Merry Christmas! 🎄🎅🤶𐫰

It's Christmas eve.  To anyone who reads this, I wish you peace and happiness.  

Like everything, the holiday means different things to different people.  Like most others, I have fond memories of Christmas' past from childhood.  As I look back, I was a greedy child 😂.  Every Christmas morning, in the cornucopia of gifts, I would eschew socks and go right for the toys!  What I most fondly remember was the excitement.  I could hardly wait for Christmas morning to arrive. I remember wanting to go to bed early on Christmas eve, because sleep was a way to pass the time quickly!   I loved being in my room at night with the warm glow of red electric candles on my windowsills.  It felt special....very cozy.  I loved decorating the tree with my sisters.  On Christmas morning, I could practically leap from my bed to the tree in only a few bounds (not really, but it felt that way).  It never occurred to me that not every family had a Christmas with a lot of love and a lot of presents.  I suppose that naivety is partly what fueled the magic of the holiday.  In the late 60s through the mid 70s, when I was a small child, in my view, the US was a good and honorable country, and no one ever fought over politics.  Your dad made a good living and could support the family on his one salary.   There was one set of facts everyone agreed on. Disagreements on opinions were respectful.  The world always seems simple to a child.  The 60's and 70's weren't simple though. We had just been through 3 assassinations, which scarred the populace, only I don't remember them (I was only 3 when RFK was shot).  The US was at war in Vietnam, but I knew no one in the war and had hardly any awareness of it.  The adults were nervous about Russia and nuclear weapons, but it was never discussed at home.  Watergate was discussed in the summer of '74 due to the congressional hearings.  In my world, it was one giant annoyance because the hearings pre-empted my busy cartoon watching schedule (self centered as I was).  The world was a complicated place, but how lucky was I to not have any perception at all of the hardships people faced and the fears so many had.  Inflation was a big issue in the 70s after Nixon went off the gold standard and broke the Bretton Woods agreement. There was an oil embargo too (but I think the breaking of the gold standard was the bigger issue).  I do remember the gold standard being discussed at home. I had no idea why it was important.  My dad was very much against ending the gold standard.  His family was poor during the great depression.  He was born during in '33 in the thick of it.  He understood the gold standard.  I had no idea of why it was important until the mid-2000'a when I started reading about how money and banking work.  My dad was right to be unhappy about it.  But back then, I was blissfully unaware.  In the later 70s, the issue became more prominent because people were struggling more.  There were gas lines for filling cars and even gas ratioing (there were certain days you could fill up based on your plate).  My parents talked about buying gold coins (they didn't).  Ultimately, the solution was that my mom took aa job.  We weren't poor by any stretch.  My parents had a house built new in 1966.  We had everything we needed and then some.  The world was complicated but I never noticed it. My days were filled with roaming the woods, playing games in the streets with the other kids and generally being outdoors most of the time. When not outdoors, I was watching cartoons or hanging out with friends listening to music.  I remember being a very happy child (until about 1979 when I was bullied in school).  Honestly, I wish everyone could have such a childhood (minus the bullying). 

I've always been intellectually curious about how the world worked.  It kind of goes with being a scientist. I read a fair amount (especially in the 2000s) and my obsessive inquisitiveness had opened my eyes to the true nature of the world, including the role the US has played in causing so much suffering on the planet.  The US became too powerful after WW2 and that power was at its peak in the 50's and 60's. By the 70s it began to wane and then we began our slow descent to the current moment.  Our country instigated coups and engaged in assassinations around the globe.  Documentaries like "the Corporation" and "why we fight" plus books like "the shock doctrine" and "confessions of an economic hitman" opened my eyes as to how corporations are sociopathically exploitative and how the US government is driven to also operate sociopathically to enrich its corporate oligarchs.  I don't want to focus on this though.  I'm not saying I should bury my head in the sand or that you should  I'm saying I should bring myself back to the magic of childhood.  There's no need for obsessive information gathering.  Honestly, I think that was a fear response.  I used to think that the more you know, the more you can anticipate something terrible happening (like a deep recession or a war etc).  You can't really,. Not by using the mind anyway.   All that obsessiveness was merely a protective instinct from whatever I feared most. Honestly, I was looking for new things to fear (as if the unknown itself is scary).  The fear in me is gone now.  That's the magic of spiritual awakening, it takes the fear away.  With nothing to fear, its easy to revert back to the innocent, child like way of being.  I can once again experience the magic of Christmas, because I'm not stressing about bills, nor angsting about a coming recession. I'm not worried about my job (I don't actually have one to worry about 😂).  I can just sit here and watch my tree with it's colorful lights blink away.  I can wonder what Christmas movie I'll watch later.  I can hope and pray for peace on earth.  I can wish for peace in the hearts of all mankind.  

What I've learned in recent years is that a lot of the suffering that exists is from lack of self love.  Our thoughts and feelings drive our realities.  The more self loathing or the more negative the self talk.....the more difficult the reality a person creates for his/herself.  And this is the entire problem.  Trump is a malignant narcissist and he was created by a sociopathic father and an emotionally distant mother.  He can't help being who he is, but I can say, he suffers a lot and then he projects his inner pain outwards towards others.  The lack of love he received in his formative years is creating this dark cloud over the US.  To be clear though, he is a reflection of a lot of collective pain and anger inside the US.  Many people have been left behind by neoliberal economic policies (we were betrayed by both parties), and even though they don't understand why they can't make ends meet, many are angry or depressed because of it. Yes, there are people who also loath themselves and pick on immigrants, black people or brown people or LGBTQ people as a means of making themselves feel better.  They have to feel superior to others to feel like they have any significance at all....how sad.   Also a lot of men these days are insecure about their masculinity.  It's harder to make a living. It's nearly impossible to support a family on one pay check and women are free to leave him if she so chooses. Gender roles have been changing and a lot of men haven't adapted. So  some men are reacting with increased misogyny towards women. They foolishly blame and resent women for all their problems.  All these factors have led to Trump's ascent into power.  He was a channel for their frustration and everyone chose what they saw in him. Yet, I think this fever will break in the next 1 to 2 years.  The rage anger and frustration has been expressed.  Trump didn't fix anything and only made it worse. Many people now know Trump exploited their vote and his power for his own gain and that the only person he's helping is himself.  Sure, he still has a lot of followers and at least 25% of the population who have become ego identified with him will probably stay that way until they pass.  The news media will ignore them once Trump is gone though.  They will then live in the shadows and represent the shadow side of the US collective consciousness until the shadow fades.

I can hope for peace in the hearts of mankind, and feel it will happen in time, as we ascend into the new age.  It won't happen overnight, but I can imagine a reality where that exists already.  I can try to remember that we all choose our paths and our roles before we come here.  Everyone experiencing suffering is actually choosing that for themselves in some way.  The MAGA world chooses it's fear and anger or greed.  I suppose I should remember this.  It's their journey and they will learn a lot of lessons from living in the reality they're creating.  There's peace in that thought, because it accepts who they are without judgement.  They are a part of us, so accepting them for who they are is like accepting more of ourselves. 

So, I've rambled quite a bit here...  I don't know, I guess I'm feeling circumspect about the holiday.  I'm not even sure a single soul reads this.  Whether you're a ghost from my past or someone who has a  lot of time on his/her hands, if you're reading this, I'm wishing you the merriest of Christmas holidays.  My siblings all live out west now and my daughter lives in Costa Rica.  So, its just me and my 2 cats....one I inherited from my daughter when she moved to Costa Rica and the other I fostered (asked by a friend), but I of course kept him.  So, whether you're celebrating by yourself or with your pets or with a large family, may you feel or sense the love and peace around you. Its always there if you take the time to sit quietly.  May you love and value yourself, as you should.  May you accept all others for who they are.  May you accept and  feel at peace with what's happened in the past and may you not fear the future, because all futures are merely fantasy (mostly incorrect fantasies at that).  May you enjoy all your present moments.  Maybe this is why the same word for being in the 'now' moment (being present)  is also the same word to represent a gift (present), because each now moment IS actually a gift.  

Merry Christmas.  💗

Trish