Ghosts of Christmas Past

One of the Secrets that They don't tell you is this: some of the pain you encounter in life comes not from discord with other people, but discord with your self -- or rather, competing versions of your self/selves.

I was always a romantic Christmas Nut. Most kids are, of course, but I kept right on being a Christmas Nut well into middle adulthood. The magick, the mysticism, the pageantry, the color, the music, the food: I could have been my own Lifetime Christmas movie. I followed my dear Aunt Nita in my love for Christmas, and following me was my niece Tina; all three of us worshipping at the shrine of Christmas, acolytes at the altar of Yule. Proof? Two boxes of ornaments, souvenirs from Germany, Hawaii, California, and various other locations. I hand-toted a bag full of precious blown-glass decorations from Rothenburg, Germany, in 1991, even making it off the last tiny prop plane with them unscathed when the plane caught fire on the runway.

But this week, I finally faced facts. I have become one of those Christmas curmudgeons who can't wait for the damn thing to be over; a Christmas minimalist who, in some years, shamefully doesn't even put up a wreath, much less a tree. I remember as a Baptist youth visiting old men and women in the community, and how sorry I felt for them; most of the time all they had was a small, shabby silver tree with a few threadbare decorations and a box of Queen Anne chocolate-covered cherries underneath. Never would I have foreseen a day when I would contemplate ditching all my decorations and taking a cruise.

There are a lot of life circumstances that have brought me here. Some are sad. My father died on December 23rd and although that's been nearly thirty years ago, my mother never regained her love of the holiday, and the last decade of her life was spent sunk in a miasm of chronic pain and depression; when Aunt Nita passed away, so did any feelings she had left for Christmas.

Other reasons are circumstantial. My husband and I are Pagan. We celebrate the Solstice and while that is fine religiously, opening presents on the 21st has always felt rushed and wrong. My internal rhythms simply will not adjust to having the Big Day be the 21st. He also works in the TSA, and so Christmas Eve and Christmas Day are frenzied workdays for him. Additional frenzy is that he provides most of the presents to his two autistic adult children, and so his focus is, rightly, on getting everything ready and delivered to them.

But even as I walked through all the mundane reasons why Christmas has lost the magick for me, I knew there was something else, some Factor X. Finally, I hit upon it. For a lot of folks, Christmas is when they experience Magick. But I live Magick 24/7. Every day I encounter Mystery. Miracles are not uncommon. I walk into a temple room filled with beauty and light and I call forth the holy Powers using signs and symbols as ancient and reverent as any Gregorian chant. I don't need Christmas magick anymore. What I used to get out of one season is with me now all the time.

I may still be on the Island of Misfit Toys, but .... I kind of like it here, with all the other misfits. This creates an internal friction as the old Me continues to reach out toward Christmas and the new Me shrugs and says, "meh." I do love the Otherworld energies of this time of year, however: so potent, so immediate. What I really wish is that I could go on some spiritual retreat from about the 20th to the 1st, not to escape per se, but to explore -- just strip it all down to the bare bones of who I have become, and encounter what this season really is, instead of the uneasy Ghost of Me At Christmases Past hovering about me. That's hard because the boundaries between Past and Future are so thin as to be vaporous at Yuletide -- one of the reasons why old family "stuff" rears its head now for so many people.

Miracle of miracles, there might be one thing that most Americans agree on: Christmas has gotten too big. With retailers putting trees out in September and holiday commercials appearing in October, we all bemoan the “Christmas creep,” how the holly-jolly season oozes earlier every year.  From the pulpits of the most fundamentalist church, to the local atheist discussion group, comes a tirade against the overwhelmingness of The Holiday. Proof that it’s big? We can call it “The Holiday” and everyone knows we are talking about Christmas and not, say, Memorial Day.

Yet despite our loathing of this trend, we all continue to buy into it as well as all other oversized, over-the-top  customs that have come to prevail here in the U.S. Who is to blame? The Big Boxes? Greedy Wall Street intent on manipulating us via guilt and the herd mentality? Us, for falling prey to these machinations?

No.

I blame Santa Claus.

Oh, I can hear the choruses of outrage now! “Blame Santa! Why … how – how COULD you?” howl some. “Er, dear – Santa Claus isn’t actually REAL, you know,” snicker others.

Well … my definition of “real” is a little more flexible than most. I’m an occultist. I look at the world through an expanded set of lenses, and when I turn my “occult-eye-for-the-mundane-guy” gaze onto American Christmas customs, I see enough juicy magick to bake ten thousand gingerbread cookies and hang them on a forest of trees.

First, let’s define “real.” If you are a materialist – if you believe that reality is defined solely by that which can be observed, measured, and quantified – this is a good time to stop reading and go check out some LOLCats. You’re welcome to stay, but you might want to prime yourself mentally. I recommend hot mulled wine.

To an occultist, reality is comprised of all the measurable stuff we observe and quantify –and a whole lot more. Beyond the physical and quantifiable exist many realms that most of us cannot see. These realms are manifold and highly diverse, but for the purposes of this article we can link them together and call them the “Otherworld,” and think of the Otherworld as a dimension that is contiguous to the physical world and with which we exchange metaphorical information and power on a constant basis, not unlike cells communicating with each other by sending information and power to each other via selective openings in their cell membranes.

The Otherworld affects us, and we affect the Otherworld. Humans are special: our intense imaginations and ability to conceptualize and visualize actually create things in the Otherworld.  A common occult terms for this is “thoughtform” and it’s basically a blob of cohesive energy that lives in the Otherworld. There are countless of these blobs of cohesive energy, major and minor and everything in between; whenever a human gives enough mental and emotional energy to something, it will take form and live as a “thoughtform” in the Otherworld, some for short periods of time, and some for eons.

There are some occult truisms about thoughtforms: 

·         #1: The more people giving energy to a thoughtform, and the longer they give it energy, the more powerful it will be until it takes on a life of its own.

We give thoughtforms energy by paying attention to them. Whenever we talk about, sing about, imagine, draw, or paint about a thoughtform, we make it stronger.

There are powers, however, beyond those we create. An occultist’s expanded reality also houses strong and distinct Archetypes (influences, “resonances,” and vibrations that we humans have identified and named, but that we believe have independent existence); we did not create them, although our attention adds to their already-mighty strength. Some of the most powerful are the influences/resonances that correspond to the seven planets of antiquity (Mercury through Saturn plus Sun and Moon: the lights visible to the naked eye) and the twelve astrological signs they rule, the good ol’ Sun signs of our daily horoscopes.

This leads to another occult truism:

·         #2: Aligning a human-created thoughtform with an archetype will produce a Being of immense power.

The Otherworld contains a third stream of energy: the souls of people who have died. That’s a complex topic in itself, but suffice it to say that when very special people who are seen as powerful or Godly or gifted or kind die, sometimes the folks they left behind begin to em-power their Otherworldly presence with continued reverence, love, faith, and even with physical offerings. The soul becomes a radiant Being in the Otherworld. We see this with Saints, Deified Ancestors, some of the Loa revered in Voudon, and spirits in conjure  and indigenous folk traditions such as Blackhawk, Marie Laveau, and Dr. Jose Gregorio Hernandez.

This leads to the next occult truism:

·         #3 Aligning a human-created thoughtform with an Empowered Soul will produce a Being of immense power.

You see where this is going. I have made this sound all very mathematical, but of course, all kinds of combinations can and do happen, including:

·         Archetype + Empowered Soul + Thoughtform = Being of Seriously Super Huge Immense Power

Mundane world, meet the occult reality of Santa Claus. Santa Claus, your secret is out!

The basis of “Santa” Claus is, of course, a saint: Saint Nicholas  celebrated on December 6. Nicholas was a 4^th-century bishop: pious, wealthy, and very generous.  When he died, his grave filled with “manna,” a substance believed to be sacred and filled with healing. Over the next 1,600 years, Saint Nicholas has been given much devotion in the form of prayers, candles, Masses, and belief. Many stories are told about his miraculous deeds of benevolence, generosity, and protection, especially concerning children. As Thoughtform-power married with the Soul of this kind, generous Hallowed Ancestor, He grew in the Otherworld and began to take on characteristics that we find familiar: children putting out stockings for his gifts, for example.

But putting out stockings for a few pieces of fruit or toys on a single saint’s feast-day is a far cry from the mega-extravaganza of our Christmas. What else is in the mix?

Hmmm…let’s look at some keywords we can use for an American Christmas, starting with Big. Make that Really Big. Expansive. Spreading Out. Overflowing. Benevolent. Generous. Overbearing. Gluttonous. Involved with Money. Giving. Abundance.  And Santa: Big. Really Big. Expansive! Flies through the Air in a magickal chariot. Generous. Gift-giving. Abundant. Good Cheer. Joy. Kindness. Jovial –

Wait. Yeah. JOVIAL. That’s it!

All these keywords are keywords that apply not just to Santa and to Christmas but to the planet Jupiter as well. If I want to do magick for an overflowing abundance of money, I call Jupiter. If I want to lighten the mood and bring a sense of expansive joy and cheer, I call Jupiter. This is what Francis Barrett’s book “The Magus” says about Jupiter:  “ Jupiter … conduces to gain riches and favour, love, peace, and concord …” Jupiter doesn’t just conduce to gain riches and favour, either. It conduces to make everything bigger, as contemporary astrologers who read for clients well know.

So. We have an Empowered, Revered Soul, or Saint; and we have a powerful planetary Archetype. And those two are linked.

What happens when we add our own thoughtform energy? And, why would Americans do such a thing?

It’s because the United States is a Jupiterian nation.

“But what,” you say. “Like the song says, we were born on the 4^th of July. Doesn’t that make the US a Cancerian nation, ruled by the Moon?”

Yes, the Sun was in Cancer, and yes, that counts, as you’ll see. But the best-accepted natal chart for America’s TIME of birth has the “ascendant” or “rising sign” as Sagittarius.* Sagittarius is a sign ruled by – you guessed it – Jupiter and is itself associated with generosity, optimism, and expansiveness. The U.S. has this overwash of Jupiterian qualities that sets the keynote for how we are.

The US’s sun sign is Cancer. This Moon-ruled sign loves family, food, and Old Times. Cancerian energy is frequently sentimental and always emotional, so we contribute that to our Christmas mix … but wait, there’s more!  Hmm, where was Jupiter in 1776? In the sign of Cancer – a place where it is astrologically regarded as “dignified” or especially well-suited. So Jupiter makes even our Cancerian love of “home for the holidays” (and holiday sweets, and holiday feasting) bigger.

So, to recap:

(1)    The US, its people and its institutions, are predisposed to Jupiterian ideals and images, such as Santa, by two prominent points in its natal chart. So the US collectively generates a whole lot of Jupiterian thoughtform energy by birthright.

(2)    Saint Nicholas, as a Saint, already has a strong presence in the Otherworld and himself carries a lot of Jupiterian energy.

(3)    Jupiter, as a Planetary Archetype, is a major pre-existing Being or stream of Power in the Otherworld.

Plus, consider the following:

The U.S. Thanksgiving holiday began to be observed on the final Thursday in November around 200 years ago. Abraham Lincoln codified this and Franklin Roosevelt changed it to the fourth Thursday in November. Thursday is the day associated with, and ruled by, Jupiter. Thanksgiving itself is a Jupiterian holiday, since it addresses the concepts of abundance and plenty.

The fourth Thursday in November usually falls at the beginning of the month of Sagittarius, which is ruled by Jupiter and conveys Jupiterian themes of expansiveness, optimism, and generosity.

Thanksgiving is regarded as the official beginning of the Christmas season.

So all the pieces were in place for Jupiterian Saint to marry up with US Archetypal Energy and US Thoughtform energy to create a true Christmas Colossus. AND to marry it with the themes of wealth and business, expanding the “Christmas Season” to well over a month.

This begs the question: is Santa “real?” To an honest occultist, the answer must be “yes.” If we recognize the reality and efficacy of obscure angelic names and images created via Qabalistic formula by a handful of magicians over a few hundreds of years; if little-known European Deities that have barely been talked about for a millennium can surge into power consciousness over the past 50 years; then Santa must be as “real” as any Deity, Saint, Angelic Being, Servitor, Loa, Master Soul or what-have-you.

What else could possibly happen when millions of people name Him, draw Him, sing about Him, fantasize about His activities, pray to Him, write to Him, visit Him, assume His Godform on a regular basis, and give Him offerings – yes, milk and cookies count as such – and when millions of those people are children who do so with full and unquestioning faith? Let me put it this way, brothers and sisters: You could take a worn-out flip-flop and give it a name, and if you poured that amount of faith-energy into it, you’d have the Great Lord Sandal come to visit every summer. But with the substrate of Soul and Archetype energy behind Santa – yeah. No doubt.

So Christmas in America is going to keep on spreading because it is in its Jupiterian nature to do so. And Santa is going to become more powerful and more ubiquitous. And you bet your sleigh full of toys I’m putting an image of Him on a Yule altar, along with Frau Holl, and He’s getting milk and cookies and maybe a shot of good whiskey, and a candle and incense, and I’m invoking the heck out of Him with full expectation that He will pour forth his marvelous, happy, wonder-working, abundant magick into my life, at least until Epiphany.  Merry Christmas and  IO DIA HO HO HO.

* This would be the Sibley chart: http://www.stariq.com/Main/Articles/P0004335.HTM

On August 7 I had a new blog post all planned out. The theme was the pentagram and the human body: the "[hu]man the microcosm" we've all seen, but with anatomical and functional correspondences to the Elements and the five points. It was going to be a useful and original map that updated what's become a bit of a Wiccan cliche, plus it was to serve as an introduction to the next several posts...

...none of which got written, because as I was sipping a new, healthy probiotic beverage and exulting in my cleverness, my truck got smashed into by a man fumbling for a cigarette. And I had something to actually heal (a broken wrist bone, contusions, and a scared and scarred spirit) as opposed to merely improve (my fat content and muscle tone).

So I've been thinking a lot about how we put ourselves back together again after life's Humpty-Dumpty incidents. The car accident was firmly in the realm of Air and came after five weeks of Air craziness and the worst. Mercury. retrograde. ever. Yet my healing began with Air, also: the first thing I did was invoke the power of relationship, by calling  two friends to help take care of me while my husband was out of town. 

I also thought about the torn ligaments and fragmented bone under the cast, and how every minute, cells were dividing, enzymes were switching proteins on and off, old bone fragments were being broken down, and blood, lymph and nutrients were being shunted over to the fracture. How does this happen? How can you take a bone that is broken, and six weeks later, voila! it's no longer broken! That's hard to do, as anyone who has ever tried to gorilla-glue the handle back on their favorite mug will tell you.

For that matter, how can we grow new humans at all? How does a an egg and a sperm  come out to be a baby? Yes, genetics and all that, but that infinitely intricate process of switching on and off, of cells "knowing" where to go to make toes, which differ from ovaries, which differ from eyeballs, which differ from hair: what is that intelligence?

From this occultist's point of view, it is the Archangel Raphael*. Raphael's name means "God who Heals" or, as I prefer, "Healing of the Divine" (because it is a gender-neutral term). Angels are messengers of the Divine. A message is a thought or a communication, so I often think of Them as Divine thoughts that are tuned to particular purposes. Thought is Intelligence, and so over the past few weeks, I have come to regard Raphael as that Divinely Intelligent agency within my cells that knows how to mend an injury and restore the flesh to more-or-less its original form.

And it is Raphael that can help the worse injury: my newfound tendency to jump and hyperventilate whenever I hear a loud BANG; my occasional worry over sending my clients elsewhere. In the Western Mystery Tradition, Raphael is often associated with the Element of Air, which is also thought and mental issues, and travel, and relationships. May Raphael's Divine Intelligence continue to heal my thoughts and strengthen my relationships along with the bone in my hand, and may I remain mind-full of the miracle of mending and healing taking place in my body right now.

*This image is from an Archangel series by a fabulous artist named Briar. All Briar's art is amazing. Go check it out.

First Whirlings

O my Body! I dare not desert the likes of you... I believe the likes of you are to stand or fall with the likes of the Soul, (and that they are the Soul...) --Walt Whitman, "I Sing The Body Electric"

Yesterday, 17 July 2012, a profound thing occurred. For the first time since I joined the greater Pagan world in 2000, I witnessed an honest and moving discussion of one of our community's hidden problems: the high levels of serious obesity and the various co-morbid health problems associated with it. 

I say "hidden," but of course, it's really not. Anyone who gets out and mingles with other Pagans at all perceives that we surely exceed the national average in the number of obese people participating in our scene, and which says a lot, given that over one-third of Americans are now obese. We just haven't talked about it much. Why? Well, Pagans are a People who are welcoming -- because in many places, we have been made to feel unwelcome. We are a People who are tolerant of what mainstream culture views as different or eccentric -- because in many situations, our own differences and "eccentricities" have earned us scorn, derision, and persecution. As a People, we hate preaching, and we especially hate being preached to, because too often we've had other people cramming their "should's" and "ought's" down our throats. Many of us have a strong connection to the Great Goddess, Whose beautiful Body comes in all shapes and sizes and colors and qualities, as evidenced by the many different ways She has been depicted.  And there are more subtle reasons I suspect, having to do with wounding, and the nature of energy, and grounding magickal energy, some of which I'll talk about in future blogs.

So we have tended to ignore this Very Large Thing, pun intended, in the center of the room because we really have not figured out how to address it, nor even admitted that it needed to be addressed. This puts up in the very ironic position of loving the Earth as Divine, and cherishing the Earth, all the while ignoring those pieces of Earth most intimate to us: our own bodies. We claim Power and we study how to gather and store and wield Power, all the while depleting ourselves of the most basic form of Power, which is the ability to actually get up and do shit.

This problem -- and yes, I call it and claim it as such -- is personal to me. I have fought a weight problem all my life. Sometimes the problem was that I was too fat. Sometimes the problem was that I thought I was fat when I really wasn't. I was a chubby kid who would rather lay in bed and get a lost in a book. I was not one to go out and play, and in fact, I could not do some things that other kids did with ease; I lacked strength and coordination. I suffered through 40 years of low self-esteem, shame, and self-hatred as a result of my weight issues, real and perceived. Age combined with the love and validation of my husband helped me heal from this. I practiced a lot of self-denial and extreme dieting, although thank Goddess I never became anorexic or bulimic.

And yet, I'm still fat, and at age 51, it's easy to perceive the toll it's taken on me. I'm not exactly morbidly obese, but I'd feel better and be healthier if I took off 40 pounds and kept them off. My husband is also fat in that way. We've both made strides toward greater health by exercising more and limiting sugar and simple carbohydrates, but we both need to do more.

I am a Priestess. That is my calling in life. I did not bear children of my womb; I consider my tradition members and many of the people in the greater eastern NC Pagan community to be my "young'uns." It's very important to me that they be happy, healthy, and effective witches, priests, priestesses, and congregational Pagans. As this kind of "magickal mama," I have always felt it is my duty both to teach and to model behaviors that would help my community members achieve this. Now that both local and national conversations on the subject of Pagan obesity have been initiated, I feel it is important that I share my own thoughts and experiences with members of my community. They can benefit from my experiences and knowledge, and I benefit by having accountability. If I am blogging on Pagan health issues, I'll think twice before ordering that mocha frappe.

Here is what you WILL see on this blog:

• Thoughts about the energetic trappings around obesity and related health issues. I am a Witch. I see something, I think "what are the energetic underpinnings to this phenomenon?" That's how I frame the world, Seen and Unseen. Why? Because I am a Witch. 
• Archetypes/personality traits within our community and how they are wonderful but maybe not so much for vibrant physical health - and how to work on that.
• Musings about the national culture and how it contributes detrimentally to basic health - with suggestions on how to work with it.
• Lots of reinforcement about how absolutely miraculous, beautiful, and breathtakingly wondrous every single body is, without exception. Yes, that means you.
• Information about the body and movement I learned as a massage therapist; or, "Damn, I Wish They'd Taught Me That In High School."
• A focus on nurturing, on partnering with Shadow, and on effectively parenting the Inner Child in order to alter detrimental behaviors, achieve goals, and transform into even healthier and more effective witches, priests, priestesses, and pagans.
• Profanity. I enjoy cussing, and it's my blog, so I'm going to do it when I want to.

Here is what you will NOT see on this blog:

• Advocacy for one type of diet vs. all the others. I myself achieve my best health when I limit sugar and simple carbohydrates, and when I focus on lean meats, vegetables, and healthy fats in my diet. I think that is true for many people. It is certainly not true for all people. So while you'll hear me talk about this, I know that you might need to be a vegan or a vegetarian or someone who eats steak every day, or follow the recommendations for Type A- blood, or whatever. People are different, bodies are different, ethics are different, and our bodies needs often change over time as well. 
• Anything movement-oriented that has the words Insanity or Extreme or Exxxtreme or that is loud or that exhorts me (or you) to MOVE, MOVE, MOVE! I hear that shit and I just quail. Movement is hugely important but it does not have to EXXXTREEME! or insane or loud or nerve-jangly. If that stuff floats your boat, good for you! It sinks mine. (And when you blow out your quadratus lumborum muscle, come see me at my office.)
• NO SHAME. Period. FUCK SHAME. Shame is almost always inappropriate and toxic and leads down the hellish path to the very detrimental behaviors we want to transform.   Shame helped rob me of happiness for the first 40+ years of my life. It has NO PLACE with me now. I took first degree training with a man named Tiny, a man who weighed maybe 500 or more pounds and who'd had a really rough life: cigarettes, drugs, booze, carnivals, prison. His body was just about worn out, and in fact, he died two years later in his mid-40s. But his Soul, his "secret and most innermost self" was Pure, Lovely,  Old, and Wise. You could see it in his Light-filled eyes. You are beautiful. Yes, you. And you are still beautiful even if you buy a gym membership and never go, or start to eat healthy and then snarf down a half gallon of ice cream. Yes, you are still beautiful and wonderful despite all that and more. It's true, you know.
• Tolerance for trolls or inappropriate comments. What is inappropriate? Why, whatever I think is inappropriate. If you are an acquaintance of mine (virtual or real-life), you will not be doing this, of course, but rumor has it that many bloggers, especially female bloggers, sometimes get nasty comments. I will delete them and ignore them. I am Queen of my sandbox and I get to make the rules.

I would love to post daily but that is probably not realistic, so I'm going to aim for a couple of times a week, and perhaps I can exceed that low expectation. In the meantime, friend me on Facebook and scroll down to yesterday (7/17) and look at the discussion that tacked off of Peter Dybing's article, which I reposted.