It’s that time of year again! Here it is, the countdown to Christmas.
House fronts adorned with twinkling lights, small children dressed as shepherds and kings in Nativity plays, parcel wrapping, card writing … and Christmas messages. Actually I really enjoy it all.
Most of all I enjoy putting “with love” into every card I write, connecting with friends and acqaintancies I may not have seen for a long time – and some who perhaps only live down the road. It’s a ritual. We human beings love a good ritual!
One tradition which many of us may not have been brought up to recognise is the significance of the Winter Solstice. So this year I especially wanted to record my greeting in time. The Spring and Autumn Equinox and the Summer and Winter Solstice have more of an effect on us as human beings than we perhaps understand.
Since 12.12.12 we have all experienced a shift, a speeding up, in energy – whether or not we have been aware of it physically. We have experienced a series of planetary and stellar alignments and eclipses in a remarkable short period of time and some of you will have known about the astrological forces at play. The effect of the seen and unseen energies effect our emotions and our physical bodies with many of us feeling that period of spiritual darkness we refer to as the ‘Dark Night of the Soul’. We have perhaps felt temporary unexplained illness , fatigue, and possibly questioned our own spiritual beliefs. This is, I’m told, a normal accompaniment to the dawning of a new vibrational phase for all humanity on Earth.
Here in the northern hemisphere this Solstice brings the shortest day, a time for reflection, and also a time for celebration. We acknowledge the continuous birth, death and rebirth of the seasons, and we celebrate the return of the light. So the Winter Solstice in many places is celebrated as the Festival of Light. Synchronistically the Jewish Festival of Hanukkah, is also this week, and it too is known as the Festival of Lights. A Feast of Dedication, and an eight-day Jewish holiday which takes us right to the Christian – and now almost universally celebrated – Christmas Holiday and the celebration of the one born to be “The Light of the World”.
I’m going to work on my own personal celebration of Light this Christmas. I’m going to consciously be more aware of my own light, and how brightly (or not) I am shining. I invite you to join me. It is only by raising our consciousness and our own vibration that we can share the love humanity so desperately needs. Only this loving action of us all will bring peace.
With every twinkle of my tree, with every glance at the bright decorations in the streets as I pass by, I am going to become more aware of the need to maintain, polish and brightly shine my light.
And as we raise our glasses, whether to toast Hanukkah, the Solstice, or Christmas Day may we bring extra brightness and joy into every corner of our own part of the world.
I wish everyone a Happy and Healthy Christmas full of blessings, may all your hopes and wishes come true and I look forward to meeting your bright smiling light in the New Year xx
