So in other words, the tree is still up.
Speaking of traditions. Did you know that years ago (actually decades ago), we would have celebrated Christmas Eve by bringing in a huge freshly cut log for the hearth. The family would have sprinkled the trunk with oil, salt, and mulled wine, and recited some prayers before lighting it (kindled from the remains of the previous year's Yule fire, which we would have kept in the home throughout the entire year). We would have known--in our hearts--that the log would protect the house from lightening and the evil powers of the devil. We would believe that the Yule log symbolized the light returning to conquer the darkness. And according to tradition, the log must either have been harvested from our own land, or given as a gift. It must never have been purchased. The log would burn through the night--an evening, by the way, filled with dancing and reverie and merriment (that's my favorite part)--then allowed to smolder for 12 days (The 12 Days of Christmas) before being ceremonially extinguished. (It even makes a better story when you know that in the 1600s, in England, strapping young men willing to haul heavy Yule logs were compensated with free beer.)
No, we don't have great Yule logs anymore do we?
And it's a pity, isn't it?
Call it progress. We no longer need logs for heat. Great hearths were replaced by cast iron stoves, which gave way to central heat and suburban houses with fireplaces showcasing gas logs and instant ambiance. We do, however, still have a "YuleLog." But now, it is a pastry, decorated with sugared holly leaves, roses and meringue mushrooms.
Not that we don't lack for traditions in our world. This past week, the malls brimmed on Boxing Day, for gift exchange and sifting through the heaps of half-priced Christmas accouterments, in order to get a head start on next year. (Macy's even has a new name for this week--"Week of Wonderful." Although in my mind, wonderful is any week avoiding a mall parking lot.)
Traditions are curious in that so many are observed without any idea of their origin. Here's one of my favorites: In Caracas (Venezuela) streets are closed to automobile traffic on Christmas Eve in order that people may roller-skate to Mass. At midnight, people shout, "Jesus is born!"and shoot firecrackers (ubiquitous for any celebration in most central American countries) into the night sky. Now that, is a true celebration...
My own Christmas Eve Day Tradition is a bit less pyrotechnic: I sit by the fireplace (with real logs mind you) and read a book. This year I am reading Scott Russell Sanders' Writing from the Center, and re-reading Terry Theise's Reading Between the Wines . (I have a proclivity--or psychological tick--for reading 3 or 4 books at a time.) I like Theise's book because it is not an essay about wine.
Nor is it an esoteric discourse about wine tasting.
While Terry has been in the wine business for decades, his book is a simple story, about the relationship between the land and the grape and the grower.
Because good wine, after all, finds its heart in a good story. And because of the import (and significance) of this relationship, Terry is "skeptical" of the wine-point-system, which we've all come to rely upon as the "arbitrary" measurement for "wine value." In other words, to understand wine, forget the points; get to know the story and the essential link to place. The wine has to be from "somewhere."
Relative to our personal and spiritual journey, we have an expression for this: To be grounded. In other words, our identity is rooted to (and in) connection.
Terry writes, "I have spent too much of my life driving among strip malls and their numbing detritus, and so when I descend the final hill over the Eifel and the village of Zeltingen comes into view, sitting peacefully along the Mosel, I have a momentary thrill of arriving. Here is somewhere. I see it, I know it, I will soon embrace people who embody it--and I also get to taste it."
Okay. Now we're back to the Yule Logs...
This is not about the "traditions" per se.
It's about perspective or paradigm.
It's about the way we choose to see life and the world in which we live..
It's about what it means to be grounded.
Seeing. One could say that the whole of life lies in seeing.
Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
Now I get that, because I know what it's like to feel dislocated. Translation --not grounded. (Modern life takes care of all that with speed, stress, hurry, urgency and a relentless need for reputation. I would be lying if I said I wasn't tempted by everything on that list.)
Here's the curious part. For whatever reason, we assume that meaning (relevance, importance) can to be found with a"new and better gas log."
In other words...
I knew about wine, but I never actually tasted them...
I knew about Yule fires, but I never savored the merriment...
So here's the deal: Traditions are a wonderful thing. But it's not just about repetitious behavior. There is something underneath, fundamental, vital and palpable. They can remind us to pay attention. They can be places where we are able receive. And places from which we give... Wholeheartedness, joy, compassion, sorrow, kindness, grace, forgiveness, gladness. And until I understand that truth (until I take it to heart), I miss the point.
In a recent conference on the "spirit of place," a Native American noted that, "The salmon do not only return to the stream to spawn. They also return to respond to the prayers and hopes of the people who love them." (And yes, more than a few conferees snickered and scoffed.)
To put a spin on de Chardin, "the whole of life lies in seeing the world
sacramentally." And it's not sheer sentimentality. When we live sacramentally, there is a "price" to pay... when we are connected. The Christian mystical tradition describes the relationship with God in terms of growing toward union. "This encounter with the divine may be characterized by feelings of desire, arousal, passion, and union" in prayer. (Janet Ruffing) My or my... "desire, arousal and passion." Do I want the real Yule log fire or will the gas-log suffice?
In lieu of large feelings--sorrow, fury, joy--I had their junior counterparts; anxiety, irritation and excitement. Mary Karr
Yes, I tell myself, I want large feelings.
But they come at a price, don't they, to be so alive?
Which brings me to my second book, Scott Russell Sanders' Writing from the Center. (Meaning, of course, the center of the country--which is where I am from--and one writer's quest to live a "meaningful, gathered life in a world that seems broken and scattered.")
"How could our hearts be large enough for heaven if they are not large enough for earth? The only country I am certain of is the one here below. The only paradise I know is the one lit by our everyday sun, this land of difficult love, shot through with shadow. The place where we learn this love, if we learn it at all, shimmers behind every new place we inhabit."
Yes, I say aloud, reading Sanders. And Amen.
I filled the bird-feeders today, after doing a little repair work on the one the raccoons mauled last night. I do my best to suppress my vexation. And then I meander a bit, making a list of other parts of the garden that need attention. Near my pond, there's a downed Fir tree. It's been that way for a few years. It lived upright for almost 100 years, and then one night, surrendered to a perfect storm. For whatever reason, I tear up, only to remind myself that I usually don't cry in the woods, but there's no one who will see, so I let the tears fall, a good cleansing at the end of a long year. Truth be told, I feel more alive and alert, as if "the rust had been knocked off my nerves. The armor of self dissolves, ego relaxes its grip, and I am simply there, on the breeze of the moment."
I haven't the heart to cut this great tree for firewood. But then maybe it would make next year's perfect Yule Log.
To be available to the spell (beauty) is very easy. All you need to do is calm down and look around. To be imperious to the spell requires a far greater effort--plus it costs more in lost quality of life. -Terry Theise
Note: Regarding the 12 Days of Christmas, the best known English version was first printed in English in 1780 in a little book intended for children, Mirth without Mischief, as a Twelfth Night "memories-and-forfeits" game, in which a leader recited a verse, each of the players repeated the verse, the leader added another verse, and so on until one of the players made a mistake, with the player who erred having to pay a penalty, such as offering up a kiss or a sweet.
