Another Christmas, another day to long for peace, and a prayer that all the songs all the good wishes will somehow someway touch the hearts of governments and religions around the world and there would be a miracle of peace. Soon there will be another New Year and no matter how cynical or difficult one's circumstances, there is that tiny spark of belief on New Year's Eve that somehow, someway the New Year will be better than the old.
One of our posters sent me an article with a message of that age old information that is so true and so easily forgotten through our lives. That message is "we cannot un-know what we know, we cannot go back." Another way of saying that is one can never return to the age of innocence once it's lost. We lose our innocence over a million things a million smashed dreams and wishes a million broken promises.
The whole article set me to thinking what comes after the loss of innocence? The loss of belief in others and yourself, even the loss of hope, the loss of dreams.
In 1949 I was 7 years old and I guess we didn't have much money, although we didn't really know that or feel that when I was little. There wasn't any TV to let kids know what they didn't have and looking back on the little town I grew up in not many people had a lot of money and the kids who were more affluent didn't seem to see themselves different than the ones who weren't. We did however, have food and were warm and most of all we believed we were safe, we took that safety for granted. There were neighbors, friends, people knew who you were and what you were about. Anyway in 1949, when I was 7 and it was Christmas, I don't remember what I wanted, but I remember what I got.
Santa Claus brought me some new underwear and socks, a new red barrette for my hair, a new nightgown my mother made me from an old and pretty dress she had in college. But the most important gift was my father's old world globe that I loved and a most wonderous thing; a grown-up library card. I could go to the library all by myself and stay as long as I wanted just like a grown-up.
The library had ten long broad steps up to a big wooden door in an all brick two story building on the north side of town, and the very day after Christmas I went to the library all by myself. I tip-toed up and down the rows and rows of books, smelling them, taking them off the shelf under the discreet but careful eye of the librarian. I picked two books, one I could easily read and one that would be harder because it was in the 4th grade section and proudly presented my library card and told her Santa Claus gave it to me. She said "this is a very big gift you've been given Sally, it's a gift of the world and most of all it's a gift of faith."
I didn't know what that meant, but she had such a big smile on her face and accepted my card with a solomn gravity and seemed to be acknowledging the importance of my gift. She said "come back as often as you can because everyone who has this card owns all these books and through these books you own your world." I went back many times, sometimes just sitting for hours in the dim interior of that library and it always felt special to be there and I felt special. And I read, and I read and I read and read constantly for the next nearly 57 years. Through my reading and life experience I did lose innocence, hope, I lost God and then found the creator; I learned my government is not now nor ever has been what we believed or were told. Through broken dreams and reading I know I lost belief in myself and others; I learned I wasn't as smart as I thought and then realized no one is as smart as they think, and the smart people are the ones who know they too are on a learning curve.
Hope in my country and the people we elect as our leaders, has been the last thing to go; that hope died completely in the last few years. It's been coming but it was Katrina and this wonton killing of innocent people in Iraq and our soldiers along with blather coming from so called leaders that pretty much killed hope for me, (funny, they all look fat and bloated to me) So what then? What comes after hope dies?
Faith I think, true faith, not the faith someone hands you and says "you must believe, or markets to you or forces you, but true faith in what isn't known, what isn't understood, faith in what hasn't been learned.
During this Christmas Season with Pluto on the Galactic Center and Jupiter in Sagittarius, put every ounce of your mental focus on the positive, grab on to the faith of the unseen, unknown, the untried. Grab onto faith in yourself and your family and friends, faith that this new Congress will make a difference, faith that new leaders who aren't bloated with greed and lies will rise up to lead. Make a list of what you do have faith in and focus your attention on that list.
"Faith" really can move mountains and with enough faith this mountain is going to rapidy move for you, for me, and for all. Even if astro influences are dire, the gods never every give us a day where there isn't positive and negative energies from which to choose. At least for a month I implore everyone to look for the positive and choose to do one thing each week to create the positive around all of us.
MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ALL AND TO ALL A GOOD NIGHT