Tag Archives: Advent

Winter Flame

Flames of Winter

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The darkness of the whole world cannot swallow the glowing of a candle.  ~Robert Altinger

Winter FlameChristmas. Hanukkah. Yule. Whether you come from a single faith tradition, or from a family like mine, that blends and merges traditions from several cultures, there is no shortage of winter holidays to choose from.

All are radically different. Christmas celebrates the birth of Christ. Hanukkah remembers the Maccabees and their defeat of the Seleucids as well as the rededication of their temple and the miracle of the oil, which was only enough for one night, but lasted for eight. Yule originated as a Nordic and Germanic midwinter celebration that involved feasting and gift-giving (and in the oldest celebrations, sacrifices).

And yet, these winter holidays all have something in common as well – aside from the tendency to celebrate with incredibly delicious, albeit unhealthy foods. They all bring light to the longest nights of the year.

True, in this age of technological wonders when we can have books in our hands at the touch of a button, and get antsy when we’re away from our smart-phones or tablets for more than a few minutes, and are limited in our ability to work late into the wee hours, not by waning daylight, but only by our stamina and the amount of caffeine we’re willing to ingest, we no longer rely on candles or firelight for physical illumination.

And yet…

And yet we light candles to mark the progress through Advent.

We light them, one at a time, to count the eight days of Hanukkah.

We build fires in our hearths as symbolic representations of the bonfires our ancestors might have danced around, or we build actual bonfires and invite our friends to dance with us.

We fill our homes with candles that represent nothing more than a cozy glow, and we gather ’round our gas logs or Franklin stoves even when our houses are fitted with central heating systems, because there’s something – some magical thing – about fire that seems to drive away the stress and darkness of winter in a way that electric light never can.

I think we forget, sometimes, that the holidays aren’t always merry and bright. They’re not always full of smiling faces and joyous laughter.

These winter holidays come to us at the end of the year, which means they’re both an ending, a sort of finish line we’re all racing toward, and a final hurdle we must overcome before we have the opportunity to start anew. We fill our homes with those colorful candles and crackling fires as much to keep the shadows at bay and drive away the darkness, as we do to celebrate the light.

Our flames aren’t some form of denial, though. Rather, they’re sort of a nightlight for our souls. They keep our hearts warm and our homes welcoming, and remind us that all winters end.

Yule comes with the Winter Solstice on December 21st. Christmastide and Hanukkah coincide this year, for they both begin on the twenty-fifth. Whether you’re celebrating one of those old holidays, or you’ve embraced something newer, like Kwanzaa or Chalica – or even Festivus – may the flames you ignite keep you warm in body and soul this winter.

 

Originally written for Modern Creative Life

 

Sandy Klaws

Yes, Marina, There Is a Sandy Klaws

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Sandy Klaws

 

A message overhead via the A-Sea-and-Sea Conch Network:

Dear King Neptune,

I am thirty-two cycles old. Some of my mer-friends say that there is no such thing as Sandy Klaws. I think they’re wrong. The Great Kraken says, “If you hear it in a shell, it’s so.” Please tell me the truth. Is there a Sandy Klaws?

From,

Marina Wavesong
The Cove of the Seven Sea Stars
The Warm Part of the Ocean

And the reply comes as follows:

Dear Marina,

Your little mer-friends are wrong. They are cursed with exposure to Landwalker ways and have lost the innocence and magic of being OceanKind.

Yes, Marina, there is a Sandy Klaws. He exists as certainly as the tidepools, ocean currents and kelp forests exist, and you know that they abound to help sustain the lives of you and your family, as well as providing beauty and joy.

Alas, how dreary would be the seas be if there were no Sandy Klaws! It would be as dreary as if there were Marinas. There would be no pearls to dive for, or whalesongs to listen to, or dolphins to play with. Instead, we would be as limited as our Landwalking kin, without the shimmer of scales and tails to gladden our existence.

Not believe in Sandy Klaws? You might as well not believe in shifting to having two legs when you wish to walk on sand!  You might get your papa, and your friend’s papas, and all the mermen in the ocean to watch in every waterspout on Christmas Eve, but even if they did not see Sandy Klaws arriving, what would that prove? The most real things in the seven seas are those that no mermaid can touch or hold.

Have you ever been able to capture the green glow of phosphorescence floating in the water? Of course not, but that doesn’t make it any less real. No one can imagine all of the wonders that swim unseen and unseeable in the deepest depths.

You may pry open the oyster’s shell to see how a pearl is created, but there is a veil shrouding the unseen abyss that not even the cleverest mermaid, or the united talents of all the merfolk who ever lived could push aside. Only faith, fancy, love, romance, and ocean magic can draw open that curtain and allow a view of the beauty, glory, and mystery beyond. Is it all real? Ah, Marina, in all the ocean there is nothing else more real and everlasting.

No Sandy Klaws? Thank the Mother Ocean that he lives, and lives forever.  A million tides from now, Marina  – nay – ten times ten million tides – he will continue to foster joy in the hearts of  mermaid kind.

 

(With apologies to Frank Church.)

Counting Days

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I can’t remember a year when I didn’t have an advent calendar.

For most of my life, these tangible countdowns to Christmas were simple affairs: a pretty, seasonal picture (sometimes religious, sometimes not) with perforated doors, one for each day. You wuld fold open the flap, and inside would be another picture, an inset of the greater image, perhaps, or an enhancement. One of my favorite calendars had an image of a Christmas tree in a Victorian bay window, and every door added an ornament.

It wasn’t until I was in college that I learned about advent calendars with ‘stuff’ in them. Now, usually this ‘stuff’ consists of cheap, waxy milk chocolate, but apparently there are some that come with toys, as well. When I learned about them, I spent five minutes feeling gypped, and then I realized I liked the old-school version where the only treasure hidden behind the open door was my own imagination, sparked by the ever-dwindling number of days until the Big Event.

Of course, we count days throughout the year, not just during advent, not just in December.

We make red Sharpie x’s across the calendar squares that march us toward the next deadline, the next paycheck, the next special occasion, the next vacation.
We open our own doors and windows, and we find whatever life offers, and some days it’s as precious as a baby in a bed of straw, and other days it’s the manure from the ox in the corner, but we keep on counting.

Counting up: I’m five, ten, sixteen, twenty-one, thirty, forty-five.
Counting down: Christmas, the new year, Valentine’s Day, tax day, another birthday.

I read about my friends who have advent calendars with pockets that hold treats for their children, and I’m wistful for the days when I was innocent enough to believe marking a day on a calendar, picking a toy out of a pocket, burning the candle down to the next mark, held some kind of special magic.

And maybe, just maybe, they did.

And maybe, just maybe, recent years have led me toward virtual Advent calendars like #musicadvent, or Holidailies, or even the collection of poetry my friend Jancis is doing on his tumblr account because that’s the grown-up way of opening a door and finding a prize to help you count the days.

Holidailies 2015

Getting Ready

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Writey and Typey and Reclaimy

It’s Friday night, twelve days into December, and my tree is barely decorated (well, it’s about half decorated). Fuzzy has been away most of the week, and without his quiet presence in the house, I just don’t feel motivated to decorate, which is ironic, really, because he doesn’t particularly care if the house is dressed appropriately for the season or not. I mean, he likes the finished product, but he hates the process.

I think I’m finally over the stupid cold/sinus thing that’s been sapping my energy and destroying my mood, but the weather’s due to change again in a day or so, so who knows? In any case, I’ve had a decently productive day, even though I still haven’t finished the chapter I meant to write this week.

On the other hand, I read three books and reviewed three books, and am now reading a lovely book of essays that my friend Becca wrote. I’ve been reading her blog practically since she started it, of course, but reading it all on bound, printed pages is a vastly different experience. It’s self-published, but that doesn’t matter a whit, because she DID IT. She completed it. And you should all read it, because it’s funny and gentle and kind and self-deprecating and insightful and incredibly articulate, just as Becca is herself.

(I was not paid to write all that. I even BOUGHT my copy of her book, and then got all misty when I read the way she inscribed it.)

I am a bit over five years younger, now, than she was when she began this collection of essays on her blog, and I feel like I haven’t accomplished enough, and I’m pretty certain that’s ALSO sapping my Christmas Spirit.

But something wonderful has been happening as I’ve been reading my friend’s published words. I’ve been feeling, to use my own word, really writey. In fact, instead of reading her book straight through, the way I typically read EVERYTHING, I’m having to stop, and walk away and dash out notes or phrases or write a paragraph…

And that’s kind of cool.

I still feel like the Christmas feeling is hovering just outside my perception, waiting for me to be ready, but at least now I have faith that I will actually be ready fairly soon.

Ditto my own writing…two separate projects that have eluded completion.

And I guess, that’s appropriate for the season. After all, advent is a time of preparation, whether you mean it religiously or not. It’s waiting. It’s watching. It’s planning and yearning and getting ready.

Soon.

I’ll be ready, soon.

Smells Like Anticipation

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SeaSide Santa

Well, Hello, December!

It’s the first day of Holidailies and here I am typing as fast as I can so I can get this posted before midnight, and thus not fail on the first day, which would be really inauspicious.

It’s warm here today. Warm and muggy, and not Christmassy (Or Hanukkahy) at all, though the sky teased us with storm clouds that didn’t deliver. I don’t mind the warmth – it’s cool enough to not need a/c but warm enough to also not need heat – rare for Texas at any time of year.

But I miss that smell, that magical SMELL that comes when the night is crisp and cool, and the stars are particularly sparkly.

It’s the combined scent of chimney smoke and fallen leaves, damp earth and leftover turkey. It’s the fragrance of nutmeg and peppermint and crinkly tissue paper.

And when it’s this warm, this balmy, you just can’t smell it.

So I go through the motions. I take the plastic, pre-lit tree out, and let it rest in the house (because even plastic trees need to rest before you bedeck them with ornaments), and I open today’s door on the Advent calendar, which reveals, ironically, the image a star shimmering in the night sky, and I wait.

Because I know that soon enough the temperature will drop, and the skies will deepen, and that wonderful seasonal aroma, the one that smells like love and innocence and magic and anticipation, will ooze its way back into my perception.

And all will be right with the world.

Today’s Santa: I gave this to my mother four years ago. Purchased in Ocean Grove, NJ, October 2009.