Reflections on the holidays

Could it be different?

A bird native to North America wearing the hat of an English political/religious refugee- that’s not dissonant at all…

I spent my twenties working in fine dining in Virginia horse country. Early on in my tenure, during a moment of Dionysian divination, I declared to my coworkers that our workplace was sited on an ancient Indian burial ground. It was the only explanation for the unique combination of haunted dining rooms, personal chaos and the talented crew of misfit geniuses who worked there.

It also explained why NO ONE wanted to be the last one turning out the lights in the taproom and why something kept saying my name, but only in the lower dining room. At one point, I asked a coworker if she had experienced anything like that. “Nope. But something keeps banging two pieces of wood next to my ears. It’s annoying.”

One of the owners was a highly regarded speechwriter. At this time of year, he would declare, “Once again, the holidays have us by the throat.”

How did we get here?

In my corner of the world, folks hate winter.

It’s cold.

Put some bloody clothes on.

It’s dark.

Yep.

It is the dying.

Oh, we are definitely not going there…In a culture that is simultaneously obsessed with eternal youth and terrified of dying, this is a no-go.

Classically, Winter is the Water element. According to the correspondences, it is cold, blue/black, the sound of groaning, a putrid odor and the will to live. It is our kidneys and bladder in terms of organs. But so so much more…It is the bones, the deepest levels of physical form. It is ancestors, lineage and genetics. And it is the will to live. The power to survive. That famous hiker who ended up sawing off his arm to free himself? Only the Kidneys hold that level of power.

And it is the dying. That faithful companion that walks with us from the moment of our birth. The thing that must not be spoken of in polite current culture.

Current culture makes little pretense at politeness, but let’s be generous…it’s the holidays.

It’s time to go deep into the dark, into shadow, to rummage around in Bly’s long black bag. Winter isn’t just the dying, the depths of yin. Because what happens when we hit maximum yin? The cycle pivots back towards yang. Bladder 67, the sumbitch point at the edge of the little toe nail that my Water folks dread…It is winter solstice and the turning towards the light. Hence it’s long use with moxa to turn a breech presentation. Butt-first is a really not great way to enter the world. And we are definitely in a butt-first approach in our relationship to winter, the holidays and all things dying.

So I offer you some thoughts on the season and holidays- all gratitude to Dougald Hine for his inspiration of this. Please check out his excellent Substack¹, podcast² and book³. He first encountered this framing via Federico Campagna⁴. It’s a deeply constructive way to engage with something that’s shitting itself.

Lakota winter count

What we might salvage from the ruins…

A willingness to reckon with the limit of our days. A limit to sunshine and warmth and youth and margaritas by the pool. We might begin to accord Winter some respect. To remember that ancient cultures counted age via winters, not birthdays.

In cultures that honored resilience, nobody gave a shit about the day you appeared here. It was much more vital whether you could survive the immense power and pressure of winter…

No pressure, no diamonds, right? Classical Chinese theory would say, “No cold, no seeds.” It is the deep dark cold intensification of Winter that forms the seed that will sprout in Spring. And, as with each season, some things will not survive. Maybe it’s the rosemary in the garden, sometimes it is a dream or even a person. In this last month of winter, we prepare for spring. Sharpening the tools for spring, whether that be a business plan or a pair of Felco pruners…

What are the things that were never as good as we thought?

Black Friday, may it rot in hell. A delightful [not] scarcity-based exercise in over-consumption. The term originates from the gold market crash of 1869. Invocations are powerful things- should we really shout that one to the heavens?⁵ Prior to Covid, stores were even opening on Thanksgiving Day so we could get a jump on unrestrained consumerism. Just consider being the poor bastard who had to work that day…That’s a cheap move from a desperate culture.

Driving a carload of tired, over-stuffed children from pillar to post to appease all branches of the family. Maybe if we spent more time with our people the rest of the year, we wouldn’t have to torture small children (and adults) at the holidays.

Mandatory gift giving. Giving gifts to everyone lest their feelings get hurt. Buying more crap folks don’t need so they feel ‘loved’. Giving the gift of cheap plastic toys, endocrine-disrupting scented candles, mass-produced processed sugar bombs and bane of my bloody existence, cinnamon-scented anything. I recently listened to an podcast from the excellent Chris Christou where he interviewed David Cayley, an Ivan Illich scholar.

“So, I think what Ivan is saying in saying this is a new kind of ought, right, it's the whole thing of the corruption of the best is the worst in a nutshell because as soon as you think you can operationalize that, you can turn everyone into a Samaritan and you, you begin to destroy the home world, right?

You begin to destroy ethics. You begin to, or you transform ethics into something which is a contradiction of ethics.” David Cayley⁶

Oh dear. The institutionalization of the holidays is the destruction of the holidays. Merry Christmas!!!

Old stories. How many of us ‘hate winter’? Do we really hate winter?

Maybe.

But I believe the majority of our hatred stems from prior miserable Christmases and our insistence of racketing around in December like it’s a different season entirely. Winter is a time for telling stories with our nearest and dearest. A time of quietude and reflection.

Office parties do not qualify.

It is the time of shepherding resources as we’ve only got what we’ve got, whether that be the larder, our vitality or our bank account. If December is partying like it’s 1999, then January, with its wintry demands of deep cold and no ‘larder restocking’ until spring/summer is gonna suck.

What are the dropped threads?

The sacred, however you view that. Whether you harken to the return of the light or the birth of Christ. The sacred has many faces- walking out into a frigid night and listening to the stars sing. Standing around a fire, chilly fingers gratefully clutching a mug of hot mulled cider. Watching cardinals bicker at a birdfeeder as snow filters down. Holding hands before a meal of lovingly prepared food. The mystery of midnight mass on Christmas Eve. The heartbreaking purity of the young soloist at the start of A Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols…⁷

We’ve allowed the holidays to become a performance and performances have audiences, passive by nature. Once, not so very very long ago, we had ceremony and ritual. Ceremony and ritual have participants. How many of us go through the motions of the holidays? “But we always go to Aunt Mary’s?”

Don’t be a spectator.

Tara on her tiny soapbox trigger warning:

At some point since the dawn of Facecrack, we have been encouraged to “make memories”.

In a time when Alzheimer’s is on the rise, this is weird, ironic and creepy.

I’ve had patients tell me that they’re ‘taking a cruise to make memories’ or suchlike. That’s not how this works, people. We are only a tool of Facecrack content creation by choice.

Is it really about memories or is it about relationship? Isn’t life on this planet really about relationship? And do we really make relationships by standing in line at the buffet?

I would venture that we make more relationship by holding a friend’s hair out of the toilet as they heave their guts up than via the bottle of Jagermeister that preceded this unfortunate turn of events…

I believe we make relationship by doing things with other beings, whether that be hands in the dirt or pulling 62 tons of ice and snow off a friend’s roof. I would posit that it takes more than a holiday meal to make both relationship and memories. It’s chop wood and carry water. It’s pushing cars uphill in 6 inches of snow and slush. It’s work. And Winter is work…

What things must we carry forward as stories to be brought back at a later time?

This is a tricky category- let me give some context. If we were living in an post-apocalyptic scenario, we might say “I’ll be heating up some beans on the rocket stove⁸ tonight. Remember when we came home to dinner in the Instapot?” When I apply this criteria to the holidays, I’m a little stumped. For example, consider Christmas lights which are LOVELY. But is it necessary to light up an entire hillside?

Don’t worry, Christmas light people. The electricity demands of crypto and AI have you dwarfed. Wait- that’s too big. You’re a mote…

So, lovely readers- over to you. Ideas on things that will go by the wayside, but would be great to bring back once we sort our shit out.

Here is the invitation of solstice deep winter-

Enter the labyrinth. Wander out into the cold. Greet the stars. Relish the breath that fills your lungs. Welcome the sweet fragrance of wood smoke with joy and thanksgiving. Consider radical hospitality and reckless generosity from the heart (not the pocketbook). Get a bloody snow shovel and go shovel for someone who can’t. Give thanks for Waziyata’s venturing south aka the artic blast. If not for yourself, do it for the trees who will be healthier for it.

It’s no different for us…

Starlings in Winter

Chunky and noisy,
but with stars in their black feathers,
they spring from the telephone wire
and instantly

they are acrobats
in the freezing wind.
And now, in the theater of air,
they swing over buildings,

dipping and rising;
they float like one stippled star
that opens,
becomes for a moment fragmented,

then closes again;
and you watch
and you try
but you simply can't imagine

how they do it
with no articulated instruction, no pause,
only the silent confirmation
that they are this notable thing,

this wheel of many parts, that can rise and spin
over and over again,
full of gorgeous life.

Ah, world, what lessons you prepare for us,
even in the leafless winter,
even in the ashy city.
I am thinking now
of grief, and of getting past it;

I feel my boots
trying to leave the ground,
I feel my heart
pumping hard. I want

to think again of dangerous and noble things.
I want to be light and frolicsome.
I want to be improbable beautiful and afraid of nothing,
as though I had wings.

Mary Oliver

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3. https://dougald.nu/

4. https://www.moussemagazine.it/magazine/world-ing-federico-campagna-riboca2-2nd-riga-international-biennial-of-contemporary-art-2020/

5. https://www.history.com/news/black-friday-thanksgiving-origins-history

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8. https://insteading.com/blog/how-to-build-a-rocket-stove/