This is Geo Trevarthen's Celtic Shamanism newsletter. You're getting it because you or someone else signed up on my website www.celticshamanism.com. To unsubscribe just reply to this email with 'unsubscribe' in the header.

In common with many this time of year, I've been reflecting on sentiment and family. It seems every movie on this time of year is calculated to leave us in floods of tears. Yet how much of all this sentiment is genuine, and how much geared to open our wallets?

I'll never forget a girl I went to art school with responding to our art history teacher who was highly down on sentiment and all things romantic. The girl in question had married her high school sweetheart before starting college, which let her in for more ribbing. She said that we shouldn't throw the baby out with the bathwater, that the commercially encouraged sentiment might be like some big acetate and plastic lace heart, but hers was like the silk ones with handmade lace that her grandmother made.

I think people in the past had a much clearer idea of sentiment and romance, both their uses and their limitations. Read this excerpt from Charles Dickens, author of 'A Christmas Carol,' for example. (The whole thing is well worth reading via the link below.)

On the website, it says: "...in "What Christmas Is As We Grow Older," Dickens encourages us to not forget the past joys and loves we have known, in order to shut out the pain of loss. Rather, we defeat the loss by celebrating the memories of times and people once close to us."

And is our life here, at the best, so constituted that, pausing as we advance at such a noticeable mile-stone in the track as this great birthday, we look back on the things that never were, as naturally and full as gravely as on the things that have been and are gone, or have been and still are? If it be so, and so it seems to be, must we come to the conclusion that life is little better than a dream, and little worth the loves and strivings that we crowd into it?

No! Far be such miscalled philosophy from us, dear Reader, on Christmas Day! Nearer and closer to our hearts be the Christmas spirit, which is the spirit of active usefulness, perseverance, cheerful discharge of duty, kindness and forbearance! It is in the last virtues especially, that we are, or should be, strengthened by the unaccomplished visions of our youth; for, who shall say that they are not our teachers to deal gently even with the impalpable nothings of the earth!

Therefore, as we grow older, let us be more thankful that the circle of our Christmas associations and of the lessons that they bring, expands! Let us welcome every one of them, and summon them to take their places by the Christmas hearth.

Welcome, old aspirations, glittering creatures of an ardent fancy, to your shelter underneath the holly! We know you, and have not outlived you yet. Welcome, old projects and old loves, however fleeting, to your nooks among the steadier lights that burn around us. Welcome, all that was ever real to our hearts; and for the earnestness that made you real, thanks to Heaven! Do we build no Christmas castles in the clouds now? Let our thoughts, fluttering like butterflies among these flowers of children, bear witness! Before this boy, there stretches out a Future, brighter than we ever looked on in our old romantic time, but bright with honour and with truth.

Dickens, from 'What Christmas is as we grow older.'
http://www.sheeplaughs.com/scrooge/whatchristmasis.htm

I think he's also saying, via this and the rest of the essay, that while we must acknowledge and appreciate our old passions, with age our future becomes brighter than in 'the old romantic time' with the steadier lights that burn round us and honour and truth supporting us.

In Old Irish, the concept of 'truth' is called fír (pronounced feer). It's not the truth of telling, but the truth of being. Fír flatho, the 'truth of nobles,' the truth held by the king, was considered to be the lynch pin that held the universe together, and maintained cosmic order. This truth stands at the centre of all our beings, part of the diamond of self that is incorruptible, but can be covered by other things — like out of control emotions and avarice and ego.

We all experience the sense of 'flatness' after the holidays. Perhaps our every expectation wasn't fulfilled, the perfect gift, the New Year's kiss — so many agendas surround this season. It's actually all about the light coming from the darkness. Whether we see that as the return of the sun, the birth of Jesus in Bethlehem, or one of the various Pagan festivals that caused his birth to be 'set' at this time by the founders of the Christian Church, the season is 'darkest before the dawn' time which becomes the light that dispels fear for children and grownups alike.

For many, it is a time of year when all their disappointments and unfulfilled desires conflate, when all the losses of the past year seem the greater in the face of others' apparent gains and fullness. Yet often, when we get what we think we want it reveals itself to be even more disappointing, just like those presents that looked so brilliant in the TV commercials but fell to bits on the day.

We want a 'better' one. That goes for everything, from our gifts to members of our families. But what if we took a holiday from want; from our own habitual dissatisfactions? The lights are beautiful, in and of themselves, we needn't be with anyone to see them, we need no witness to our own pleasure or appreciation — except the theophanies, the divine beings, who see all and appreciate all with us and through us. The God who is with and within us.

What would a bigger house, or a better car, or 'that' dress or pair of earrings do for us? What are they for? Would we not forget to appreciate and enjoy them as quickly as most of what we ever got for Christmas? What about the delusion of a 'perfect' partner? (Someone who doesn't yet know our flaws, just as we don't know theirs.) The grass is never greener. What about a better self — whiter teeth, flatter stomach. The thing is, we'll still be in here, the same person with the same attitudes and emotions, if we don't change it.

All things are transformed by appreciation. The perceived 'imperfection' of our circumstances is transformed by the realization that we might not be here to experience any circumstances. The 'difficult' spouse, parent, child or sibling looks a whole lot more wonderful in light of that Dickens piece. In his time we didn't have to 'freshen the mind' with the thought of death to appreciate life — we would have been surrounded, as he was, by the memories and likenesses of dead loved ones, spouses, children, siblings. Many would not have stayed around long enough for us to get fed up with them. A third of us women would have died in childbirth.

The advancing years have brought vast benefits — but of course, there are now way too many of us, consuming too much, because we haven't learned to balance the advances with limits we impose upon ourselves. A recent Horizon  program on the BBC, called 'How Many People Can Live on Planet Earth?' saw Sir David Attenborough investigating the world population crisis. One researcher used the simple means of dividing global productivity for food and resources by global population to calculate each person's 'fair share.' Someone in India used half of their 'share,' someone in China used all of theirs, in the UK we used twice our share and in America, over four times. What we consume to fill the void of our dissatisfactions is what others need to survive. Nothing is really just personal anymore.

The best gift any of us can unwrap this Christmas is a fresh point of view. A passionate appreciation of the actuality of our lives, of each person, each view, each sunrise and sunset, each turn of the year. If we truly appreciate what we have, play with the toys we already have, we'll find that they satisfy us more than our endless questing for more and better.

Remember how children used to have one favourite toy they did everything with? The rabbit was an astronaut, a cowboy, the host of a tea party— they didn't need an astronaut toy, a cowboy toy and so on. My mother's favourite sailor doll, Jack, was taken to sea by her father, from which trip she received photos and letters from Jack (orchestrated by Dad.) I'm quietly 'culling' my own children's less played with toys to charity. I realised my daughters don't generally have the same bond with their toys as I did with mine. The variety is a loss, not a gain, for them.

It's the same with relationships with people. In Dickens' day, damn few people left their spouses. It wasn't always ideal to stay at all costs, if a woman was being beaten for example, but in the way of things today, it's an option readily turned to. Yet it is not a sin for a person to disappoint us — at Christmas or for the rest of the year. Do we always give satisfaction? In Dickens' day, as well, the ever present spectre of death meant that everyone was keenly aware that the spouse might be carried away by the next plague. It must have made people more appreciative. Can we conjure this spirit without constantly being shocked by mortality? I think so.

Look at your dear ones with the forgiving and appreciative gaze you would wish to return to you, even if you are absolutely bloody furious due to the wars of the toothpaste tube or the dish stacking. What fools we are. They are just another person, star of their own movie, in which you are a supporting player. My friend Deodi, a Lakota medicine woman, prayed movingly for people to the Great Spirit, saying 'They are just a person, just trying to be happy, just trying to live a happy ordinary life, please help them!'

God dismembered Him / Her / Itself into all that is for them, and for all other beings, as much as for you, and if you can't appreciate that creation at a time of fellowship, who will — and when?

Don't let your family and friends go to their ends without having the chance to show you all the good that's in them, and without showing them all the good in you. That's what we're here for. As a mum I often try and picture a person I am upset with, intimate or no, as a little baby. We all came into the world in this utterly helpless and utterly engaging form, supported by unseen hands.

It's one reason why I love the Christmas story. God coming into the world as a small helpless baby, humble, hunted and vulnerable but attended by angels, is a beautiful story. There's a retelling for children I love called 'The Witness,' by Robert Westall and Sophy Williams. It's from the point of view of an Egyptian temple cat who is stolen and ends up in the same stable as the holy family. It's a nice 'Continuum Christian' book, acknowledging all the good of ancient traditions yet accepting the fresh revelations of Christianity.

Whatever traditions you choose to honour at this time of year, appreciate every moment of them. Make every effort to love the God/dess in everything, to love the goodness in everything and everyone. If we can just drop our own agendas, our lists, our expectations we can see all Creation radiant with God's light, and vivified with God's breath.

Put that way, surely it's not so very hard to love.

This newsletter has come out of some tough times for my family and myself over the last couple of months that have caused me to re-evaluate some of my core assumptions. That's always a good thing, but it's not been easy for any of us. Please remember us in your prayers and journeys, especially my little girls, Téa and Aurora, and husband David. (Any messages from your guides would be welcome if you happen to receive any.)

Know that you're all in my prayers and journeys as well.

I send blessings to you and all your loved ones.

Le Gràdh agus Beannachdan,
With Love and Blessings,