Personalizing Holiday Traditions

December 6, 1992

   S: Aye. Good. Oh good. Tomorrow. Aye. We’ll have fun. Well, are we ready to go to work? Good group. Good group. We’ll have fun tonight.

Greetings, dears. How about a gift? Right there, aye.

The form asked me to share this story. She found it kind of funny and interesting, and it fits in very well with yesterday’s teaching about angels. Several weeks ago I was at Joseph Beth Bookstore, spending the afternoon just looking through the books. And my favorite part of the store, naturally, is where they have the metaphysical books so I was browsing through there and enjoying myself, and I noticed two young men kind of behind me. They didn’t spend very long and as they left, I heard one of them singing, “Jesus loves me, this I know.” I kind of smiled to myself, and wondered what that was about, but anyway I continued to look through all the books and have a good time. I decided to leave, and as I was walking toward the front of the store, I heard this little voice behind me saying, Do you believe in Jesus? And I turned around to see this young man, I believe it was the same one that was singing to me back in the other part of the store. And I answered him, yes, I did. I smiled at him and then I kind of continued on and he followed me, and he continued to ask me some questions. So finally I just stopped.

S: Isn’t it a public bookstore? Aye.

So I turned around and decided that I’d have a conversation with this young fellow right in the middle of the store, and I asked him if the reason he was asking me all these questions was because he had seen me reading metaphysical, occult books. And he was a real sweet young man, and he said yes, and that he was worried about me, and that God had told him to come and speak with me. He also mentioned that he had had visions, and he was a real nice young fellow. I found that his name was Jason and that he was nineteen years old, and I thanked him for his concern. I found that real sweet. He was really acting on something that he was feeling, and I thanked him for that, and I think at the same I tried to reassure him that I was a very nice person, that I thought of myself as very spiritual. And we had an exchange of ideas and so forth and so on, and as the conversation was winding down, I asked him—referring back to his saying that God had sent him to talk with me—I asked him if, maybe, if it could be possible that God had asked him to come and speak with me because, maybe, I had something that God wanted him to hear. [Laughter]

S: Wait. Wait. Let me interrupt you just for a moment to make sure this is very clear. He said, “I have come to talk to you because God told me to talk to you,” and you said, “Do you think it’s possible that it’s because I might have something you need to hear.” [More laughter]

Right.

S: And you can be here next week, all right? Good. Continue.

Well, I kind of … that’s to say the conversation was winding down. We’d had a real good exchange of ideas and I think I may have planted a few seeds for Jason to think about. And to kind of play with him a little bit, to finish up the conversation, since he had mentioned that he had seen visions, I asked him if he were to, by chance, encounter an angel, for example in the bookstore, what did he think that that angel might look like? [Laughter] It was really a fun kind of encounter, and I told the story to a few people who thought it was kind of funny, and the form asked me to give it as a gift, and I began to think about what the gifts were. I hadn’t at the time, actually. There were any number of gifts that I saw. One was that, as you have said, there are those that you can’t speak to or can’t touch and that we can do that. And so, like I said, I think maybe I planted a few seeds for him to at least think about and consider. That was a gift. The other gift was, as you’ve been saying to us for the past year, to move over, let the angels use us. And I felt like an angel, I felt like I was there for the very purpose of meeting up with this young man and speaking with him and exchanging our thoughts on various things. And then after yesterday’s workshop, I had another idea that perhaps Jason was an angel who presented himself to me so that I might see myself as an angel.

S: Oh lovely. Oh lovely. Sweet soul, I am so proud of you. That is so glorious a story. Sweet, shy Bonnie is defending angelness, as well as the power of the Source within in the middle of Joseph Beth’s Bookstore. Glochanumora, my darling. Lovely.

Be not forgetful—you should know this by now—to entertain a stranger, for in so some have entertained an angel unaware. Oh glorious, I see it now. You’re all shining, aren’t you? Are these your halos you’ve got on? Aye? You did it, didn’t you? [Samuel had asked people to wear halos at the previous day’s workshop]

Can you feel yours?

You have one too.

S: The aura is what you’re seeing, aye?

No, you have a halo on your head.

S: Oh, yes. Well, very good. Well, you know, it just felt so natural. [Laughter] Is it not just right in place, eh? I see some other things have not changed either. Aye.

It is the season to be glorified, to feel your wings and to share the warm spread of them. Thank you for your bright light, my soul. Good work.

How about one more gift? Aye, all right. Good.

Last week was a very stressful week for me.

S: I would say.

I am going to be married, and one of the things that would manifest was relationship in my life, and he’s an older man who’s quitting his job to move to Lexington. He’s about four years from retirement, and over the last year I had visualized that he would be able to transfer to my plant as a nurse. We don’t have a nurse. And they finally decided to agree to have a plant nurse, but it had to go all the way up to Cincinnati to get somebody important’s approval, and it came back, it was approved. As a preliminary step, he was to come down for an interview, and he came down and he’s very well thought of, very good. And there was this one woman who happened to be a black woman and the only woman on the whole interview team who gave the plant tour. When they sat down to huddle to decide to make the job offer, she had a problem with it because she wasn’t involved in the decision of bringing him down. She typically handled most of the hiring, so she kind of got her nose out of joint and put a stop on the whole thing. She felt like us being married might be difficult, that our plant culture maybe couldn’t handle it, so she planted some seeds of doubt in everybody’s mind about the whole process. Well, when I found out what had happened because the day before they were to huddle for the decision, word was, well, James has the job, and I was so happy, I was just thanking the Universe and everything was great. Well, then they decided well, we need to kind of consider Theresa’s feelings and I was just, how could she do this? Why? And I was just so crushed. My expectation was up here and the reality was that it was on hold, so the stress of, are they going to decide? Will he get the job or not? And I knew, this or something better, I knew all things worked together for good. I knew all those things, but my perspective had gotten so limited that I was just feeling all torn up and I realized that I shouldn’t be feeling this way. And yesterday when I came to the workshop, I was able to rise above it and to put it in perspective, and I realized that really what I was envisioning was not a job for him at Proctor & Gamble, but a prosperous, healthy family and that there were lots of ways for the Universe to give us that, and that I really didn’t care if he worked there or not, that would be good, but it’s not that something better. So to be able to release that, and to remember that there are lots of challenges that you have in life that you can’t control and what’s important is not what happens to you, but how you react to it.

S: Aye. Excellent. Aye. You know the desire is that you have your heart’s desire, that it be as glorious as you can possibly envision it. When expectation sets up the particular realm that says, all right, this is my heart’s desire and this the only way I can be happy with it, then what essentially you’re saying is, Universe there is just one thing that will make me happy, and you’re challenging the Universe then, aren’t you, to show you all of the ways you can be happy. Oh, you think this is the only thing that will do it for you? Let me show you, without this, all the other things that would work.

Terri has caught on to the Universe’s little trick like that, and has said, You know, this is what I’ve been wanting, but I truly want this or something better, and so I can already see how it is going to be better, no matter what. Welcome to your heart’s desire. Good for you.

Give me two gifts you got from that. Somebody give me one, somebody give me another one. A gift you got from that gift. Somebody. Aye, Donna.

It’s my favorite lesson that I’ve been working on lately. It’s the flexibility, in realizing the gift I got from that is that you still get your heart’s desire, it’s your ability to see it in another form that makes it magic, and to be able to stop yourself from going through all that turmoil. It really saves you a lot.

S: Makes you magic.

Yes.

S: Aye. One more. Aye.

The gift that I received was that [it was] a reminder and also a reflection back to yesterday with the pentagram about releasing, and that pentagram really spoke to me, because I’m really trying to learn to love the process and trust the Universe that I’m in partnership. And it was another reminder that that’s what my work is and to do that joyfully.

S: I said two [gifts], but you are moving right with my point, but everybody here who thinks that they also gleaned something from that one telling of a gift. Just quickly hold it up, and now the first one about angels and speaking out for your angel self. Did you get something? And the reason I wanted you to do that was a reminder that what goes on in your life, how you are growing, how you are putting a choice for ascendancy into your life, is what touches others. There is so much more that your words can do than mine. You have the advantage. Use it, use it, use it. Thank you.

So, it’s now December. The last month in your calendar year. The time in which everything closes up, eh? It is a month of many holidays. Many holidays. A time of celebrating light, birth, love, gifts. The fruits of brotherhood, which is also sisterhood, eh? It is a time of recognizing within, a lot. Even more than Thanksgiving. It is a season of holy days.

It is my intention this particular year to be with you right around the Festival of Lights, the day before the beginning of Hanukkah, and soon right before Christmas on my favorite holiday. It is my desire that day or that night, as it may be, to do a couple of things. One of them is to come together as a group and have a bit of an opportunity to tell the miracle stories of your year. So I’d like for you to be thinking about your own angel stories, the miracles you’ve experienced this year. You know there are few things that are greater for the spirit than to have the opportunity to get together and say, here is something absolutely wonderful that happened this year. And another to say, you know I had this wild coincidence of healing. And another to say, I had this wonderful experience of really sensing a unity with all things and here is what it was about. Just short and quick, but to come together and spend a bit of time sharing the miracles, the angels, that you’ve experienced this year.

It is also my desire to make it a celebration of light, and I’m going to be talking to you about the light you are. And this room is going to be dark, with the exception of lights around the edges of the room, and, if you would participate by bringing with you a candle or a small light. Now, as every board member in the whole room is automatically screaming at me about the candles, let me be fairly clear about it. This candle must not leak at all. It either needs to be on a plate or in a cup or a bowl or in a small holder. All I want is the light. I want you to have with you a light. And, of course, not everybody here is going to be there, and not everybody who is there is going to know about having a candle, so what it’s essentially going to mean is that across the room, here and there and here and there, there will be little glowing places, as well as around the edge. I think that that’s going to give the atmosphere that I’d like to see you create to take part in this ritual. All right. My announcement over.

So what, right now, does this holiday month mean to you the most. All right. Hold off. I’m going to let you know right off that what I’m looking for is not your purified, spiritual answer that you think I’m wanting. All right? I want to know where are you in this season right now. How are you feeling in the midst of all of this? What would you say, at this moment, this season is tending to represent? Anyone.

This is the first Christmas … I’ve been in this country for eight years, but I would have to honestly say that this is the first Christmas that I’m really feeling the meaning of the holiday. It started last Thanksgiving. I came from a country who doesn’t celebrate Thanksgiving, but the last seven years in this country I’ve been in other parts of the country, I didn’t feel it. But this Thanksgiving, it’s snowed the day after. I drove around and it’s so pretty, and it just triggered something in me that having this feeling that this is going to be a very good holiday season for me. And part of it is being with Phoenix and the people that I’ve met the last four months in this city.

S: Oh, I like that. That’s a lovely way to start it, eh? Aye.

This Christmas and this holiday I’m grateful to you that I can be grateful for my family, and go home with a different heart.

S: You’re such a gift, my soul.

And I thought you were going to say things like rush, buy, stress.

I thought it.

S: Thank you, dear, thank you. So many of you, your focus right now is holding to tradition of one sort or another. And then your desire to try to create a holiday that represents tradition to you who seem, in so many ways, to not be traditional any more, you’re finding a bit of separation in yourself. What can I do to make this meaningful to me now? You remember the Christmases of your childhood, or the Hanukkahs of your childhood, or the … well you didn’t have Kwanza in childhood, did you, because that’s too new, isn’t it? Aye, I suppose so. You remember the Festival of Lights of your childhood? Anybody here have the opportunity to celebrate that festival in your childhood? Yesterday they were perfectly heathen, today they’re all Christian. Not. Not. Not. And what I’m saying is, you remember back to what this whole season meant to you then.

All right. As a great group, what are the things that it meant to you then? What were the holiday traditions that you celebrated, and I’m asking for things like did you go and sing songs? Did your family get together every night for eight nights? Did you have special meals? What did you do? What are the traditions that you grew up thinking happened during this month. Talk to me. Aye?

Christmas time at my house, it was around my birthday too, which was also special, but it was a time of magic and it’s some of the most wonderful memories I have of my family and being a child.

S: Families being nice to one another. Aye.

Being nice to one another and everyone just participating in the magic, and wanting to create that for everybody else. All the way down to my father stomping around on the roof, you know, so the children would go to bed.

S: Stomping on the roof so the children would go to bed?

If you’re asleep, Santa Claus will come.

Twinkling lights and tinsel and the holiday. It’s a magical time.

S: Stomping on the roof so the children would go to bed. Anybody else’s father stomp on the roof so you’d go to bed, and would it work any other time of year? Maybe that’s the answer. You do not stomp on the roof enough, dear. More. Aye.

Our family had an open house and people would come, their friends would come, and we would always have a lot of different foods, and there was something about that, of just opening your doors and bringing more people into your family and extending that warmth out, and that was something that I really enjoyed.

S: Aye. Good. More. Aye?

Christmas stockings.

S: Stockings. Hung by the chimney with care.

Yes, and we didn’t have very much, but they had oranges in and nuts and all different little toys and surprises that you didn’t know.

S: And you would wake up on Christmas morning and you would look out and you would see snow all over the ground, right?

On the Christmas tree, so it looked as if it snowed.

S: Aye. Because it was bright and sunny in the middle of summer [talking about South Africa] More. Aye.

Going with my brothers and my dad, walking through a couple of miles of snow-covered country to pick just the right cedar tree to cut down, we did then …

S: To make a Yule log.

I don’t think we did.

S: Nay, but later it became a Yule log, eh? Aye. Cutting down a tree, eh?

Yeah, big bonfires of Christmas trees afterwards.

S: Aye.

I have to say toys. That was the best part of Christmas. This was my first chance to really learn that I could manifest something, because I wished so hard for electric trains for about six years and when I got it, it was like, Aha, that’s how you do it! I got an electric train! It was great.

S: And do you still believe that it takes six years to manifest what you want?

No, my mother was exceptionally obstinate. She was very obstinate.

S: That’s it. You were doing everything right, but somebody else in your pathway was being stubborn. Aye.

I was patient and I got it.

S: Isn’t that how it always is? You’re doing everything exactly right, but it’s somebody else. Usually your mother, holding you.

I was faster after that. I got to go to Disneyland within a couple of years.

S: That one only in two years, and now you’re getting it down in about a week or so.

Three days.

S: Three days?

A basketball game in three days.

S: Aye. Good. More.

Baking cookies and cakes and stuff like that, and making Christmas gifts, craft ideas, for people.

S: Making presents. Making cookies and cakes. The food. So many western holidays involve huge amounts of food, don’t they? Isn’t it amazing? Food holidays. But it’s that desire to fill up with comfort. It’s that desire to offer sweetness and delight that food can offer. More. More. Aye.

I like the joy of singing.

S: Singing. Aye. Singing a Christmas song.

Christmas songs. Return to home with the relatives, we always sang all the time.

S: The twelve rays of Christmas? Such as that one. Where is Marj? There she is, and do you have more carols for us this year, dear?

No, I haven’t thought of one yet. I haven’t manifested it.

S: Oh goodness. Aye.

I’ll have to speak to my guides.

S: Aye. The songs. The music. Bonnie.

The school play. We always had the Christmas story at school and I always wanted to be Mary, but I always ended up being and angel.

S: There it is. What can you say, dear?

Draped cheesecloth. Wings, and we had our halos. The whole thing.

S: Sounds awful.

The last time I was in one […] that was my angel outfit. The only angel on stage with brown high top shoes.

S: Darling, you’ve always been an earth angel. That’s what you were saying there. That’s what you were. Cheesecloth.

It’s gauzy. It’s just cloth.

They called it cheesecloth because that’s how they made cheese, put the curds in and let it …

S: Well, I got that, it just sounded like it would smell terrible. It’s because of that. Jean.

We always travelled to see my grandparents.

S: Travelling to be with family. Aye. And this side of the room had almost no holiday customs. How very sad. Aye.

There was one that we used to do in England, we used to make Christmas puddings.

S: Aye. Made Paula [who is English] drool as you speak.

Oh, yes.

S: Aye.

My mother used to put all the ingredients in, which included a lot of liquor, and there were silver charms that used to go in, and we all used to take a turn at stirring the pudding and making a wish for Christmas. And they would go into these pots to be boiled, and they’d come out on Christmas morning, and they’d be as black as ebony. And I used to stay at my grandfather’s home for Christmas, and sleep in my mother’s … she had a canopy bed that was real silk and I’d wake up on Christmas morning and I’d find this great big pillow case full of my presents.

S: This is opposed to a stocking. A pillow case! Aye.

Why am I asking you about your traditions? Is it because I have none and I’m wanting a few ideas? You think that’s it, Frank, do you? Aye. So that when I go off for the next convention in the sky, I can bring a few traditions, eh? No, darling, that’s not it. Why am I talking to you this night about your traditions? Think about it. Your traditions. Why?

Because they turn into your beliefs.

S: They make up some of your beliefs. That’s good.

And the expectations that you have of now.

S: And your expectations now are found in many of your traditions. Good. Aye.

The ritualistic aspect of it.

S: That it is a ritual. Good. Aye.

Because you probably know that we’re struggling because times have changed so much that there’s conflict between our traditions and what fits now.

S: And there it is. There it is. Aye.

I want you to think about when you were six years old, all right? Just for a moment think about … maybe it’s not so far away to think about, eh … to think about when you were six. Nobody here was proud of me for saying that right, eh? It took years to learn to say that one. Now, would you wish it back?

No.

Part of it.

S: Mostly around the room I’m hearing forget it. I was hoping you’d remember that. The truth of it is, you don’t want to be who you were a week ago. The fact that you are constantly changing and learning, and therefore growing, is what lets you know you’re alive, that you are different now than you were then. There’s a whole lot things that you are free to do now that you could not do then. A whole lot of things you can do now you could not do then, but even a week ago. The more you know, the more you grow. And the more you grow, the more you know you’re alive.

My time with you tonight, actually, is to offer you the slightest bit of a warning. During this time when there is such an incredible outpouring of both beautiful, powerful, spiritual energy, thanks to both to mass consciousness in creating days that say, humanity is going to be thinking about light, humanity is going to be thinking about birth, humanity is going to be thinking about unity, at this time, as well as an amazing outpouring of spiritual energy cosmically, recognizing the light, recognizing the birth, recognizing the unity. But it’s also an incredible time because of so much foundational traditional which says, I must feel this way now. I must make these things happen in order for it to be a holy day, a holiday. I must, because it has always been done in this family, continue this thing. Make myself this way. Force everybody into this mold. And you’re denying your personal likes, your constant, necessary, blessed rebirth and your own ability to create unity with your brand on it.

If you could create a holiday that represented how you believe, what you believe, whether that be absolutely in line with the traditional miracle Hanukkah story of the birth of Jesus, the seven days of unity of Kwanza. Be it any of those traditional versions or be it your beliefs have changed and you sit through the Christmas story and you’re translating into who you are right now, or you’re recognizing the story of Hanukkah in your own version now. When you see the angels up in the sky saying, Hark, you’re seeing yourself and your friends’ pictures there. Or maybe this is the year that out on your lawn you paint your face on the angels outside. Maybe this is the year that when you light a candle every night, you choose to be the light yourself. I am the miracle.

What would represent you this year. Would anything change if you could do it any way you wanted, knowing that you wouldn’t have any fight from anybody. If there were no family hassles—would that be a way to say that—resisting. No gifts this year. What do you mean? If there were none of that, would you choose to do anything differently? And, if so, what? Is there anything going on in this season right now that isn’t honoring who you are that you’re buying into.

My first question is, Why? And my second one is, What can you do then to allow it to honor who you are? Well, Samiel, you don’t understand. I don’t live in this world by myself, and more than that, my family, whom I will go home to whenever you shut up, is not exactly into some of the things I am into and they would not quite understand, so what should I do? Maybe have your own celebration with theirs. Maybe incorporate a few things. And if there’s absolutely nothing else possible in any of those options, hah! Then you can give yourself a bit of space every day to light a candle and recognize your own light in the world. To have a few moments of thinking about a birth that has changed the world and allowing yourself to recognize that every day you’re a newly born being. Fresh and ready to learn and grow and be a shining one. And every day you can consciously choose to do an act of unity.

Ultimately that is my challenge to you for this holiday season. You have the rest of the month and there is a pervasive spirit of rush and buy and hurry and buy some more and bake and sing and do something every … and you can get lost in it. You can get lost in it. Or you can choose this year to make it a holy season that reflects the holiness you are. What you are that honors you as you are. Maybe creating a few new traditions which, if you are looking at the smiles of those who were remembering trains and baking and puddings, you would know that traditions hold the heart together when times are rough. That traditions create a bit of stability when sometimes things don’t feel so stable.

I challenge you every day this month for you to give yourself those three things. The first one is a moment of light. You make your own tradition. What might it be? Perhaps going out every day in December and greeting the sunrise. Might be better where you live to do that, eh? It might be every night, before you go to bed, lighting a candle. It might be looking at a spotlight. How might you make that yours? And allowing yourself to remember that you are the light of the world. That the light of love is within you and it’s shining in a darkened world. That there is light out there and you seek that light. That even one small glow pierces the most velvet night.

To remember, second, that who you were is gone, but who you are going to be is being born right now. And it’s a birth of peace and power and great love that you are recreating yourself every moment, and that indeed you are born with purpose every day. Perhaps that is something to think at first rising or when you’ve just hopped out of the shower, clean and fresh and naked as the babe you were. Perhaps a rebirth is a lovely time to think of at the end of the day when the old day is dead and dying. But every day this month think about rebirth, the birth process of your being born.

And last, a choice of unity. How might you express unity today. Saying hello to somebody you’ve passed on the street. Calling somebody you’ve not spoken to in quite some time. Sending a letter, a card, an acknowledgement. Perhaps it would be in, today I’m not going to fight. Today I am not going to let a bad mood prevail. I’m going to be in control of my emotions and as a result not drive all day. You know I am firmly convinced that your vehicles have some sort of strange power over you. Every day choose a conscious act of unity. What might it be?

It is the season, my darlings, in which you learn to express your heart. It is what the season is about, expressing your heart. I ask you to express it as you are now. Create new traditions. Speak of the love you hold and the knowings of what that means. Make this season, make it, the brightest you’ve ever had. Your planet needs it too.

Join me on the twentieth, eh? Join me on the twentieth. Bring your light and let us create a very high and holy tradition together of thankfulness and a sharing of the power you’ve seen this year. Until then, express your light, express you new birth, express your unity. Go in love.

Glochanumora, my souls. Happy, happy trails. Zatit.