For the first time in well over a decade, I’m truly feeling the holiday spirit this year.

It’s a relief. I was thinking I’d never feel it again…

 

I don’t know what happened to make me lose the holiday spirit. I suppose it was at least four-fold: I began to doubt (and still do doubt) what the church taught me about the man Jesus (as far as his being the Son of God and resurrecting from the dead goes); the immediate past White House Occupant, a scourge; the COVID-19 pandemic; and because I lacked the financial resources to engage in Christmas shopping. (Talk about a one/two/three/four knockout punch!) As a freelance writer, money has rarely been abundant enough to allow me to buy much for loved ones at Christmas time (or any other time).

 

That changed this year. I have two regular clients who are paying what great copy and content are worth, both of them women who are well aware that most women (which I’ve been pegged as for most of my life!)  get painfully shorted where money is concerned for what they do. As a result, I am no longer struggling to keep my head above water.

 

That’s a huge relief. I’m able to breathe easier.

 

I’m also focusing on the positive more than the negative, which has been difficult for the past number of years. There are still lots of problems, and too much pain and perversity in the world, but I now realize I’m not going to be able to do a whole helluva lot about it unilaterally, and if I can’t change it, I may as well focus on what I can change — which is this: I can return to my baseline optimism and gratitude, where my vibrational level is so much higher. Doing so gives me the energy and power to keep on keeping on and doing what little I can to move the needle toward justice and equity.

 

Walking, exercising, writing, hanging with my cats, rats, fish, goats and best friend are all vibration-raisers, so I’m doing more of that. I’m turning down work that doesn’t float my boat, realizing I don’t have to be all things to all people, or even all things to a single person. I can agree to do what I enjoy doing and leave the rest for someone else to do who enjoys doing whatever that is. I can say no to unreasonable requests, and I can correct misinterpretations of my creative abilities so I’m not working stressed out.

 

It’s a matter of finding the kind of balance that works for me.

 

So, yeah!  I’m taking better care of myself and that has made all the difference.  My effervescent spirit is reasserting its primacy in my life.  So maybe it isn’t just the holiday spirit I’m feeling, but an entire uplift that will survive past New Year’s Day and far into the future.

 

I think Deborah King‘s influence has been enormous. I’ve been following her and I’ve read her books. I sense a kindred spirit, but one who is farther along than I am as an evolved transcendental being of light.  I’ve always sensed spirit guides, always trusted my intuition, always followed my own path, but I haven’t meditated much (unless you consider writing a form of meditation, which I do — and in that realm, I’m a master!) or voiced my need into the ether for guidance.  I’ve just always felt, and assumed, that I have disembodied guidance, because I get intuitive insights practically non-stop, and have all my life. I guess I simply never disconnected from spirit when I assumed this earthly form!

 

I think I’m a Star Child and I think I’m a Wounded Healer. I may even be Two Spirit, although my masculine far outweighs my feminine.  I’m grateful for that because it kept me doggedly determined to live life the way that has been best for me. I have never been peer-pressured into anything that caused me or anyone else harm. I never drank, smoked, did drugs, or lived on the edge in ways that could be called reckless. I didn’t get married or even date to serve other people’s need to see me “engaging in life the usual way.” My life has been about animals, writing, learning, growing and pursuing the interests I felt passionate about, not finding a career that would make me a millionaire  or a mate to “complete” me. I’m complete without a mate.

 

I’ve always known where I wanted to get to, and I got there. I am there.  Especially now, since I appear to have finally walked through the dark cloud that has been over my head for a number of years: the truly insane  and incomprehensible drive to transform people who are completely incapable of transformation for whatever reason — stubbornness, lack of will, lack of skill, lack of learning, lack of insight into self, whatever the case may be.  Now I just consider them residing in an earlier incarnation than I’m in. They have a lot of maturing to do to be able to stop being so afraid, so they can feel the limitless unconditional love that is all around all of us all of the time.  I think fear drives most of what is wrong with the human world. I’m blessed because I feel no fear, except of the fearful. The gun-toting white dudes who can’t go to a fast food place or the grocery store, or a peaceful protest without a weapon on their hips scare me. But that’s justifiable fear. People that afraid are capable of claiming “self-defense because I feared for my life” and getting away with it… and that’s a dangerous precedent to set, in my opinion.  I’m glad I’m not afraid of diversity, peaceful protests,  teaching actual history to kids, and other hot button issues for so many.

 

Anyway, I need to start getting ready to head over to Lisa’s for Thanksgiving Dinner. (When we discovered the 24 pound turkey we bought wouldn’t fit into my oven broiler space, we realized we’d have to hold the event at her place.  And one of our expected attendees has dropped out, so it’s possible (barely) now to hold it at Lisa’s without getting claustrophobia (and the remaining four attendees are vaccinated and boosted, wearing masks, and physical distancing).

 

I HOPE YOUR THANKSGIVING DAY IS WARM, WONDERFUL AND WITHOUT CONTENTION.

I’ll catch you again on the other side.

 

GOBBLE ‘TIL YOU WOBBLE!