Christmas reflections

I have spent my first Christmas ever, in 66 years, away from my family, in Chiang Mai, and I can now reflect on what I find truly meaningful about Christmas and what it was that I missed about being in solitude. For sure, it is not the presents or the Christmas cards which are important. I find it a chore to hunt endlessly around for unsuitable presents and to write soundbites on dozens of Christmas cards because that is what convention tells you to do. I prefer to give gifts and send cards spontaneously, not just because it's Christmas. Neither does being away from England in any way sadden me; with its dark days, cold winter weather and its cynicism it is a relief not to be there and to be instead in the warmth and smiles and sunshine of Thailand. I expect that Christmas in the wintry mountains of Europe would be a different story, too, as there is a mystical magic about Christmas in the mountains, a magic of a pagan sort where the Christmas story hangs on the tree of an older tradition. But in Thailand, as now in England, there is no true sense of the Christmas story. Just jingle bells and endless consumerism. So, I havn't missed the story of Christmas, nor its magic, as there was none of that in England either, at least not since 1995 when I last attended Midnight Mass at Westminster Cathedral which purveyed the true spirit of the message: an enlightened being, the Cosmic Christ, a baby born in poverty, who would show us the way to universal consciousness and to the divine within us that we might open our hearts to unconditional love and compassion. For that surely is the message of Christmas. And when I was going to the Cathedral, the deeply spiritual Cardinal Hume was proclaiming the message which made it meaningful. I doubt the present Cardinal is capable of doing that.

I feel that the best way to honour the true message is by spending Christmas in the company of our loved ones, particularly our family. That is what I have missed, my loved ones, because I have not had the company of any single one of them this Christmas. My beloved mother died in March and I spent 65 Christmases with her, latterly travelling back from Thailand just to do that (oh dear, my carbon footprint!). My cousins would also join us which made the day special and then my brother would leave his family and visit two days' later. But life is change and now the format has to be altered before next year as this year is a non-event, a sort of unplanned floating Christmas where there was no more than a visit to the Christmas mass although that was not as magical as the Midnight Mass at Westminster Cathedral in London which always set the stable aglow with the true meaning of Christ's birth. My only loved one in Thailand is a very dedicated nurse who has to work in the hospital many kilometres away. So, all my loved ones are far away, at least at the physical level. But at a deeper soul level maybe I can commune with them and sense their presence, both those living and those who have passed over. This, for me, will be the true meaning of Christmas 2007. Happy Christmas.

carbon footprinting a great opportunity

I wonder to what extent the future of our dear Mother Earth is being decided in Bali at the moment, at the world conference on Climate Change? After all, the way the global climate is changing and the prolific way we spew out carbon emissions into the atmosphere is something that affects each and every one of us, yes, every member of our enormous human family. Surely it is incumbent on every one of us to do what we can, in our infinitesimally small way, to play our part in reducing the level of carbon emissions. We must take note of and reduce our own carbon footprint. And we can.

Not only can we but it is a great opportunity for us. No matter whether I am in Thailand, Italy or the UK, I am aware that life is becoming ever more expensive, what with the rise in fuel prices, food prices, rentals, transport fares, you name it. It's all becoming more expensive. And everywhere tourism is down, house prices are in the doldrums and there is a general sense of despair and despond, especially as this year has been so malicious for so many people. It seems that even the stars are against us. So, what a great time for us to apply ourselves to saving money, and not only saving money but also cutting back on our own carbon footprint so that we can, in our own little way, help Mother Earth to start breathing healthily again.

How do we do this? Well, it's easy. We use water in a more economic way. We convert to energy saving bulbs and also use our electricity less by not being wasteful which we have been in the past. We use aeroplanes less and trains and boats more. We cut back on the use of our car or motor bike by 20% or 30% ... and walk more! We recycle our rubbish more carefully. We insulate our houses more thoroughly. We use biodegradable packing materials. We buy a reusable shopping bag and cut back on our use of plastic. There is a long list of things we can do and things we shouldn't do. And, if we add it all together, it becomes a campaign of saving which will cut back on our spending. Is that not a good thing?

Most important, as we start to apply ourselves to cutting back on our carbon footprint, so our awareness will grow and deepen and we will come to value our natural world and also our place within it. So, the whole exercise is not just practical and financial but it is also spiritual and it will help to place us where we belong, at the heart of nature. More and more, especially in the cities, we have lost touch with nature and so we have lost touch with who we truly are. If we can remedy this in our own lives, then learning to lessen our carbon footprint will become an exercise of great benefit to us all.

So, let's start walking more, let's get the bicycles out, and let's save all we can on those emissions.

Communicating face to face

I realise as I write this on the internet that it is a very useful way of letting you know my thoughts, that is, if you care to read them. You may or you may not. But, you know, I would much prefer to sitting down with you face to face on a hillsideand discussing our thoughts together. Somehow, it would be much more meaningful for us to have eye contact and to be communicating at soul level, for our eyes are the mirror of our souls. In this way, our thought processes would become animated and fully human and we would sense ourselves in touch. As John O'Donohue writes in "Anam Cara...": "When you really look deeply at something, it becomes a part of you. This is one of the sinister aspects of television. People are constantly looking at empty and false images; these impoverished images are filling up the inner world of the heart... Television and the computer world are great empty shadowlands." I do agree with this as I find, whenever I use the computer or television, that there is something missing, a sense of soul. And I think it is because whatever you are looking at is simply not real and certainly not human... "empty and false images". And that impoverishes our souls which in our modern world can feel very weak and unfulfilled anyway.

So, we must not forget the value of face to face communication. Nor must we forget when we are with others that we should read in their eyes what they are trying to say to us. In this way, we can sense our oneness at soul level and so communicate our thoughts in a truly meaningful way. The eyes talk.

Of course, if we're many miles apart then we cannot communicate in this way at that moment. And then, of course, the internet can become helpful up to a point. It is a useful tool. After all, how could I say what I am now saying without it, whether or not you ever read it. But if we use it to excess, then we use it at our peril as it will destroy our ability to communicate at soul level. And that is what is happening with so many children today: too much time spent on the television and the computer and too little time spent in communicating in a natural, social, human way. Yin and Yang, we need balance in all things.

Good and Bad

It seems that so many happenings in life are both good and bad. My most recent experience shows that clearly. The day before I was due to travel down to Bangkok to have a standard medical check-up, to meet up with my cousin who was there working for ten days, and then go off to an island for a few days of relaxation, the debris from my 1999 prostate operation began to cause problems, blood and blockage. The next day, I flew down from Chiang Mai, was admitted, and the day after that I had an emergency clear-out operation. This whole thing just came out of the blue and I felt shocked and sickened by memories of the first time back in the UK. But I was in good hands and both the cardiologist and the urologist who performed the operation were wonderful, friendly, caring medics. Not only that, but I was already due to be in Bangkok at that time meeting up with my cousin and my girlfriend who is a nurse and having an standard aneurism scan and so the timing was miraculous. Synchronicity. Or, the universe working in strange ways.



I feel that this whole episode was a physical manifestation of the clear-out that this mischievous monkey year seems to have been all about. What a year. And I am converted to the idea of regular future monitoring of heart, aorta, kidneys, bladder and prostate because as one gets older the body begins to fray at the edges and it's a good idea to keep tabs on where a potential problem may come from so that one can nip it in the bud. After all, it's my health, so my responsibility. And I can now try even harder to lead a life that will take account of my weaknesses and keep me healthy.



So, you see, out of this whole saga has come some good and hopefully life can now move onwards into a new year of home-building and creativity. First, some positive rest and recuperation.