Some Thoughts on the Season

I've been pondering the whole holiday madness as I had to go out to look for a present for a friend whose birthday is Dec 14th.  The Christmas music is blaring in the mall and people are already starting to hustle and scurry to buy those gifts that say merry, merry.

Since I'm a Pantheist not a Christian I don't celebrate Christmas in the traditional sense and I stopped buying gifts to give years ago so it gets harder each year to get excited about Dec 25th.  If you've read this blog long you know I am more connected to the Solstice, December 21st when we celebrate the longest night and the beginning of the return to the light.  This year there will be a full moon and an eclipse of that full moon occuring on the morning of the Solstice which seems fairly cosmic indeed.

Just now reading the holiday calendar from Triangle Yoga where I've been taking classes lately, they had this poem which I thought was of good sentiment and inclusive too:

Buddhist, Christian, Muslim, Jew,

May joy and peace expand in you,

And light the world so all can see,

The simple truth which sets us free,

The song the angels sing above,

That we are One,

And One is love.

We are one. Hard to believe when you look around the world at all the greed, war and hatred that is inflicted daily, but I do believe its true and if everyone would consider that harm they do to others is harming themselves too, maybe some of it would cease.  In the meanwhile, I'll just wish that all the holiday good wishes and warm fuzzies that folks are extending during this time will stretch across more of the year and be recognized as a good way to be all the time.  That people will allow those feelings and thoughts to become a regular part of their lives, not just something we put on for a few weeks each December in the name of Jesus Christ.