I have not celebrated Christmas in a traditional way for many years – about half my lifetime!
But I like being here, with it all going on around me – the lights in the streets, all the sparkly ness, and huge trees – bright light colour with angels and fairies atop…
Watching it all in the dark Silent night…
And more trees – still naked – waiting to be bought – folk carrying them home in netting which they will soon spring out of and become adorned and bedecked too.
And I like the carols, hearing them in restaurants and in the streets – and I love singing them too!
I love ‘Silent Night’ – and all the songs we all know so well
Anadi and I went to the Royal Albert Hall to bask in a sound bath of the uplifting joyousness of the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and the National youth Choir – and – we got to sing along too!
For the first verse of ‘Away in a Manger’ the women were invited to sing alone –
I stood up tall, feeling like I did when I was eight years old in the school nativity, wanting to sing my very best…
There weren’t may women near me and the ones that were sang very quietly!
As I sang my heart out (doing my best to stay in tune!) – I felt like I was singing a solo at the Royal Albert Hall!
When the rest of the audience joined in with verse two, both Anadi on my left and the man on my right leaned towards me – almost simultaneously – and whispered to me… ‘Well sung’!
And I stood silent then for a moment in the beautiful Royal Albert Hall, feeling the Christmas love
The Christmas joy
The sounds of voices heralding the Christmas tide, aliveness
And also silence
A Silent night amidst the noise
Silence Love and Joy always there, within us all
At Christmas time and all the time
Because there is no time at all, when we are here and now feeling that love and joy inside us
And experiencing the Silence
In each Magical moment there is no fear, or disruption
There is only pure presence
And in practicing this
Being fully here, in this very moment
Now, breathing in – all is calm all is bright – in the silence before breathing out again
Feeling the expansive all pervading truth
Without thought
Or narrative
‘All is calm, all is bright’
Within this simple practise
Love and joy are the norm – whether it is Christmas time or not.
And fear and anxiety and upset and distress all ‘leave the building’…
There is no need to run away, to hide – or
To hope for something different
In the moment
Silence
is freedom