“We are not living until we are giving.”

Garland and Tinsel

I recall the scents, sights and sounds of a mid-1970’s Christmastime.  A real pine tree decorated with generational ornaments, multi-colored bulb-lights and tinsel streaming from its limbs.  Youthful excitement for mysterious gifts wrapped in festive fanfare, scattered on a traditional tree apron.  The fantasy of a man with a beard donning a red and white suit, dashing from home to home on the eve of the 24th.  Yet, the fulfillment of the anticipation wanes when the jubilation of the occasion ends.  I experienced this holiday anomaly when I collected my gifts and retreated to my bedroom.  My delight faded into the doldrums of a Christmas past.

The Thrill is Gone

There is magic this time of year that is both genuine and omnipresent, kindled by the collective belief, euphoria, fantasia, joy, love, music, ritual and tradition in the spirit of the season.  When I was spending time with family during Thanksgiving, the Macy’s parade was on television.  The progression of pomp and circumstance marched down Sixth Avenue, pumping out holiday, pop music and hocking their wares in a festive exhibition of mass consumerism.  Christmas propaganda was broadcast with clever precision by famous faces, invoking the enduring narrative and annual glitterati amidst the eager revelry of an oblivient society.  

Holiday Highjack

The origins of Yuletide predate what is now celebrated as Christmas.  The Celtic, Norse and Roman cultures, among others, observed the Winter Solstice; a four-day shift of intention, renewal and transformation, occurring from December 19^th through the 22^nd.  The Church highjacked the holiday to control, exploit and repress faith by enacting December 25^th, mostly out of convenience for their religious narratives.  The collective belief in the Christian propaganda caused a lie to become truth for billions of disciples.  It was one of the first mass manipulations of humanity.  Social indoctrination is now a standard in every institution.

Glad Tithings

During the span of every year, my wife and I gather funds to send to our relatives who are less fortunate.  A healthy portion of our lives are dedicated in service to community.  The true spirit of tithing is to give for the sake of giving, without the attachment of receiving.  We have not had a vacation longer than a few days in over 16 years.  To me, it does not feel right to gratify myself at great expense for a fleeting reprieve from life.  What we experience through our commitments to community is beyond existence, knowledge, lifestyle, recognition and reward.  We are simply empowered by the opportunity to make a difference.

“The Winter Solstice is an energetic convergence of being.”

The Nexus

In the Star Trek movie “Generations,” while attempting to prevent the destruction of a planet, Captain Picard finds himself in The Nexus.  A place where all who enter find themselves in a blissful, personalized nirvana, beyond imagination.  It is during the holidays, and he is in a beautiful home with a wife and children, all which he has never had.  The ornaments on the Christmas trees are reoccurring, exploding stars.  In that moment, he realizes something is amiss and remembers the annihilation of the planet.  He states, “This isn’t right, this can’t be real.”  The familiar voice of Guinan responds, “It’s as real as you want it to be.”        

Festive Fantasy

Our holidays are often reenactments of fond, youthful memories, when we believed in the magic.  We design celebratory events with the desire to reproduce the same spirit we once felt.  Whether it is with family, in a familiar environment, observing traditional festivities, playing games or singing songs.  In essence, things we would not normally do any other day of the year.  Akin to the social reality in which we exist, our celebrations are not real.  They are a fleeting exodus from the gravity of our everyday grind.  When the holiday moments pass, we return to the vicious cycles of our personal and social simulations.   

The Entitlement of Expectation

For many of us, our expectancy and privilege is born during the most wonderful time of the year.  We inherit the entitlement of receiving well before we experience the empowerment of giving.  We are indoctrinated into an egocentric lifestyle as a social standard of self-gratification, exhibited in our appetite, consumption, obsession and pleasure.  Yet, privilege occurs long before our hereditary and environmental exposure to family and society.  Its origins are in the generational prerogative we adopt and emulate from our ancestors of a bygone era.  We exchange our empowerment and understanding for entitlement and expectation.  

Free to Be

When I was 25, I spent the holidays alone.  On that Christmas morning, I woke up early and went to the coffee shop where I worked at the time.  I played their grand piano for a few hours, then headed to the woods for a hike.  It was a powerful transformation, to abandon the familiar, festive routine and embrace the extraordinary experience of an exponentially unique revelation.  When the day ended, I felt personal fulfillment in the solitude of tranquility.  I still remember that holiday as a shift in my understanding, and the importance of creating and exploring the opportunity to embody the freedom of experiential being.

Universal Experience

The holiday season is evidence that we all can create the experience of joy, love, peace and relativity.  For many, this only happens once a year, namely induced by social influence, obligation, status quo and tradition.  Much as a person who goes to church for an hour a week, then cuts off their fellow patron in traffic as they rush home, so is our seasonal noel.  Every day is our opportunity to transcend and transform our existence into a universal experience.  The greatest gift we will ever receive is to empower our lives in relativity with our soul.  Fulfillment is when we express “good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people.” – Linus              

Tis the Season

Once the four-day Winter Solstice Shift concludes, the holiday experience is complete.  The calendar propaganda of Christmas and New Year’s Days are virtual eventualities of time, a manipulation of social engineering to control and exploit human existence and perception with consumerism.  We often buy gifts in an exchange to receive, instead of giving in the spirit of generosity.  It is our universal expression to give all we are to all we can, with absolute abundance.  Before we were born, we made a covenant to empower, inspire, relate, transform and transcend.  Tis the season for all our relations to receive the only gift we can give; ourselves.         

“Oh, that we, could always see, such spirit through the year…”

-Lee Mendelson