Saturday, December 9, 2017

12/4/17—Looking Forward To The Holidays

From the Illuminated Tarot.
Ooops! I thought I scheduled this to automatically post last week, but I didn't. So you get a bonus. One today, one tomorrow...

I've always been kind of meh about the holiday season. I try to get into it, but never really get my jingle on. 

I probably won't even put up a tree this year, nor will I go to the problem of wrapping the dog's presents. I also usually wrap the gifts I give myself and put them under the tree, but this year I got two awesome things and I'm unable to wait for them. It seems my holiday efforts are waning. 

But what's nice this year is that, over the next week or two, I will see the people who matter to me, and we will exchange warm tidings and I will have gratitude for that time. 

It hasn't always been that way for me. Some years I'm too frazzled to appreciate those exchanges. Some years it has been about material things. Some years I was hoping for warm exchanges from the wrong people. Some years I was too depressed. Some years I wasn't feeling gracious. Something has always gotten in the way of me truly getting into the warmth of the season. Maybe it was me getting in the way. 

But over the past year or two I have made new decisions about who and what I'll value in my life moving forward. It's not the people and things I once valued. And because of that, this year and this season have brought me more gratitude for the sentient beings in my life...like a heart opening of sorts. I feel safe around all the sentient beings in my life.

And, of course, I'm saying sentient beings because the dogs are included in there with my friends. I have always had an open heart around them and gratitude for them, but there's a subtle shift that I can detect. I'm awed by their love more than usual. And instead of wanting to lay tight up against me, they want to lay on top of me lately. The dogs, that is. Not my friends. 

So, anyway, I didn't know what to write about until I chose the card above, and it illustrates my point. Family and celebration are no longer what I always thought it would be. It's not made up of people who share my genes as much as it is made up of people who share my heart and my way of being in this world. If they happen to have my genes, then ok. But I want the people in my life to be capable of sharing back just as genuinely. 

So maybe that's the third awesome gift I got myself for Christmas and opened early. It is a gift to know who and what matters in your life, even if it doesn't fit a mold you were born into or one society deems acceptable. I have always been drawn to dogs and introspective, deep folks. But I have wanted other things, not because I was drawn to them, but because I think I should. It's a gift to finally be free of all my should.