I'll be Home for Christmas

They say you can never go home again, I beg to differ.

Today while trimming my Christmas tree, I invited the spirit of Christmas Past and was seized by the rupture I felt as a kid when the little fake tree was taken down from the attic  in our apartment in Greece.

Today I went searching for the perfect gift for one very dear friend with the same delicious anticipation I had savored as an adolescent.

Today I listen to Holly Night without the cynical ears of the scientist and a mind jaded by the years past and the dreams crashed.

Today I bought a coffee and a piece of cake for the lonely old lady at the corner table in Starbucks, just because..

And as I put the star on the top of my now decorated tree, I made one special wish.

Today I did go back home.

May you all be home for Christmas this year.

Therapy: The liberator

 

Therapy is not about relieving suffering, it's about repairing one's relationship to reality.

The strong find peace in that and bless me, others, distraught by the loss of their illusions, walk away and curse me.

I thank them both, especially the latter because they teach me to be patient and creative. Illusions are there to protect fragile and traumatized minds; they should only be taken down when the soul is liberated from the shackles of pain and shame. Illusions, like the butterfly's cocoon, fall away when her wings are strong enough for her to fly.

The strong feminine

On the day when it will be possible for woman to love not in her weakness but in strength, not to escape herself but to find herself, not to abase herself but to assert herself -- on that day love will become for her, as for man, a source of life .
Simone De Beauvoir.







More often than not, it's not the outside man whom we as women have to fight to earn equality, but our internalized father, in other words, our need, often obsession, to please, to be agreeable, to be all accommodating.

As women we often confuse caring for others with total neglect of our needs and individuality. Sometimes our whole femininity is sacrificed at the altar of "mothering" not only of our kids, but the whole world around us.

It's time  to leave our daddy's house, to stop relying on a man, any man, to define who we are and what we can become. Now, more than any other time in the past the world needs the strong Feminine to heal the damage that centuries of shortsightedness has caused.

The meaning of suffering

In the depths of our soul there is a secret and sacred place where the seeds of rebirth lie awaiting. 

In Greek mythology Persephone is abducted into the underworld where for three months out of the year she rules as its queen. 

Persephone's journey is the symbolic death of our naive ego. The ego of our youth, the ego that is tied to the demands of the society, to the responsibilities of family, to the aspirations for a career. It is the ego we carry for half of our life. 

Then our soul calls us, beckons us,  and if we continue to turn a deaf ear abducts us, often forcefully, into the dark underworld. Sometimes we call this world depression or mental illness. Sometimes it shows up as an inexplicable physical illness. 

Hope dims as we recede ever deeper into darkness and suffering.

And yet it is in this dark underworld that the seeds of our mature femininity or masculinity lie waiting for us. Suffering can be the crucible where our personality acquires character. In finding the meaning of our suffering we discover empathy, gratitude and a deepening of emotions that makes life sparkle anew. 

Suffering can be a deep well of meaning. 

It can be harmful,yes, but it can also be helpful.

A killer maybe, or possibly a savior, if we can manage to create a framework to understand it.

Let's dance

                                                                    

We dance for laughter, we dance for tears,
we dance for madness, we dance for fears,
we dance for hopes, we dance for screams,
we are the dancers, we create the dreams.
Albert Einstein.

So, my friends, let the new year find us all foot-loose and care free.