Do we have a spring in our step yet?  Well, we do in the south.  My step has been springy since October when the temp cooled down and the humidity lifted.  The days are warmer now, but still dry and that goes a long way on the comfort gauge in Florida.

Our oak trees, four large ones on the front, lining our curb, all bloomed a month early this year.  They do the autumn thing and the spring thing at the same time, leaves dropping and blossoms dripping all at once.  Our city has determined that oaks need to be planted whenever construction projects clear and chop down anything.  Pay in oaks.  They are everywhere.  However, now we have a bunch of people (including myself) with severe allergy problems when spring comes and it is largely due to the oak blossoms.  I have been taking Cat’s Claw pretty regularly for some months now and believe the reason I have not had any symptoms to sneeze at is due to the effect of this supplement.  It promotes healthy immune function, according to the label.  Easy breathing always keeps a spring in my step.

And how about that moon – Super Moon?  Wowzer!  It’s fun taking the dogs out at night and being greeted by that broad, clear smile coming from the old Man in the Moon; brings back memories of watching and wondering how the moon could move with us as we drove home from Nanna’s house on Sunday nights with tummies full to overflowing.  The warm, sweet smell of citrus blossoms, and jasmine blossoms, and night blooming cirrus blossoms, and hundreds of other thick, syrupy scents filled our nostrils while we leaned back on our seat, watching out the window into a brilliantly clear, cloudless spring sky; the moon so bright there was not a single star visible.  “How does the moon move with us, Daddy?”   The distance and size explanation meant nothing to us.  The moon was alive and we could feel its energy as a viable entity.  I still can and greet it as a friend, sorrowing for the fact it must compete with wires and buildings and electric lights.  The beauty and strength the moon commands when I can capture a view obstructed by nothing but the backyard mango and orange trees and waving palm fronds is beyond description.  Another reason for a spring in my step!

Spring and daydreams, yes, hand in hand.  When I was in second grade, a new elementary school was built to house the growing baby boom population.  Prior to that, we were shuffled around in an overcrowded old, Spanish style building.  I can still smell the wooden floors mingling with the cafeteria food preparation.  At one point we were behind the curtain of the stage in the cafeteria.  Did that ever tantalize the tummy all morning?  The new school!  Now that was something.  Yes, we could still smell the cafeteria in the adjacent building, but the paint!  The new desks, new books!  Oh what a glorious smell!  The classrooms shared a bathroom between.  There were sinks and closets in the back for art and science projects.  There were floor to ceiling windows on opposite sides of the classroom; no screens, no curtains.  There was no air conditioning either.  We were out of school by the beginning of June, so the excruciating heat had not begun before we were out for the summer.  In the spring, the flies would come in and play after lunch while we were listening to our teacher read.  The air was clean; the cicadas droned from the toasty smelling pine trees outside; our minds wandered.  I love to daydream!  It is the sweet wandering of the mind, the lazy drifting from place to place.  I find myself on a crystalline river, afloat in an inner tube, my hair swelling about the edges of my face as I lean back into the coolness and look up into the treetops wandering past my vision in a long and glorious breath.  The sun dapples my body and the reflective water, causing flashes and sparkles that speak of love and comfort and freshness and promise.  Life is ahead, fully in front of me; ending far beyond my vision or understanding.

I’m ready, let’s do this thing, this Spring Thing!

Wikimedia Commons Super Moon Credit:  Phenixsport

One item is something Wolf calls, “The other now.”  I fell in love with that term instantly.  Can you guess what it is?  Where is it we can be present, but not here?  We can use all our senses and even determine what we, as well as others, are doing in this other now.  But, most often, we follow along and then wonder what it was all about later.  Dreaming!  Yep.

Prospero:

“We are such stuff
As dreams are made on; and our little life
Is rounded with a sleep.”

The Tempest, Act IV, scene I, William Shakespeare

Dreams, visions, prophecies, does anyone have a corner on that market?  Don’t think so.  I think most people are blessed with the ability to dream.  Not everyone does though.  I just found this great website called The Quantitative Study of Dreams, with some pretty in-depth FAQ’s about dreaming.   They are pretty darn sensible with their answers, even bludgeoning my whimsical ideals of dreaming into submission at some points.  However, I rise undaunted and stick to my guns on my beliefs regarding the positive information we can glean from our dream time.  Who knows from whence our dreams come?  Who knows for sure they are or are not passing on information from a higher source?  It may be that we are talking to ourselves; revealing our innermost thoughts, desires, fears; and encouraging ourselves onward through our lives.   I often wonder if we can control this “now” as much as we can the “other now” of dreams; pay a bit of heed to what we are dreaming and then lead ourselves toward success.

“A dream which is not interpreted is like a letter which is not read.”  ~The Talmud

What fun it is to share our latest, wackiest dreams with the first person who will listen.  Perfectly natural.  Dream interpretation drifted in along with human awareness and has gone on since man began to speak, I am quite sure.  What better stories to share around the clan fire?  The clan mage, now known as my friend the psychic healer, would have the final say in interpretation, but we could all hedge our bets as to whether the dream would come true or not.  We may even have based our very survival on the interpretations, believing in the mage’s healing powers and accepting, come what may.

The other now. Isn’t it just the most wonderful term?  I love to sleep and to dream.

Demetrius:

“Are you sure
That we are awake? It seems to me
That yet we sleep, we dream.”

A Midsummer Night’s Dream Act IV, scene I, William Shakespeare

Hamlet:

“To die, to sleep—
To sleep—perchance to dream. Ay, there’s the rub!
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come,
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause—there’s the respect
That makes calamity of so long life.”

Hamlet, Act III, Scene I, William Shakespeare

My, my, wasn’t he taken with sleeping and dreaming?  Here’s another.  John Keats.

WHAT is more gentle than a wind in summer?
What is more soothing than the pretty hummer
That stays one moment in an open flower,
And buzzes cheerily from bower to bower?
What is more tranquil than a musk-rose blowing
In a green island, far from all men’s knowing?
More healthful than the leafiness of dales?
More secret than a nest of nightingales?
More serene than Cordelia’s countenance?
More full of visions than a high romance?
What, but thee Sleep? Soft closer of our eyes!
Low murmurer of tender lullabies!
Light hoverer around our happy pillows!
Wreather of poppy buds, and weeping willows!
Silent entangler of a beauty’s tresses!
Most happy listener! when the morning blesses
Thee for enlivening all the cheerful eyes
That glance so brightly at the new sun-rise.

Sleep and Poetry, John Keats

Absolutely incredible and astounding metaphors; the number of ways he thought of describing the beauty of sleeping!  Maybe it’s my age that has allowed me to know how enticing this nightly ritual really is.  The lack of sufficient rest, the deprivation of dreaming, filtering, creating in our other state of consciousness can be most discombobulating.  I do crave that “Silent entangler”, “The other now”.  Thank you, William Shakespeare, John Keats, Wolf and Michelle Paver, for your thought inducing bibelots.  Now for “the other now”.  Off to slumber land.

For years I have thought it ludicrous to decorate for the holidays using snow men and snowflake paint when we live in Florida.  I’ve been through Christmases so hot that the needles fell off the tree before Christmas morning.

So, what is Christmas anyway?  I like to think of it as a family tradition time of year; a time to show gratitude and to fill each other with love; not just a time to buy gifts we don’t need and then forget the whole thing a week later.

After many years of creating wonderful, thematic displays in our tiny home, I grew tired of the fact that we worked in our small business all hours of the day except those it took to maintain meals, clothes and sleep schedules and never got to enjoy the decorations ourselves, nor have guests over.

Through my studies, I learned that Christmas was a created holiday, based on similar celebrations that the original “church” wanted to emulate in order to keep it’s participants.  So, I refused to play into that and decided that, if we were celebrating the birth of Christ, we would do it in a more appropriate manner than killing trees, spending the last pennies of the year on gifts that people didn’t need, and then forgetting all about it until the end of the next year.

I have tried to maintain a level of gift giving throughout the year, making sure the children understand that they receive all the time and that the actual day of Christmas is a mega-retail manipulation along with Hallmark’s invention of those special days that we all have to buy cards for.

So, what to do to celebrate?  Practicing as fundamentalist Christians at the time, we would give Jesus a birthday party.  The young ones would make paper chains for decorating and we would have a special family day of food, games, and togetherness.  I enjoyed the lack of having to force time to do the extra things most people do.  It’s difficult for me to introduce even the smallest extra events into my days with business chores, household chores, and home schooling.  My own mother has called me a humbug.  Humpf.  Well, I can’t let myself feel guilty about it; would it be right to celebrate Christmas according the the rules of others because of a feeling of guilt?

I’m all for tradition based on something personal like family history.  We have a tradition, now, of sleeping in, then having goodies all day long on Christmas day.  I bake wonderful breads the day before and we supplement that with salamis and cheeses.  Then, sometime in the afternoon, I begin making a huge pot of gumbo.  That is after we have opened the bits of gifts we have made or purchased and set aside.  We do this slowly and enjoy each gift with each other; kind of like sucking on that bit of chocolate until it melts itself down the back of your throat.  Very small, very intimate, very us.  We can count on it and everyone feels the warm fuzzy of family in a wonderful way.

I hope you are able to stand up for what you feel makes a good celebration of gratitude for all the blessings you’ve been provided.  Make it meaningful; make it last for longer than a day.

Happiest of year ends and the most promising of year beginnings to each of you!

With love, gratitude, and abundant blessings,
Diana

Any name that fits our belief can be substituted for “Santa”. I will highlight the sections that have special meaning for me.  I found myself highlighting the whole thing.  You know what?  It all has meaning.  I hope you enjoy it!

Here’s my friend’s letter to me:

Hello again my wonderful friend,
I just had to share this with you. I hope you get as much from reading it as I did.

Love and light,
Charles xx

Eight-year-old Virginia O’Hanlon wrote a letter to the editor of New York’s Sun, and the quick response was printed as an unsigned editorial Sept. 21, 1897. The work of veteran newsman Francis Pharcellus Church has since become history’s most reprinted newspaper editorial, appearing in part or whole in dozens of languages in books, movies, and other editorials, and on posters and stamps.

“DEAR EDITOR: I am 8 years old. Some of my little friends say there is no Santa Claus. Papa says, ‘If you see it in THE SUN it’s so.’ Please tell me the truth; is there a Santa Claus? VIRGINIA O’HANLON. 115 WEST NINETY-FIFTH STREET.”

VIRGINIA, your little friends are wrong. They have been affected by the skepticism of a skeptical age. They do not believe except [what] they see. They think that nothing can be which is not comprehensible by their little minds. All minds, Virginia, whether they be men’s or children’s, are little. In this great universe of ours man is a mere insect, an ant, in his intellect, as compared with the boundless world about him, as measured by the intelligence capable of grasping the whole of truth and knowledge.

Yes, VIRGINIA, there is a Santa Claus. He exists as certainly as love and generosity and devotion exist, and you know that they abound and give to your life its highest beauty and joy. Alas! how dreary would be the world if there were no Santa Claus. It would be as dreary as if there were no VIRGINIAS. There would be no childlike faith then, no poetry, no romance to make tolerable this existence. We should have no enjoyment, except in sense and sight. The eternal light with which childhood fills the world would be extinguished.

Not believe in Santa Claus! You might as well not believe in fairies! You might get your papa to hire men to watch in all the chimneys on Christmas Eve to catch Santa Claus, but even if they did not see Santa Claus coming down, what would that prove? Nobody sees Santa Claus, but that is no sign that there is no Santa Claus. The most real things in the world are those that neither children nor men can see. Did you ever see fairies dancing on the lawn? Of course not, but that’s no proof that they are not there. Nobody can conceive or imagine all the wonders there are unseen and unforeseeable in the world.

You may tear apart the baby’s rattle and see what makes the noise inside, but there is a veil covering the unseen world which not the strongest man, nor even the united strength of all the strongest men that ever lived, could tear apart. Only faith, fancy, poetry, love, romance, can push aside that curtain and view and picture the supernal beauty and glory beyond. Is it all real? Ah, VIRGINIA, in all this world there is nothing else real and abiding.

No Santa Claus! Thank God! he lives, and he lives forever. A thousand years from now, Virginia, nay, ten times ten thousand years from now, he will continue to make glad the heart of childhood.

If you want more information, check out the Wikipedia page I found.

There are many directions to come from when discussing decorating for the holidays….religious, economic, traditional….I have a friend who decorated for Christmas a month ago. She adores doing it and gets a thrill out of decorating with her little girl.

As in all things, we should never feel pressured by family, friends, or religious organizations to do the things that are intended for our most private and intimate affairs. While we all are part of the human race and members of the Cosmic Consciousness, we each have our own essence and must maintain that we are each here for our individual experience.

One day, she was out in the garden, looking at some flowers. They were beautiful to see and smelled very sweet indeed. The mom began to daydream and envisioned many little children running and playing at her feet. She wondered if it meant new babies would be arriving soon.

That night, the special, loving mom went to bed and said her usual prayer for God to bring more children to her. This time, though, she felt a tingling around her nose and imagined she smelled flowers. She began to dream and dreamed the same as her afternoon daydream. So many happy, healthy, and loving children were around her.

The next morning came too quickly and the nice mom didn’t want to leave her dream, but she needed to get back to her gardening. So, she got up, had a shower, made her breakfast, and suddenly realized she was hearing something in the garden! What was that? Could it be? Could it really be? It sounded just like in her dream! Could she still be dreaming? The sweet mom decided to pinch herself just to make sure, but not too hard, because that wouldn’t be nice. Well, she felt the pinch all right and jumped right up out of her chair and ran as quickly as she could to her back door. There she stopped, not daring to open it. She was feeling so happy and was afraid she was imagining the whole thing. Then – there was a small knock on the door and tiny sounds of laughing and giggling.

That kind, hopeful mom grabbed the door knob and threw the door wide open! What did she see? What could it be? What was standing before her? Well, what else could it have been…only about twenty little girls and boys all standing with great big smiles on their shiny faces. Their eyes sparkled like the morning dew; their clothes were all of the brightest colors and there was the faintest scent of daffodils and roses and orange blossoms…

I think they all lived happily ever after, what about you?

© by Diana Neff 2008