Here is my offering for the holidays. The painting is a large rock formation on the White Rabbit Hiking Trail in Ashland, Oregon *. I have passed it many times over the past year including last winter. The heavy snow found the pine trees bowing as I passed, while the reflected light from the covered ground and slightly golden northern sky illuminated the giant boulders with blues, yellows, and purples.
* Ashland is the ancestral homelands of the Shasta, Takelma, and Latgawa peoples. Today, the Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde Community of Oregon and the Confederated Tribes of Siletz Indians are their living descendants. It is with humble gratitude that I walk and find inspiration from the land that these Indigenous people lived and stewarded for thousands of years.
Two days ago, I went for another hike, this time around and above Lithia Park in Ashland. As I neared the trails end there were two small pine trees decorated with ornaments.
As I approached the first little adorned fir (left image), a woman walking a small dog ahead of me stopped to take a picture. The dog sniffed around the ground then left a little present under the tree. It wasn’t the typical gift to be found beneath the green bows, and the woman quickly removed it with a plastic bag.
Watching the scene ahead of me unfold, brought first a smile and then a wondering. Why gifts? Aside from my mental amusement of the dog’s excremental offering, the roots of the practice includes ancient Rome (during their Saturnalia holiday), Christianity (the Magi), Victorian England (begging, caroling, and imported Germanic traditions), to the American toy industry during the 19th and 20th centuries. The common thread through time? They are all are “things.”
If there was as much marketing, advertising, promotion, or energy given to experiences, gatherings, with meaningful expressions of kindness, compassion, and love as there are for objects, I feel the world would be such a better place.
With this thought, my second offering to you is a creation by Jackson Browne with the Chieftains as they celebrate in song the birth of the child who would become the Rebel Jesus.
Lastly, I share the blessing below, inspired by the poetry of the great John O’Donohue, whose wisdom bridged the human with the divine (for all faiths) and his book “To Bless the Space Between Us”, a book of Beannacht (the Irish word for Blessings).
Whatever you celebrate, Hannukah, Solstice, Christmas, Kwanzaa, A’Phabet Day (No “L” Day), or a day of rest, I wish you, your family and anyone (including pets) who are important to your being, that they receive the greatest of gifts … you.
A Blessing for Light
May each day bring you moments of ease and light,
Time for your mind to rest, connecting with
Others and the world around you.
That you feel Seen
Heard,
Wanted,
Understood,
And that
You are held with Grace
In the hands of
Kindness and Love.
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