Jewish at Solstice/Jewish at Christmas

The feeling of something about to happen is in the air....and something is about to happen. Today is the day for all of the last minute shoppers rushing everywhere to finish up before Christmas Eve and then the quiet will descend arriving the next morning, Christmas Day. I appreciate the stopping to really recognize the quiet that comes.

I was invited to participate on Saturday in a Solstice ritual "Dreaming the Dark". I was asked to serve as a channel for the Dark and bring through healing for those in the circle. I made a journey to meet the Dark to let it know about the event that would be taking place and asked it what I needed to know in order to be of service. Here’s what I was told: Dark is everywhere. We are enveloped and infused in the Dark. It is where all breath, all ideas, images, feelings reside and join with us. I asked, well what is the Light then, the “state” that all seek. The Light is what you experience when you take action, expression, of what joins with you in the Dark. When I entered the ritual circle, I waited to feel moved by the Dark to offer my presence to those in the circle who needed healing. What I experienced was enormous compassion, love essence, and the quietest stillness. Not only was I honored to be asked and to have served, I was also fortunate to receive all that came through me.

Although most of the world was filled with colored lights, the lights we experienced were candle flames on birthday cake. My Father's Mother was born on Christmas Day. She died the summer that she would have turned 100 years old. I spent every single Sunday at her house while growing up, but on Christmas Day....that was a big celebration. My Father was the baby of 11 children. Everyone would arrive in Baltimore, no matter how far away they lived or where they would travel from, to celebrate Bubba's birthday. My Bubba lived on a very busy street directly across from a big city park, Druid Hill Park, where the Baltimore City Zoo resides. Driving to Bubba's in our packed car on Sundays was always a noisy, bustling ride. But never on Christmas Day. The quiet had arrived. Even in our car did it dwell.

Bubba's house was always filled with sweet aromas, lilacs, stuffed cabbage, delicious soups and big fat black breads that like a football she would take under her arm, and she had gazundta arms, to saw her sharpened knife into. She always wore layers of jewelry....necklaces, pins, earrings. She would take me into her arms and hug me so tight til it hurt, til my face was pressed against her jewelry, and then she would kiss me so hard and blow on my neck strong enough to make my neck sound like Louis Armstrong's trumpet. Then she would slice me a real thick piece of that black bread and smother it with "real" salted butter....and she'd smile as she gave it to me. And if that wasn't lucky enough, sometimes she would take me into her bedroom with her to sit on her bed while she looked for whatever it was she was looking for....she would open her deep bureau drawers and dig around and pull out some of her tucked away tiny boxes or rolled up embroidered handkerchiefs, knowing that she was making magic for me. Sitting charmed waiting for a glimpse of the enchantment inside those boxes and handkerchiefs.... she always gave me something.

Christmas Day for me is a day filled with my life's rememberences, of my Bubba no longer here, my parents no longer here, of the silence that never fails to descend and envelope me with the love that those memories bring.

For those of you celebrating, I wish for you a still and colorful Merry Christmas!
Love,
Jacke