Firstly let me wish everybody of every faith, belief and persuasion a very Happy Traditional Christmas this very special year 2009, I would like everybody to spare a few moments this Christmas Tide to spare a few moments to reflect on the meaning of Christmas, and also where we are at this moment in time, where we have come from and more importantly where we are going, and about making changes, about ourselves, our thinking, our families, friends, neighbours, in fact about our world and all it’s creatures and how we use and abuse it.
I hope I have not lost you already, as this is NOT about DOOM and GLOOM, it is in fact the opposite, I hope for many of you. It is about how far we have in fact come in the 20th century, putting aside the ills of the recession for one moment, difficult I know, and my heart goes out to all those who are really suffering. We need to look at the advances of medicine and the levels of care, and the many wonderful caring people, working tirelessly to help others, the advances of our children’s education, all the modern appliances we take for granted the television, the washing machine, and so much more.
But we have in many cases also taken for granted the wonderful planet in which we live and all the creatures, the trees, the flowers, the changing seasons, whether wet or fine each has it’s very own beauty, we need to learn to appreciate Mother Nature and do our own little bit to care for it, even if is feeding the song birds and making sure they have food and water in the cold winter.
Returning to Traditional Christmas, the term Merry Christmas has lost it’s original meaning, it has been commercialised, Merry originally meant Peaceful and Blessed, meaning Heavenly Serenity not Earthly Mirth, and Merry England referred to the Spiritual Character of England, and God rest you merry gentlemen meant God rest you peacefully, gentlemen, So we should look for peaceful solutions in the future, surely we are grown up enough to try and sit round a table and settle these differences, it would be wonderful not to hear of our young men and all the other deaths on our news every day, what a terrible waste of lives, and I mean no disrespect to our soldiers who die for our country or all the other people’s suffering, I ask us all to encourage our politicians to follow the path of peace. Our armed forces already do so much good to help in aiding the populations, if we used all the money used on weapons for killing people instead on aid, and our armed forces in caring and assisting for people, they would welcome our assistance, not see us as aggressors, and not want to drive us out of their country by killing us. This year saw the passing of the last Tommy, who spent the last part of his great life visiting schools and calling for an end of warfare and the killing, what a great testament to Harry and all the millions killed in the wars in the 20th century, if World Peace could be achieved in the 21st century.
The tradition of Mistletoe at Christmas, it was used, and is a powerful healing agent by the Druids, and was considered so powerful that all enemies who met under it would lay down their arms, embrace each other, and vow not to fight, now wouldn’t that be great, it was only until the next day, but it was a start. The Christians adopted the Mistletoe a token of good will and friendship, we could all do with that couldn’t we. Mistletoe was also was and is also hung around the home as a symbol of hope. Peace and harmony.
Father Christmas or Santa Claus, to give him his original name, has several stories about him, the most likely may have come with the Vikings and the other Norse and Scandinavian tribes, who invaded our shores and formed part of our English Culture, or may have come over later with our Germanic and Celtic links, and comes from part of their mythology, Thor, from where we get Thursday, was a large jovial old man with a long white beard, who was always associated with the element Fire, so he would have been red, other Germanic stories depict him as green, He drove his chariot across the clouds, drawn by two white goats, the noise of his chariot causing the noise of thunder. He was said to live in the frozen North Lands, and his fire element led to the fireplace being sacred, as was the Yule Log the bringing of light to the Druids, when the Sun God went away during the time of passing of the Old Year Death, and the coming of the New Year Birth.
The Christmas Tree today is far removed in Europe and North America from the representation and symbol of Christ the Redeemer and the overcoming of original sin. The tree should be adorned with apples as in the Garden of Eden. The star at the top was a representation of the star followed by the three wise men and the shepherds to the place of Christ's Birth in the stable in Bethlehem. The star was also to remind us that Christ was the light of the world.
The Christmas Tree was the Tree of Knowledge in the Garden of Eden and the and was the symbol of forbidden fruit for Adam and Eve .It bore the fruit or seed of knowledge for both good and evil. God gave permission for Adam and Eve to eat any of the fruits of the garden except the apples, but Satan represented by the serpent first tempted Eve then followed by Adam to eat the apples, condemning both them and the human race to a life of endless seeking eternal harmony and atonement. I will putting out another Christmas link about Politicians, Bankers Tax Havens in another story!
The giving of gifts comes from various sources; one of the best known was the celebration of motherhood and women in general called Matronalia or Matronales Feriae, from which comes the words Mater and Mother, held by the Romans on the first day of the New Year. It was also a commemoration of Peace between the Romans and the Sabines. The women wore their hair loose, where Roman Decorum was for the wearing of the hair up, they took part in rituals in the temples, they were not allowed to wear belts or knot their clothing in any place. At home they would receive gifts from their husbands and daughters, and their husbands offered prayers for their wives. The wives were however expected to prepare a meal for the household slaves, who were given the day off. I think the custom of the office party might have come from here!
On a much more somber note in the giving of gifts; during World War 1 a Christmas Truce took place on Christmas Eve December 24th 1914, German troops began decorating their trenches, placing candles on trees and singing Christmas Candles like Silent Night, the British Troops responded by singing British Carols, and both sides shouted Christmas Messages to each other, soon after there were visits from both trenches and small gifts were exchanged. This truce occurred in spite of opposition at all levels of higher command on both sides. I hope we can learn from that, and I return to a comment made by Harry Patch, the Last Tommie, before his spirit passed on to the next life. If two leaders have a quarrel with each other, they should each be given a pistol and let them settle it. I do not altogether agree that anybody should kill anybody or any living creature with malice, but he had a point, they might think twice if it was them who had to face the consequences!
Please take a moment to view Harry Patch RIP
Peter
Realalternativesite.com
This article was published on Sunday 11 October, 2009.
