic, almost running pedestrians over.  The ancient, decrepit bus driver is guided by a shrunken head who advises in a creepy, sarcastic tone when to brake, when to lift the skirts of the bus over other traffic, and when to make the bus pancake-thin in order to get through various obstacles.  Harry seems to doubt whether he will survive this bus ride; it is so crazy, so out of control, so frightening.  It is INSANE.  Perhaps the holidays don’t always make us wonder if we are going to remain bodily intact, but I know that many wonder if they will survive the crazy ride emotionally intact!   

It is interesting to me how I have moved through different cycles during my years of celebrating the holidays.  Certainly, as a child, I was delighted and mystified and just loved the essence of the holiday time, but I picked up on the adults’ stress and discontent, too.  They talked a good talk about the reason for the season being about giving and thankfulness and love, but that did not match with the alcohol, the family fights, the tears and stress around holiday time.  I dove into my presents and played with my cousins and tried my best to ignore them.  I hung on blindly to the idea of santa claus, a sweet, generous man who expected nothing in return.  I was devastated when my mother broke it to me that he did not exist (at age eleven!)  The mystery was gone.

Then it became about getting stuff….as an adolescent, I wanted but could not have the fancy things my fellow high schoolers had.  As a young adult putting myself through college, I do not remember a single Christmas (was I in a fog or did I just not celebrate?)  When I met my husband, I was adopted into his family and became part of the mega-family-holiday machine.  They had traditions that had been in place for generations in their southern aristocratic lineage.  I did not feel the permission to question or reject their traditions, so played along for awhile as a I thought a dutiful daughter-in-law should. It was overwhelming and exceedingly uncomfortable for me.   

When my husband and I had our own children, at first we tried to continue to attend holiday gatherings with the extended (and I do mean extended….like 50-plus people) family, but then there was the hardship of trying to honor my own family of origin.  Whose turn is it this year?  Let’s see, Christmas with mine, Thanksgiving with his…no, that’s how we did it last year.  I started to feel like the sausage two dogs were fighting over!  Then I got bitten by the Martha Stewart bug and wanted to create the most magical holiday season possible for my family-the only problem was I did not have a staff of 300 to help me out!  I got over that one pretty quick. 

And then there was this little voice inside me that said it was time to create our own traditions, in our own nuclear family, on our own terms.  I wanted to choose consciously where to put my energy for the holidays.  It was a huge shock to Peter’s family (not so huge for mine as I had already set some firm boundaries with them) for us to elect not to participate in the machine.  Peter’s parents expressed their unhappiness, and I am certain we were called some unattractive names by some in his family of origin, but we held our ground.  Now, some years later, it is expected by all that we will be having our Christmas at home with our own little family of four (and our cat!)  They are allowed to feel how they want to feel, and that is okay; I cannot control their choice to take it personally when we stay home.  But I do not feel responsible for their happiness any more.  They are free to choose what they want to do with their time just as we are.  AH….freedom!

It has been quite an exploration over the years to look at where I am trying to make others happy, trying to meet some unspoken obligations, trying to exceed expectation.  Identifying what resonates with my heart, instead of blindly clinging to traditions just because others do.  And now, our own family is expanding our idea of what the holidays mean to us.  We feel into our hearts as to what is best for us.  Yes, we consciously choose to incorporate some “traditional” rites during the holidays, but because they resonate with us.  And we incorporate some other things that are not traditional, again because that is what resonates with our family.  For example, we choose to celebrate the Winter Solstice as the beginning of our Yule celebration; we have a giant party with bonfire and wonderful food, and several craft stations set up to make snow flakes, paper-bead jewelry, cinnamon ornaments, and other fun things.  Then we have a ceremony to acknowledge the year that has passed, giving thanks for the bounty and the successes.  We write on colorful pieces of paper those aspects of ourselves that we feel we can lovingly release and transform, and then we throw them into the fire, blessings them as they burn.  We dance, we sing, and we celebrate being alive.  It is a wonderful night of kinship and love.

I am realizing it is always up to us, that we can choose consciously to enjoy what we already do for the holidays by being fully present and with a loving heart, or we can choose consciously to re-form what we do to reflect what makes us happy.  I don’t see much sense in a lot of running around and stressing out and settling for interactions that make me feel unhappy or even crazy!  Life is too short!   

Blessings to you and yours for this holiday season and always!

It seems to be in the media everywhere right now!  Between Mackenzie Phillips, Oprah Winfrey, five men in one family arrested, and the movie “Precious”, it seems the collective mind is attempting to bring up the heinous topic of sexual abuse. 

I hear many saying how disturbing it is and wanting it to go away.  I understand that, for sure.  It is ugly, uncomfortable, and unbelievable that sexual abuse goes on.  But as a survivor, I know it does, and I also know that the culture of secrecy around it is why it continues to infect people’s lives.  It must be talked about, it must be SEEN, in order for it to stop happening.  Children’s lives are at stake, RIGHT NOW.

The below article is something that I found some years ago that was helpful in knowing what adults can do to stop sexual abuse. Source- http://www.darkness2light.org/KnowAbout/adults_responsible.asp

Child sexual abuse: the hidden epidemic

Child sexual abuse is a hidden but significant problem in every community in America. Experts estimate that one in four girls and one in six boys will be sexually abused before their 18th birthday. Less than one in ten will tell. Research clearly shows that individuals who are sexually abused as children are far more likely to experience psychological problems often lasting into adulthood, including Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome, depression, substance abuse and relationship problems. Child sexual abuse does not recognize region, race, creed, socio-economic status or gender; it crosses all boundaries to impact every community and every person in America.

If child sexual abuse were like most childhood diseases, the prevalence and consequences of it would lead to telethons to raise money for its cure every weekend. But child sexual abuse is one of the last cultural taboos. With the exception of child-focused personal safety programs, almost nothing is being done to address it.

Darkness to Light believes that adults should be taking proactive steps to protect children from this significant risk. It is unrealistic to think that a young child can take responsibility for fending off sexual advances by an adult. Adults are responsible for the safety of children. Adults are the ones who need to prevent, recognize and react responsibly to child sexual abuse. Yet, the statistics clearly show that adults aren’t shouldering this responsibility. Darkness to Light believes that adults just don’t know how.

What adults need to know about child sexual abuse…

• It happens more than you think. A lot more - one in four girls and one in six boys will be sexually abused before their eighteenth birthday.
• It can happen right under your nose and you may never know – less than one victim in ten will tell.
• The perpetrators aren’t usually “dirty old men hiding in the bushes” – 34% of those who sexually abuse children are family members. A further 59% are friends and acquaintances of the child and his family.
• You probably don’t realize how big the problem is – 67% of the victims of all sexual assaults (including adults) are children.
• And we’re not talking about young teenagers having consensual sex – the median age for sexual abuse is just nine years of age.
• Child sexual abuse is not just a bad experience. Child sexual abuse wrecks young lives – victims of child sexual abuse are at far greater risk for all sorts of psychological disorders including PTSD, depression, substance abuse and relationship problems, often lasting into adulthood.

The personal pain of child sexual abuse…

• Adolescents and young adults with a history of childhood abuse are 3 times more likely to become depressed or suicidal as compared to those without such a history. ( Brown, Cohen, Johnson & Smailes, 1999 )
• Women with histories of childhood abuse report a greater number of physical and psychological problems, and lower ratings of their overall health than their peers. ( Moeller & Bachmann, 1993 )
• 34% of children who are either physically or sexually abused, and 58% of children who are both physically and sexually abused meet the criteria for Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome. ( Ackerman, Newton, McPherson, Jones & Dykman, 1998). Untreated, PTSD is a chronic disorder. The residual emotional, behavioral, cognitive and social symptoms persist and contribute to a host of psychiatric problems through life. ( Ferguson & Horwood, 1998 )
• Adolescents and adults who are abused in childhood are significantly more likely to drink alcohol and/or use illicit drugs than their peers. Adolescents and adults who were victims of childhood maltreatment have been consistently found to be more likely to engage in high-risk sexual behaviors.

And the cost to us all…

• A 1996 National Institute of Justice study estimated that each year child sexual abuse in America costs the nation $23 billion
• Victims of child sexual abuse generally spend more on psychiatric care and medical services throughout their lives. Some victims of child sexual abuse require more expensive special educational services. Child sexual abuse causes lost potential and productivity. These expenses, which would not be necessary if not for sexual abuse, are a financial drain to each and every one of us.

So, what is happening to prevent child sexual abuse

• Preventing sexual abuse with child-focused programs… There are several well-known and successful programs that teach children self-protection skills and techniques, as age-appropriate. These programs also teach children about physical boundaries and about discerning types of touch. These programs are valuable to children. The skills learned by children in these programs have thwarted some abductions and sexual assaults. However, we must not fall into a trap of thinking that these skills are the only protection children need.
• Think about it. It is unrealistic to expect a six-year old to fend off sexual advances from an adult relative. A six-year old can’t recognize sexual advances for what they are. And a six-year old has been taught to “mind” adults who are authority figures. It is unrealistic to think that a six-year old can or even should protect himself in this situation.
• Adults are responsible for the safety of children. We strap children into car seats, we walk children across busy streets and we ask our teenagers questions about where they are going and who they will be with, all to keep them safe. Adults should also be responsible for protecting children from sexual abuse.
• Why don’t adults do a better job? Child abuse statistics show that adults do not adequately protect children from child sexual abuse. There are a lot of reasons why, but the main one is THEY DON’T KNOW HOW!!!
• Research suggests that adults are unaware of effective steps they can take to protect their children from sexual abuse. Most do not know how to recognize signs of sexual abuse and many do not know what to do when sexual abuse is discovered.