And So This is Christmas 2014

Christmas, mid-winter festival, just after Solstice: celebration of things to come; celebration of the coming light; celebration of how the greatest things grow in and from the dark.

Three wise men are led by a star, a star that is visible because of the darkness, to a new-born infant, a mere babe, a sapling, but one who will grow, through his own investigations and explorations into his own authority; who will grow, through his own study and practice, into a Master.

Tested by trials in the desert, tried in times of darkness, he is annealed so that he can complete his Christing and still shine with love when the sky turns black on Good Friday. When even the sky, symbol of space, and possibility, turns black, still there he shines. The ember of his spirit stays aglow. Persecuted, tortured, hung out to die, his love cannot be corrupted or overcome. There is a light that never goes out.

And when we know this for ourselves, once we have been put to the test, once we have passed through the eye of the needle, then we can incarnate the Christ of our Inner Being.

And that light is in the Cross – in the centre – in the crossing point, junction point, intersection, in that place of harmony where the pairs of opposites meet and duality falls away. The cross symbolises (among many other things) that place of integrated awareness, where the light of love: the energy which accepts, forgives, and includes, can flow down, illumine, and re-calibrate all our ‘lower’ energy centres.

And this light, this knowing, can never be put out. To extinguish it would be impossible, because it is the very light of consciousness that enables all our experiences, even those of hate, of anger, of frustration, or resentment. Even the limited understandings that chain us to misery, or give us transient thrills, are only possible because of the endless light of consciousness that underlies them. And so, this light of love can never be defeated. Its embers can never be put out. Even in the darkest night of desperate pain, even if we are anaesthetized, we can still notice the darkness, still feel, at least to some degree, the pain; and so we are conscious; we are, at least to some degree, awake. The embers are still aglow. Sooner or later, they will take again, and the fire will catch, and the light will start to show us a bigger picture.

And when we are in that place of deepest struggle and sorrow, of the most desperate isolation, we are not alone, but in the company of so many of the truly great, who have held to the light of their unique gifts and understanding even through the greatest trials and persecutions. And every time we choose to act in truly wholehearted courage, we are stoking the embers of the collective human Spirit. The diamond is formed under pressure and in darkness. This time of challenge is an opportunity of great magnitude.