What if...?

What if there had been no special baby born in a cave under the stars? What if all we had had to celebrate the past few thousand years were millions and millions of babies born under the stars -- small humans, growing into wise humans, with no special being to mediate between us and the heavens, no special being given the task of uniquely loving, laughing, bleeding, dying, rising? What if there were just us, the lovely earth, the watching
stars? What if.......?

What if all the love and tenderness for earth and each other had to come from us alone, witnessed only by the stars? What if the gods themselves have decreed that we alone hold responsibility for the wonder and fragile beauty of this planet? Could we not then do a better job of all this? -- with no one to fall back upon but ourselves? I'm not suggesting that there are no deities or Watchers out there, only that perhaps we have too long depended upon rescue from "out there" instead of focusing upon the innate wisdom and compassion long ago seeded within us.

In this season of Light's birth from the all encompassing, holy, pulsing Darkness, perhaps we could remember that what's really being born, hopefully, is our own ability to mature and navigate gracefully through both Darkness and Light, for the dance between these seeming opposites profoundly enriches the deeper wisdom lying too long unclaimed within us.......

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Time, at Holiday Time

Are our Holidays supposed to be, like the old fashioned photo, at the left? Wouldn't it be nice if they could be? But, that's pie-in-the-sky dreaming. No one's Holiday Time is as quietly lovely as that. Oh well....

But unless we want ours to be a 'horror,' we have to grab the reins. Presents have to gotten and wrapped, no matter how I wish for less of them. Less is not going to happen, this year. Get over it. Get the present 'thing' done and out of the way and grab my own peace, that way.

But.... And there's always a 'but.' If one adds activities, one has to subtract some others. We don't get more than the usual 24 hours, just because we want/need to do more stuff. S0000 - what has to 'give'?

With me, it's my Net Life. Cutting back on it some, that is. I already spend too much time on the Net, 24/7. Yes it's fun. But yes, it can get less so, at times too. No question, at this time of year... Something has to cut back and that something is my Net Life Time. -sigh- This is always bitter-sweet for me. Yes, more freedom feels good. Especially when there are necessary things to fill the free time. But I'm always torn, when triaging Net Time.

So ~ I'm always that way. Live with it! :-) But learn to do it gracefully or not, I have to do it.

Photo Credits

Carp Diem!!!

Carp diem!!!

Yesterday I went to the wake of a 41 year old wife, mother and daughter of a friend of mine. And had been to the wake of this friend's sister, only a few weeks ago. But her sister was in my H.S. class and had lived life. Whereas this woman was so very young. This wake, was much harder. So much harder.

I am sorry for her husband, daughter and all her extended family. But I feel the most for her mother. Such nice people. So many heartaches. More than just these two... And yet she goes on. My heart just aches for her.

What I take from all deaths, is the desire to live my life fully. And what I take from this kind of pain to a nice family, is... there is no one "up there," watching over us. Or giving us rules. Or having a happy or a painful place waiting for us after death, depending on how we follow "the rules." Perhaps a Creator 'banged the big bang.' But if so, our huge Universe was then forgotten. And left to evolve on its own, in whatever way happened.

And we tiny little beings, who evolved on this one tiny speck of a planet, in the huge Universe, we are of no interest to this Creator. {If there was one.} And there are many reasons to see glitches in the work of such a Creator, even though everything is quite amazing, at first glance.

Anyway, for me and people like me, this belief is actually more easy to live with, than all the so-called-comfort, derived by people of faith. I don't have to see myself as "fallen." Or see the Earth as just a short stop, while waiting to die and go to some paradise. I can see the Earth as it is. Full of wonder, but not perfect. And that's just the way it is! No need for reasons for this or for that. No supposed "revealed rules" to follow. I'm able to use my own mind to figure out how to live my life.

If people need/receive true comfort from their religious beliefs, then good for them. I do not ask them to stop, so doing. What I do ask... Is that they do not preach their views to me. That they live their life. And let me live mine.