Xmas morning Blog! READ!!!12/25/2009 4:59 A.M.



As I sit here thinking about the messages we get from
society about Christmas and the holidays. I find myself
melancholy but hopeful and reflective on the past couple of
years. Christmas as a Christian holiday permeates the lives
of everyone of every race culture and religion but resonates
in the changing of seasons and the solstice that every couture feels as we wrap up the year.

I walked to my office this morning thinking about the families and individuals divided by the stresses of living in this rat race.

I saw people on the street in Richmond California homeless, roaming. I spoke with and embraced a number of people at 4:00 am in the morning. People looking for their morning high, asking for “dates” wanting someone to love them begging for company kindness, warmth.
Two men walked up to me (one with an ice pick and the other with a case of corona). I felt fear and anxiousness as they approached sizing me up and me them. In a moment we found humanity and we talked of how they where contemplating jumping me, I offered them cigarettes, they offered me a beer we exchanged goods and a dap and said merry Christmas. “Pfew” How could I be so close to jeopardy and find solidarity. This was moments after I was asked to be in company of a woman walking by herself telling me that she had an apartment around the corner. She said she was trying to get high and she was a “cool person” to hang out with. I hugged her and turned down her offer. Told her I was going to light a candle on my family shrine and wish my mother, sister and lost ancestors and friends a happy holidays. She cried and said her daughter died last week. We smoked together as she said I guess I should let you go. We faded in opposite directions into the darkens and within a minute I passes a family blasting Cumbia music to a bonfire as I passed a lot of 20 abandoned charismas trees. It’s strange to see people roaming the streets trying to forget loneliness at 4 in the morning

I think of the people who are with me in solidarity and the people I find myself divided from because of quarrel and a disjoint of our perceived paths and goals. I think deeply on the appreciation I have found in the times and moments of connection and happiness… in the sharing and the growing. I honor my time with people and see my path and the path of others that bring us to crossroads in life where we love share and struggle to make sense of our human need for connectedness, nurture and community. I see the battle to have and the fear of loosing that self-defeats us into having not. I see beautiful people acting ugly and ugliness crying out for solace. I see us as a people trying to learn a new way of being.

We are all trying to pursue peace, happiness togetherness and prosperity and we see the signs and symbols of capitalism tearing our communities apart. The pressure to compete and to scrap for resources leaves us divided and quarrelling over jobs, partners, love, and shelter and our children. Looking for communion and rituals that provide us love and sanctuary. Right and Wrongs go un-checked as we tear and scratch for sustenance like cats in a barrel of water. We loose ourselves in self-doubt, and the quest for worth and worthiness.

Take a moment to revel in the connectedness and the moments that we have shared that have brought us together. The partnerships and the lovemaking that has fathered and mothered us and brought us into this world and the fear of lacking that has left our world struggling in injustice and war. Not necessarily the bombs and armies that we perceive as our conflicts, we miss the conflicts within ourselves. We overlook the pain we store in memories of disappointment and feelings of disappointment by finding fault in the relationships we foster with doubt.

I challenge each of us to dig deep and SEE that we are all in this together and no person should be left out of the celebration that we are all in this together. No man or woman child or clan is enemy. We are one family, striving for success and acceptance.

Take time to apologize for the blame and the discord and embrace each other. Open your door and invite someone you have quarrel with to break bread as family. Call someone you know who struggles with the search for Home and open your perception of sanctuary and home and GIVE. It is not about the material and the fiber that makes up the fabric of life but the blessing of comfort we can find in being human and caring for each other and one another.

Let the fear dissolve and the love surface in knowing that without one another, with out all that has happened in our lives we would not have this moment to laugh, share, commune, and revel in how good life is, how many blessings we have to share, and how each of us has given to this world a piece of magic in our lives.

Each breath you take has a breath I have exhaled and each breath I take I inhale the gift you leave behind in the magic of your life. We are interdependent and we affect one another. Live in peace. Practice patience, presence, love, and honor. Honesty and integrity, respect, and stewardship. Take care of one another and share this life, this planet, and the magic of being.

Pause at happiness
Hug a stranger
Give to give
Receive goodness
Practice forgiveness
Extend kindness
Try to understand
Surrender judgment to empathy
Cultivate peace
Open your heart
Take down the barriers that blockade and isolate us from
humanness Embrace change
Break down prejudice
Thrive in diversity

End oppression Suspend ego
Share wealth
Expand love
Embrace nature
Release control
Love thy neighbor as thyself
Help the needy
Forgive the past
Embrace the moment
And look forward to the potential of the future by moving toward
the light


Life brings us challenges to make us stronger as we move toward common good.


Breathe

Happy Holidays.

B*