December 1

     My own shepherd, Ranger the dog, reminds me that the human shepherds were half asleep most of the time. It was the dogs who stayed awake and alert all night, guarding the flocks. The human shepherds depended on their dogs to sound the alert if anything out of the ordinary happened. It isn't recorded if the dogs barked at the angel, rousing the shepherds out of their slumber. But I think it's likely.
     Half asleep and half awake—in Celtic mythology the state of being "in between" is both sacred and magical. In the shadows, at twilight and at dawn, when we are neither here nor there, we can slip easily between the worlds. While the rest of the world lay in deep slumber, the shepherds were only half asleep. Neither awake nor fully dreaming, they were in just the right frame of mind for a message from the sacred realms.

December 1

     The shepherds speak to me of feminine, earth-centered religions, deeply rooted in the cycles of the seasons. Druidry. Shamanism. These regional, tribal traditions rose up out of the earth itself, and grew in the hearts of evolving humans.
     The kings, with their intellectual understanding of the cycles of the stars suggest a more masculine, cerebral religion which sprang from the evolving consciousness of humans. A sky religion.

      Christianity and Buddhism, which appeared at a much later stage of human development, are both sky religions. Just as a child bonds first with his mother, then with his father, both the earth and the sky religions are equally important. In fact, if we divorce one from the other, they lose much of their power.

     The sky religions provide something that is not found in nature. It's frequently said that nature is unforgiving, and indeed it is so. Forget all the nonsense that the Church added later, Christ taught that there is a loving, forgiving presence at the heart of the universe. Even though that message was hopelessly bungled over the centuries, this was a great leap forward.

November 29 - Shepherds and Wise Men

     In the Nativity story, the shepherds and the wise men both arrived at the same place. The shepherds just got there first. Their presence was the result of being awake, outdoors and in nature, while other people were indoors, in bed and fast asleep. Night after night, the shepherds were out under the stars. Unlike most people they were awake and conscious in the darkness. Their arrival at the sacred place was largely the result of simply living so close to nature. Nature is the first place to look for the sacred. There's no need to be literate—like the shepherds we can read the universe's entire story of death and rebirth in the cycle of the seasons. It's all there when we turn back from darkness and the sun is reborn on Winter Solstice. Energy is neither created nor destroyed, it just changes form. The shepherds lived this mystery. 

     In the story the word "wonder" is used to describe what they were feeling. In the old sense of the word, "wonder" suggests contemplation. Was it used to suggest that they came to a new level of consciousness as the result of their experience? Humankind evolved over thousands of years. There were many moments when our consciousness took a great leap forward. This story suggests that those of us who stay closest to nature, are most likely to eventually look beyond the cycles of the earth and turn our eyes to the stars.

     Shepherds = nature, simplicity, reverence

     The magi, or wise men, were already contemplatives. Their observation of the stars led them back to earth, to nature, to a mysterious light born in the darkness of a cave. Through their intellect, by their observation of the patterns of the stars, and by their wit, arrived at exactly the same place as the shepherds. The shepherds found their way by looking up from the earth to follow a star. The kings looked down from the stars to find their way to a cave in the earth. Did they appreciate what they saw in a different way?

     Kings = thought, intellect, appreciation
     Neither path is any better than the other, and both lead to the same place. This is cause for wonder.
     If the shepherds represent oneness with earth, and the Kings represent consciousness and an appreciation of the patterns of the stars, what do the cows in the stable represent?
     Breath. The breath of cows in a cave, warm and moist as the breath in our own bodies. What a mystery is breath. It is what gives us life. With no thought at all, the cows breathe as peacefully as a zen master.

Shepherdess

    Shepherds are not necessarily male...

Cows! Then More Cows!

        Joe was out doing an inspection this morning on a country road. He glanced over at a  small herd of cows, grazing in a wooded pasture alongside the road. He did a double-take when he realized that one of them had four little feet protruding from underneath her tail. He called me immediately. Naturally I was torn, wanting to run over but thinking that I wouldn't make it in time for the big event. Ten minutes later he called to say that the cow had laid down, and the baby had slid out with a characteristic bovine bloop. 
     All of the other cows meandered over to see the baby. Joe reported that mother cow was exhausted and didn't immediately lick the newcomer, who was still in a sack. The farmer wasn't home. As many of you will remember, I have some experience with cows and this didn't sound right. I called the vet who said the membrane had to be broken pronto because otherwise the calf wouldn't be able to breathe. Joe went wading over in the mud to do the job. He was halfway there when the membrane broke and the new calf was welcomed in to the world by the other cows, who mustered up about as much excitement for the blessed event as cows ever do.
     I went over there about two and a half hours after the birth and saw mother and baby, standing side by side under the trees. The calf was up on all four feet and nosing around, and while I was there he nursed. The herd were mostly belted Galloways (those black and white cows that look like OREO cookies) but mama cow was all black with a white face, and baby cow was all brown with a white face. There was a great peace in the field, in the little shelter underneath the trees. There always is a sense of great peace in the first few hours after a birth. It doesn't matter if it's an animal which comes in to the world, or a human, that same feeling of peace attends. Sometimes this peace is be felt in a room where someone is about to die, or has just departed. It's a very palpable feeling, an energy if you will, but it is fleeting. This is why I went over as soon as I could. 

     Driving back home I thought how it was exactly one month to Christmas. Now I think we all know that the Christmas story is indeed a story, rather than historic fact, but it's a good story. Stories are a lot like dreams. A good story originates in the same part of the mind as a dream. We can examine a dream and learn something about the individual dreamer. We can look at a story that is held in the collective consciousness and learn something about human kind. 

     In the nativity story, the only witnesses to a birth which was the fruit of a marriage between earth and heaven, are the cow and the donkey. These gentle, placid beasts are stabled in a cave. The first people to witness the child are shepherds and their flocks—simple people who spend a great deal of time alone, in the pastures by day and beneath the stars at night. The actual birth is witnessed only by animals. It's the arrival of spirit born in to nature, represented by the animals. The only people to share in that great feeling of peace which attended this birth are the shepherds. Anyone who came later—and this is basically the rest of the world—missed those first bright moments. I don't know what this means, but I like the shepherds. They came upon the birth as simply as Joe came upon the birth this morning. He was alone, and he witnessed something wonderful. They are blessed in a way that the kings, whose journey was the result of a great deal of thought and intellectual calculation, are not. 

Old Postcard

Kolyada - Winter Solstice in Ukraine

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YoJoUz2_f8Y&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8hzGXXjMq9E
     Kolyada is the Midwinter celebration in Ukraine. It combines elements of Christmas with pagan customs. The kolyada are ritual carols and songs which are sung door-to-door. The first clip shows mummers in Ukraine. When Paul Kerlee was the squire of our Morris team, he brought back small mummer's bells from an eastern European country as gifts for everyone. The mummers in the video clip are wearing larger bells in the traditional shape. 
     The second clip is just a good Midwinter's Eve bonfire, again in Ukraine. The torches where a circle or square is imposed over crossed bars is an ancient symbol for the sun. The four dragons, in the very last frame, are also a sun symbol, as is the celtic cross.