Luke, Chapter 2, New International Version ©1968:

And there were shepherds living out in the fields nearby, keeping watch over their flocks at night.  An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified.  But the angel said to them,

“Do not be afraid. I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people.  Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is Christ the Lord.  This will be a sign to you: You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger.”

Suddenly a great company of the heavenly host appeared with the angel, praising God and saying,

“Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to men on whom his favor rests.”

When the angels had left them and gone into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, “Let’s go to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has told us about.”

Source:  Biblos.com

“Do not be afraid,” or in the language of King James, “Fear not,” are words that can stand alone.  I can’t imagine any better advice that a superhuman guardian might give to any of us mortals.  Even in the direst of circumstances, when caution and prudence are most urgently needed, fear and panic are always counterproductive.  In human relations and relations between nations, fear is the leading cause of conflict.  The angels might as well have said, “Transcend fear.” 

Perhaps, if the legend has a basis in fact, and angelic heralds did accost a flock of shepherds on a special night long ago, what they actually said was, “Transcend fear.”  I mean, like once and for all,  not just at that one fleeting moment in time.  This is what I’d advise.  It’s great, useful, life-enhancing, all purpose advice.

But I digress. 

Unless this angelic birth announcement was a repeat of one they had done previously, or one in a series, perhaps a habit that angels had, of heralding the arrival of notable babies, this legend has been borrowed from the myth of Mithras.  History records that many of the known “facts” of the birth and life of Jeshua ben Joseph were first attributed to an earlier divinity.  The Urantia Book lists Mithras as one of the sources for our existing myth of the Christ:

I am astounded that the angels did not until now get an entry all their own in my infamous svwX series.  This essay comes from one of those hypnogogic inspirations I frequently receive on the edge of sleep.  When it hit me two nights ago, it jolted me out of the slide toward slumber and left me lying there plotting and planning for a while, before I could slip off to sleep.

I started out, years back, to turn the 12 days of Christmas upside down and backwards with 12 entries counting down to the day, rather than coming after.  I have, through the years, almost doubled the original 12 entries.  Others in the series include:

*The ones I like best or had the most fun researching and writing are starred.
1.   svwX – turning the 12 days of Christmas upside-down and backwards*
2.   Why postpone the joy?
3.   Origins of the Candy Cane
4.   Two Patriotic (Xmas) Poems – Giving the Authors their Due
5.   White Christmas  by Robert W. Service (not my #1 favorite Xmas poem by him, but pretty good anyway, in its own sentimental way)
6.   All about Christmas trees*
7.   Holidays are Hazardous (political correctness and other evils)
8.   Born in a Manger (origin and history of the crèche or Nativity scene)*
9.   Holiday Treats for Gifts or for Eating – six recipes:  3 sugary & 3 gluten-free lo-cal
10.   Io Saturnalia! – ancient history*
11. It really is a WONDERFUL LIFE. – Featured Grownups essay on how I made my little world a better place.
12. Xmas in War and Something Else – war and peace with a seasonal twist, in poetry, pictures, cartoons, etc.*
13. Winter Solstice – Sacred Survival (archaeoastronomy and diverse traditions)
14. How did reindeer get involved, anyway?
15. Mistletoe, Holly, Ivy, Poinsettias and Yule Logs
16. Draggin’ the Tree (cowboy Christmas poetry)
17. The Trapper’s Christmas Eve and The Christmas Tree by Robert W. Service
18. The Ancestry and Evolution of Santa Claus*
19. The Elves and Gnomes of Christmas
20.  A small collection of seasonally appropriate, but otherwise inappropriate, images unworthy of attention by anyone except one with a seriously sick sense of humor.
21  My favorite Christmas Poem

When I was seven years old, on December 1, 1951, my father died.  He was my hero, my world, but at the moment of his death I was angry at him over a spanking the previous evening, and I wished him dead.  I have posted previously here about his death and its aftermath.

My mother and I grieved over him so fiercely that it affected all parts of our lives, as well as the lives of many others with whom we came into contact.  She, in particular, made every December an occasion for mourning, crying, and wishing he were still with us.  I would have preferred to forget, and as soon as I got away from her, I did my best to block him and his death out of my mind,

It didn’t work.  He would come to mind in a thousand ways at any time at all.  December was particularly hard.  Then, when I was thirty, I spoke openly for the first time about my guilt over his death.  The healing started then.  In the thirty-some years since then, there were some December firsts that slipped by without my remembering the anniversary, and there were others when it would jump out at me from a calendar, bringing with it echoes of the old feelings.

This year, in the latter days of November, I remembered that December was coming up, I remembered Daddy, and I smiled at the memories.  I got through the anniversary of his death without pain this year.

When I was fourteen years old, on December 4, 1958, I was married for the first time.  Despite separation, divorce and subsequent remarriages, I tended to hang onto both regrets for my naive and ill-considered choices then, and recriminations against my abusive and unfaithful spouse.  Apparently, I’m over that now, as well.  The anniversary came, I remembered, and there was no emotional charge to the memories. 

I’m into December, feeling well.  It’s just a couple of weeks and a day or two until the days start getting longer.  That thought does carry an emotional charge, of exhilaration and delight.

I don’t know if this is a bee in my bonnet or a burr under my saddle.  I only know that I’ve been carrying it around for too long.  Despite my efforts to just let it go, and some temporary success at that, it recurs to me at odd moments.  If there’s a chance that venting can help me get rid of it for good, it’s worth a try.

Years ago, soon after I moved onto the power grid and got internet access, I was participating in several bulletin board type forums.  Each one was focused on some interest of mine or on a personal matter on which I could use some support.  One of that latter type was devoted to fibromyalgia support, and the other – the one where my burr/bee originated – was all about eating disorders.

I had multiple food allergies and addictions and had only recently learned from an authoritative source, the fact that food allergies often manifest as addictions to the offending foods.  I posted a note to that effect in an appropriate forum.  The following day, my post had been removed and I had a message from a moderator warning me that two more such infractions would result in my being permanently banned.

Naively, innocently, I messaged the mod, questioning just what the precise nature of my infraction had been.  I was directed to a post stating that eating disorders are psychological in nature, the result of emotional needs and/or issues with power and control.  My reaction to that was this thought:  “Well, yes, that’s a widespread belief, and possibly partially accurate, but its universality is being discredited and discarded by the leading edge of expert opinion.”

I did wonder why this website for eating disorders was not conversant with that cutting edge, state-of-the-art scientific opinion.  I messaged the mod a question to that effect.  The reply I received evaded the question and simply told me that if I continued to write posts that could “trigger” other members, I would be banned. 

The philosophy of this psychological eating disorder (ED) forum was that, if one works through the traumatic experiences and psychological issues underlying the anorexia, bulimia or compulsive overeating, then ED will be dead and one will be free to eat “normally.”  I kept on participating in the forums, lending support to the friends I’d formed there, and trying to derive some help in my own abstinence.  I tried to stick to their rules, even though they made no sense to me.  Then, in a general open forum, I encountered a thread, “What will you eat when ED is dead?”

I couldn’t help noticing that literally every food listed, without exception, by the various participants, contained one or more of the known addictive peptides.  I added a little note to the thread, pointing out that fact, and included the link to a page of info on addictive foods.  Of course, that post was removed and I was warned that I would be banned the next time I posted anything that could trigger the members’ EDs.

That was enough for me.  I figured that the admin and/or mods had their egos deeply invested in their psychological philosophy, and were either sincerely convinced that any other perspective or approach would be ineffective or harmful to their clients, or were unwilling to risk a realization that their professional standings and personal reputations might be based on erroneous, incomplete, or obsolete information.  I quit participating in that forum before I was banned, and soon I had quit doing that forum-thread thing and started blogging, where I could have more freedom of expression.

I thought that it didn’t matter to me which motivation applied to those ED “experts:”  selfish, ego-based fears, or well-intentioned delusion.  I must have cared more about that question than I realized at the time.  If not, then I wouldn’t keep wondering about it at odd moments when something triggers a memory.  As I have been writing this, I might have found my own solution.  I think it likely that it was not either/or, but both/and, as well as a few other probable motivations.

With that insight, I hope this issue will go away for me.  I suspect that the issue, the problem, the philosophical difficulty, and the ED, will not go away for the ones caught in that fishy mindset.

Narcissism alert:  This is an exercise in self-reflection.  I need it, and if I was doing it alone, internally, it would be too easy to let myself be distracted.  Writing it out forces me to stay focused on working it out.  Well… not actually to stay focused, but certainly to keep returning to focus as my mind strays away and then notices this unfinished work staring at me.

I don’t have a job in the common sense of paid employment, on a schedule, for an employer.  The last time I had a job like that was 1976.  By then, at age 32, it had become very hard to find anyone willing to hire me.  I’d had a felony incarceration for possession of marijuana, and my employment history was spotty.  I had moved around a lot, and many of the jobs I’d had were terminated for absences due to illness.  Getting sick again and losing that job put me firmly in the category of hardcore unemployable.

Fortunately for me, that same year I found a way to start getting paid for doing Tarot card readings and intuitive counseling, work I had been doing informally and without pay for seven years by then.  That self-employment provided meager but adequate income for close to a quarter century before the relapsing and remitting illnesses again caught up with me, rendering me unable to do the summertime round of setting up booths at arts fairs and music festivals, and discouraging a loyal bunch of long-term mail-order clients who often had to wait months for responses from me.

But I digress… See how readily my mind strays from my purpose.  DOING MY JOB!  I need to define what that phrase means to me, examine where I stand in relation to the concept, and evaluate how well I’ve been doing my job.

The first purpose I set for myself in this life, when I was about four years old (give or take a year or two – I recall the moment and where I was, but not exactly when it was), was to “learn everything.”  I later modified that to learning everything I can, but the original thought was, “everything,” absolutely.  Subsequently, I was taught that in the limited time I had in the one life I had, I would not be able to learn absolutely everything, so I modified the ambition.  Now that I have come to recall having lived before, to assume that I can live again, and to suspect that the conscious, learning, part of me is both infinite and eternal, I suppose it would be okay to revert to the original intention.  I intend to know it all.  That’s a big job, right there.

My first assignment, an imperative parental injunction, was to, “pull my own weight.”  As early as I was able to get around on my own two feet, I was required to do so to whatever extent I was able.  If there was work to be done, I was expected to learn how to do my share, and to do a good job of it.  Being a freeloader or parasite was the lowest of the low.  This job has, over the years, been very challenging.  The parental programming set me up to refuse help, even when I needed it.   My self-esteem was dependent on my being independent.  Physical weaknesses and disabilities, as well as economic hardships, necessitated accepting help, and it was very difficult to do that.  Some fancy mental footwork has allowed me to accept, and even to ask for help.  I can manage now to do that and still keep my self-esteem, by giving back as much as I can.  My parents’ hard-headed individualism has turned me into an open-hearted individual, openly and gladly giving whatever I’ve got to anyone who seems to need it.

Somewhere, probably from my paternal ancestry, I acquired a talent for storytelling, and some facility with words.  Those who have heard my stories and read my letters, psychic readings, magazine articles, and blogs, frequently asked for more.  A robed and hooded crone came to me in a dream and told me to write down my story.  It’s a job I do fitfully, as the words either flow or they don’t.  A decade or two ago, I began combining my enthusiasm for learning with my facility for writing, and started thinking about publishing factual articles and research papers.  A few of them have showed up here on Xanga from time to time.  As jobs go, it’s neither the best nor the worst, in my opinion.

Nature or cosmic mechanics or something has set me up to be a nurturer.  Cooking and serving food to family, intimate friends, and crowds of strangers, is fun.  The work itself is rewarding, and the applause is gratifying.  If right livelihood is doing what you love, then my dream job is in a kitchen.  The aforementioned physical and financial limitations tend to curtail my ability to indulge that particular creative urge to any great extent.  Around here, I don’t always manage to prepare even one real meal each day.  Some days, I barely manage to feed myself from the fruit basket and jars of nuts.  I’m a frustrated culinary artist.  That’s where that’s at.

Throughout my 66 years, I’ve become aware of a pervasive human need to justify one’s existence, to find meaning in life, to assign purpose to life.  After much consideration of many different individual  takes on the answer to the, “Why are we here?” question, I’ve adopted as my own the one that suits me best.  My purpose in life is to transcend fear and practice unconditional love.  That’s the job I took upon myself after mature reflection, in contrast to my youthful enthusiasm for learning, my parents’ injunction to carry my own weight, the biologically mediated gender role of nurturer, and the socially motivated flip-side of the learner thing in the writer and storyteller role.  I think I’m doing that job in somewhat the same way and to a similar degree that I’m doing all the others:  spottily, sometimes, after a fashion, in my own way and my own time.

So, this job of assessing the job I’ve been doing of being who I am has just about run its course for me.  I’ve got other things to do.  If I left anything out, or if something changes, I’ll need to revisit it sometime, I guess.  That’s it for now.

“Brighter Day” came immediately to mind when I thought of a way to describe how I feel now.  The next thing that popped into my mind was soap opera.

We started early this year, sealing windows, plugging holes, and such.  We insulated places we’d never done before.  So it was alarming when the weather started turning cold and we could barely attain a 30 degree difference between indoors and out.    Ideally, we should be able to  have at least an 80 degree difference.  My tropical houseplants don’t like temps below 50°F (10°C), nor do I.  I keep my fridge at 40°F, and when the room temp drops lower than that, I whimper and bitch.  With the temp around freezing outside, it was merely uncomfortable in here.  The alarm arose from looking ahead to the sub-zero weather we knew was coming.  Thirty below zero is common, and fifty below is not unprecedented.

When it’s 50°F (10°C) at eye level where the thermometer is, our water jugs on the floor can freeze due to the colder drafts down there.  Jugs can be moved up onto tables and counters in that case, but if it drops below freezing at that level, plants die and water jugs freeze and burst.  Having had these things happen before, I don’t want to repeat the experience.  Last winter, our wood stove had done a satisfactory job, and I was at a loss to understand what was wrong this year.

One or the other of us, my son Doug or I, said every day or so, something like, “Why can’t we get this place warm? Is there a new hole in here?”  Then, one recent morning, I found the problem.  One of the big living room windows, the first one I had covered with poly sheeting this fall, was showing frost on the inside of the plastic sheet.  It wasn’t cold enough for that to happen, so I took a closer look.  The duct tape holding the bottom edge of the translucent window covering had come unstuck.  We had failed to see it earlier because a freestanding bookshelf stands below that window, its top edge even with the bottom of the window, obscuring the tape.

Doug was asleep and I didn’t want to waste time waiting for him to get up, so I got out the new roll of industrial strength duct tape, kicking myself for previously having bought a cheap roll of “utility grade” tape.  I took books off the shelves and moved 3 CD towers onto the floor.  That wooden bookcase is almost too heavy for me to move even when it is empty, but I did it, and I sealed the bottom edge of the Visqueen®.  The frost melted even before I’d moved the book shelf back into place, and I could feel the difference in the warmth of the room.

I think we’re ready for winter now, but we’re going to need to repair the roof again next summer, and Doug is going to have to shovel it promptly every time snow falls all winter.  There’s a new leak in the back room.

Thanksgiving is not, for me, a special occasion of thankfulness.  Every day, I cultivate an attitude of gratitude.  If you are impelled by that statement to admire me for my spirituality or condemn me for what you perceive as self-righteousness or pretentiousness, okay.  What you think of me is none of my business.  If you wish me ill, I forgive you.  If you wish me well, I appreciate it.  For me, gratitude and forgiveness are just two sides of the same choice, the choice to love and be happy, and that is a win-win situation.

There is as much selfishness as anything in this attitude.  I wasn’t taught gratitude or forgiveness by my family or culture as a child.  Slogans I learned included, “Don’t get mad; get even.”  I was also exposed to the slogan, “Forgive and forget,” but it was not reinforced by example.  My transgressions were not forgiven nor forgotten by my parents, my teachers, the criminal justice system, or my so-called friends.  Upon reflection, I think forgiving and forgetting  is a stupid idea, anyhow.  I’d much rather forgive and remember.  I’d rather not digress into an explanation of that, but you are welcome to let me know if you’d like to hear my rationale.

I learned to forgive, quickly and gratefully, those who hurt me, because not forgiving would just compound the hurt for me.  And, just in case there’s any confusion here, that, “gratefully” doesn’t mean I’m grateful for being hurt.  I’m grateful for the lessons that taught me forgiveness and the sweet relief I feel each time I forgive.  I didn’t learn those lessons easily.  I was hardheadedly attached to my righteous indignation for most of my life.

I had to have it spelled out for me, put into terms I could understand.  One of the most eloquent descriptions of resentment I ever heard was that it is like taking poison and hoping that the other guy dies.  Holding grudges was likened to trying to swim with an armful of rocks.  I listened to such things through numerous repetitions before I was willing to give it a try.  Like I said, I was really attached to my righteous indignation.  I had been hurt, and dammit, I was determined to resent it.

Then, after being bombarded with truth and wisdom over and over, I gave up, let go.  I chose love.  I’m thankful for that, thankful to all the people who made the effort to share their experience, forgiveness, hope and love with me, even when I was so unwilling to hear and heed it.

Happy Thanksgiving.

At this moment my radio is relaying a high wind warning effective from 3 this afternoon until 3 tomorrow morning.  It was about 3 this morning when wind noise woke me, with icy clumps of snow blown from trees smashing into my walls and windows.  There’s no more ice up in the trees now, but wind gusts occasionally cause the roof to bang, windows to rattle, and the aluminum ladder leaning against the side of the house to make an odd resonant sproingy sound.

The first light of dawn showed me a clear sky this morning, and I resolved to get out there and capture the sunrise on film pixels.  I looked up the sunrise time, set my kitchen timer, and when I got the 15 minute warning, put batteries in my camera.  It’s got a new peculiarity:  it runs down batteries even when it is turned off.  I work around that by removing batteries after each use, before I put it away.

I was wearing a lavender polar fleece vest over my black hooded sweatshirt (hood up over my blue bandanna) in the house, in a more or less futile attempt to achieve comfortable warmth.  With the wind sucking heat out of here, I’m about ready to change from my bluejeans and lightweight long johns into my merino wool underwear and polar fleece pants, or maybe the down-filled snow pants.  Get the picture?  C-O-L-D in here, and wind-chilly outside.  I put on my navy wind-proof parka, raised its hood over my hoody’s hood, put on a pair of Mylar glove liners (the warmest gloves I can wear and still operate my camera), and headed out the door.

The sun had not yet appeared when I captured the image below, of drifts along the road at the end of my driveway.

I left a set of tracks across that pristine drifted road and stomped my way through the berm on the other side, then out through the roadside trees onto the edge of the muskeg to get the shot below, of more drifted snow on the flat of what is marshland in different weather.

By the time the sun began to show itself over the treetops in the south-southeastern sky, my feet, fingers, and legs were cold and I couldn’t feel my nose or cheeks.  The hazy effect over that white strip along the base of the trees below is windblown snow.

Losing the feeling in my hands, I wimped out and turned back into the trees toward home, pausing a couple of times to snap pics of the rising sun as I retreated.

It wasn’t fully risen above the trees until after I’d gotten inside, shed my parka, removed the camera’s batteries and stuffed the camera itself into a plastic bag so it wouldn’t absorb moisture as it warmed to room temp.  It was a glorious sunrise, shedding golden light across the drifted snow and into my windows.  Sorry you had to miss that part of it.  Next time, I’ll try not to jump the gun that way.

Each Tuesday, all summer this year, a man named Larry would show up at the Felony Flats flea market with a load of stuff for sale at ridiculously low prices.  First time Greyfox mentioned him to me in one of our phone conversations, he was semi-ecstatic about the videos.  Larry was selling VHS for 25 cents and DVDs (plus the occasional Blu-Ray disk) for a dollar each.

He said he was selling out so he could move Outside (if you’re not from Alaska, you might not know that “Outside” means anywhere but here) and that he had several storage lockers to empty.  From the variety of items he was selling, and the fact that his huge stock of video included many duplicate titles, I inferred that he had probably bought some lots at auction, or else he’d been running a rental locker business and was liquidating abandoned items.

Greyfox bought tools, clothing, kitchen utensils, and various household items from Larry, but by far his most numerous purchases were videos.  Greyfox is a film fan and has a limitless need to be entertained.  His preferred genres are horror and sci-fi, both of which categories fall near the bottom of my own list of preferences. 

Early in our relationship, my darlin’ soulmate, spouse and partner in crime declared us to be the Mr. and Mrs. Jack Sprat of just about everything.  For example, back in the day, when I was getting loaded a lot, my drug of choice had been meth, while Greyfox never met a central nervous system depressant he didn’t like.

We don’t disagree on everything, of course.  In the entertainment realm, all three of us: Doug, Greyfox and I, are fans of George Carlin, many martial arts movies, Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, Pirates of the Caribbean, and probably many other things we’ve not yet discovered.

But I digress.  Greyfox would occasionally call me while Larry was there and read a few titles that didn’t interest him over the phone so that I could say yea or nay to them, but it would have been cumbersome and time consuming to run through the hundreds of titles he had on hand on any given Tuesday, so the bags and boxes of video Greyfox acquired ran heavily toward his own tastes.

Doug and I got into Wasilla twice last summer while Larry was at the flea market.  Together, we bought well over a hundred titles of our own choosing, and have barely begun to view all of them, much less the even more numerous titles supplied by Greyfox.  My son and I both prefer interactive entertainment, so we watch far fewer movies than Greyfox does.  Greyfox also watches broadcast TV, while Doug and I use our TVs solely as monitors for game consoles and video playback.

I think that was another digression there.  My intention was to mention some highlights from our summer’s acquisitions.  Most outstanding was the first two seasons of House MD at a dollar each, which led to, first, the online purchase of a discounted two-pack of the third and fourth seasons, and finally to a full price DVD of the fifth season and Blu-Ray disk of the sixth season.  I’ll be buying the seventh season as soon as it’s available, too.  I’m hooked.

There have been several excellent animated movies we all enjoyed, including Over the Hedge, Meet the Robinsons, Ratatouille, and Monsters, Inc.  Incidentally and tangentially, several of my friends have told me that I am much like the character Remy from Ratatouille, and I’m still trying to figure out if they’re saying I’m a rat, a fine cook, good at pulling people’s strings, or what.

That was definitely a digression.  I’m also tempted to digress from the “Larry videos” to bring up an excellent TV series, and another mini-series we acquired elsewhere and enjoyed greatly:  The Lost Room and Firefly.  Firefly was part of the yard sale acquisitions after the neighbors from hell moved away, and Doug ordered The Lost Room on recommendations by his friends.    Among titles from Larry’s bounty this summer, some that we’ve all enjoyed included the Grindhouse duo from Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez, and The Fast and the Furious:  Tokyo Drift.

Our latest biggest pleasure and surprise out of Larry’s stash is Bubba Ho-Tep, a genre bender and transcender, “redemptive Elvis mummy film.”  See it, if you haven’t.  You won’t regret it.