The date that marks the birth of Jesus Christ was once a pagan holiday celebrated in Babylon as The Feast of The Son of Isis. Drinking, carousing, and gift giving were part of the holiday, and as you can see clearly, not much has changed through the years! I wish I could say that all my Christmas memories have been wonderful, but I can offer that almost all of them have been important to me. If I took the time, I could probably chart out where I have been on Christmas day for my entire life.
The first few Christmases would have been spent with my mother and father and their parents. I remember a visit from Santa during that time to our basement apartment. I asked my father recently who that was in the red suit, and he said he couldn’t remember. I still like to believe it was my maternal grandfather in the outfit, whether it was or not. After my parents split, I was with my great grandmother for a spell. Then my step-mother’s family came into the picture, and, for many years, I had 4 Christmases: one at my dad’s mother’s, one at my step-mom’s mother’s, one at my maternal grandmother’s, and one with my mom. It was a great way to get lots and lots of presents.
When I became a young adult, whoever I was in a relationship with became part of my holiday cavalcade of driving to and fro. It seemed that half the day on Christmas was spent in the car listening to yuletide classics on the radio. Christmas is best for me when you don’t have to go far, and you get to eat like a prince, and have a wonderfully warm, mellow day. I am quite sensitive, however, to any situation that doesn’t make the whole day of Christmas special. I still very much believe in the healing miracle of the day, and that will never change.
Writing about my holiday past on a website devoted to a change of consciousness seems a little strange, even to me, but I realize as I type this out that, as always, there is a beautiful intention to the way Spirit works on us when we allow ourselves to be guided. The way I come to write many of these posts is by letting myself be still, and just listening, allowing The Voice of Spirit to guide me to a place of revelation. I don’t feel I faithfully complete every task handed to me, but I am always willing to try if I allow my heart to be open enough. I find, sitting here, that I am sensitive writing about Christmas, because, for one thing, I worry that, in some way, by honoring my familial traditions, I may seem to not be honoring yours (if they happen to be different). I hope that you know if you come in contact with what I am, writing that I love, that the holiday season celebrates in my eyes all the people of the Earth, no matter what their belief system. I see the day of Christmas as a day of unification, because, in my experience, it has been the most effective day for bringing a peace to the planet, if only for a moment.
In addition to that, I try not to get too personal on this website for obvious reasons, the reasons of which are that I don’t want to turn the intention here into anything that steers it away from its stated goal of being about healing through discussing practical ways of Mind-Body-Spirit integration. Spirit says sometimes that you have to get a little messy to make your point, so it is OK, but I did want to share that I am doing my best to walk the tightrope wire between what is sacred and what easily becomes profane.
Partially because of the success of this website, I am now about to begin writing a book that is tentatively titled God is Everywhere From Here to There (for the curious, the title of the book preceded the formation of the website, hence the name of the website!). I have already made arrangements to put the book out with St. Martin’s Press, and I can say I am thrilled to be working with them. The book is going to be a spiritual memoir about how this boy named William came to find God, or, vice versa, how God came to find William. I can honestly say that my intention is to write a book that touches deeply on my life in a way that very few people know about, and I am excited by that, but also a bit intimidated. If you have ever wondered how I came to be so mercurial, reactionary, silly, or spiritually open, then this book will provide insight into that. It will be a huge undertaking for me, and might require at times for me to focus more on writing the book than on these posts, and also make choices about when to work on music full-time. It is a very exciting time to be alive on this planet, and I am very humbled to be part of the conversation.
Thank you for visiting EFHTT.com these past few months. I am going to take a few weeks break while I continue to set a new course for the website, and give you all a break from my well-intended diatribes! That is my gift to you for Christmas!! And yes, that would be a Christmas joke meant for all.
God Bless everyone, please have a very safe holiday. I will see you, feel you, know you all a little better in the New Year! Let’s hope that in 2010 we can start meeting in person and do some really important work together.
