Summer Christmas Wishes

Tags

Childhood memories, Christmas, Egg-nogg, Garbos, Horse drawn sleigh, Presents, Roast dinner, Santa, Seafood, Skiing, Summer

It’s a funny thing being on the ‘other side of the world’ from whence our ancestors came… and so our customs and traditions, whilst hailing from the north, are often out of synch with the seasons.

Here in the far, far south, as far away as those Brits could manage to create a penal colony… it’s mid-summer, not winter (although sometimes lately you wouldn’t know it, crazy weather).

For years, grown up Aussies have been trying to explain to kiddies why we have snow on Christmas cards, and why Santa doesn’t get hot wearing that thick coat when he delivers presents down here.

I’ve often craved a wintery Christmas experience (which might sound crazy to those of you who live in it). In fact, I still plan to bugger off to Austria or Canada one year, ride in a horse drawn sleigh, drink egg-nog, actually have to wrap up warmly, go skiing, and enjoy that hefty wintery roast dinner.

My family’s Christmas traditions for years did include the roast dinner and all the trimmings – try eating that in the heat! But in the last half a dozen years we wised up. Now its all seafood smorgasbord – baked fish, salmon, crab, mussels, oysters (eeeww to the former two), prawns, scallops – and on it goes. Fresh Australian seafood. Mmmmm…

Childhood Christmas memories are of stinking hot days tearing around in a swimsuit and jumping in the backyard pool my dad built. Splashing about, possibly with our new inflatable pool presents or diving rings or the like… or riding our new bikes out front… some years driving from one end of town to the other, squished in the back of the car, fighting amongst ourselves, probably in uncomfortable heat… visiting one set of grandparents for lunch and one for the  evening meal (leaving us very full).

For several years we had a ‘neighbourhood Santa’ – a guy sitting on the back of a station wagon dressed in a red suit, throwing lollies to the kids on Christmas Eve. Never found out who he was. Try ‘n’ get away with that these days!

All the fathers in the street would give a case of beer to the garbos [Aussie slang for garbage collectors] in the week leading up to Christmas. There was a definite sense of community… less about commercialism, more about people having a good time.

It was never (fortunately for me), a particularly religious time. Which is just as well given I seem to have been a born pagan/heathen. My family were basically without religion or any kind of spirituality.

By far, the most prominent childish Christmas memory is my excitement about the magic of it all. Before I didn’t, I really and truly believed in Santa. I was a child of faeries and mysteries. It seemed quite reasonable that a fat guy in a red suit could pull off the great present delivery once a year.

So, it was always hard to go to sleep. Then I’d wake up like clockwork before dawn, creeping out of the room my sister and I shared… to the lounge room where, to my delight, were three over-sized Christmas themed pillow-cases hung over the back of dining room chairs and packed full of presents!!

As middle child, my sack was in the center. I’d carefully, quietly unpack each new toy one at a time. Checking to see if Santa had read my letter and given me what I desired. After re-packing everything in reverse, if I hadn’t been ordered back to bed yet, I’d then systematically check my sister’s then my brother’s sacks too!

I never ever swapped anything, but I’d wake my sister up when I’d finished my investigations to tell her Santa had been, trying to drag her out of bed to see for herself. If she didn’t come, I’d start telling her what Santa had brought her! 😉

My parents always heard me at some point – get back to bed now – they knew I’d be up, like the ghost of Christmas present, haunting the goodies til it was ‘official’ get out of bed time.

That waking up early thing on Christmas day, it lasted a long time. Twas my late teens actually, before I was able to kick that unconscious habit.

Wishing you all a wonderful day, however you celebrate…

~Svasti

P.S. For a very different and very beautiful take on an Aussie Christmas… read AnthroYogini’s Deep Desert Christmas!

Monday night conversations

Tags

Blowing in the wind, Boat, Brahmin priest, Disembodied voice, Friends, Ganesha, Hindu wedding, Metaphors, Non-dual, Presents, Relationships, Storm, Union, Vedic ceremony, Yoga

I rang one of my bestest friends – S – last night… she’s my spiritual (if not blood) sister. There in the mail box was a surprise present from her with a little orange Ganesha stamp on the front and instructions not to open it just yet…

Rambling on about myself… I asked and how’s things with you?

In response she starts telling me how just the other week, she almost broke up with her man – they’ve been together for years now. Like, almost as long as I’ve known her. A while. Longer than any of my relationships have ever lasted (there I go, embarrassing myself again).

This is on top of a very shitful year for her. In which her man had knee replacement surgery (on both knees)… she went from full-time employment to living-on-a-prayer-freelancing. And then she was in Thailand with the rest of us (not earning any money), then went back home (to the other side of the world) for four months… again not earning much money – to look after her mum/mom… who currently has cancer and its all touch and go.

So, she wasn’t feeling that great. And yet she still remembered to send me a present. I love her to bits!! And not just coz of the present.

When she was telling me all this stuff, all I could think of was this half-baked metaphor that’d occurred to me a few weeks back, when, falling to pieces and on the way to see my therapist, I felt very much adrift…

I started relating this goofy little story to her:

So yeah, feeling adrift and just… blowing in the wind (but not like the song). Wait, make that a storm. A really gnarly storm. One with lightning and rain, and then… actually, it was this epic storm of the ages. So there’s all these currents pulling and pushing and… now I wasn’t just adrift but being buffeted from side to side. Every movement could unbalance me… in my little boat…

Then that voice, that might not be my voice (sure doesn’t sound like mine and it always says much wiser things than I can ever think of) and yet, it’s a voice only I can hear (I think)… clearly pronounces a few punchy, pithy words:

You’re not just the boat. You’re the ocean too. The storm as well.

How very… non-dual of you… oh, disembodied voice!

The boat’s just on the surface. But it couldn’t be on the surface if it wasn’t for the ocean being there too. Think about that for a second…

Surface conditions are only one set of circumstances. And they don’t affect the depths of the ocean, not really. You’re on the ocean… you’re part of the ocean…

And the storm is, well… not always a storm. Its air and… life.

Expect life to be uneven (as a wise someone I know will say), and you’ll never be taken by surprise if the boat upends for a while.

This wind and storm are the same as that filling the boat’s sails and propelling it forward. Without the wind, the storms… the boat would lie there stagnantly.

Ha! Now, I just gotta figure out how to integrate this pretty little story into the day to day…

And my friend? Well, we talked about a bunch of other stuff too. Of course. There was a little conversation about the steps they’re taking, couples counselling etc… Then, remembering the gorgeous words used in a Hindu/Vedic wedding ceremony we attended a couple of years back.

On a very quick trip to Sydney, I’d suddenly found myself invited to our mutual friend’s wedding along with S. Held at the glorious abode of our favourite Brahmin priest in way out western Sydney.

There’s a whole bunch of stuff that’s fairly standard to a Vedic wedding – invoking Ganesha, the garlanding of bride and groom, the bride wearing red, seven steps taken together as a newly married couple… but I’m yet to find the words he used anywhere else online.

There was all this glorious stuff about… revering the god/goddess within each other, promising adoration, fealty and many other beautiful things for ‘a thousand summers’…

We both left that ceremony in a gooey state of bliss. So I gently reminded her of that time and… listened to her voice perk up.

It’s a practice after all… to remember each day the things we love about our significant other… just as important as yogasana. Well, its yoga too isn’t it? Given the word yoga actually means ‘union’?

~Svasti