AncienTrails

The Day After

Winter                                Waxing Moon of Long Nights

The day after.  Today used to have a slightly disappointed feeling to it, a let down after the hopes of gifts given and gifts received, of inspiration hoped for too often replaced with sentimentality.  These are symptoms of our American way of Christmas, making it into a feastday of consumption and a watered down religious celebration.  I don’t have these feelings this year.

Why?  Hanuka made its contribution.  The lights of the menorah, the simple story of the lamp in the temple, a few prayers and a recognition of continuity in a cultural tradition replace the soaring rococo of incarnation, infant king, messiah, three kings, shepherds, the virgin birth.  I pulled away almost completely from Christmas this year, leaving me with a surprisingly refreshed and satisfied feeling.  As I said before, coming as it does just before Christmas every year the Winter Solstice  also centered me, led me down and in, rather than up, up and away.

That leaves me with these last 5 days of the year, days which the Mayans called the useless days.  Each year for many years I have devoted this time to study of a single subject.  This year I’ve chosen Daoism.  I want to increase my knowledge and practice of Daoism in the coming year and this will give me a good running start.

I have, too, committed to writing another book in the upcoming year.  Though I will continue to work on fiction projects, the book I want to write this year is one on days, days of the week, holidays, holy days.  It’s central theme will be making your own sacred calendar with an underlying conversation about the nature of time and our relationship with it.  I’ve been moving toward this project for years and this next year I want to take into concrete form.