I hope you experienced a blessed day of appreciating your family, friends, and many graces that life has shared with you this past year. For those of you who have felt challenged this year don't be too downcast it has been that way for everyone. If you have eaten today be grateful. If you have a warm coat be grateful. If you have a roof over your head be grateful. If you are healthy and without pain be grateful. It can be easy to focus on what is not right or upsetting in life, but so much more is going on that we take for granted. We race around roads in beasts of metal that carry in their bellies liquid fire and each time we reach our destination without incident is a small miracle.
This year I have been greatly challenged by the fears I have carried and still carry within me. I have come up against my own blocks, and yet there is so much to be grateful for this year. I have acquired new skills and honed others. I have made wonderful new friends and kept the heart fires burning for old ones. I have had the blessing of being able to use my skills to help others. I have found ways to integrate my art and my spiritual practices and that has been such a blessing. I have been given the opportunity to see how I have been a positive force in the lives of those around me. I have seen my friend Leslie come into her own with her published book "Love is the Thread", and I even have a few cameos in print. I've had the opportunity to work with new clients and develop deeper professional relationships with returning clients. I've gotten to travel on my own and with a friend. I've been down to the sands of the sea and sang song spells. The ups far outnumber the downs and yet the contrast has been stark. I take solace in the knowledge that I am not alone. My spirit helpers have heard me call and came when I needed. The ancestors have danced and sung with me in ceremony. My guides have helped me to chant the clay up on the potter's wheel. I have not gotten all that I have wished for, and perhaps that is best. It gives me more to look forward to yet and that is half the fun.
As the holiday season works into the frenzy of buying, wrapping, baking, and decorating remember to take a moment in the crisp cold air and offer a prayer to the stillness that waits there. Time always seems to slip through our fingers at this season. There is so much to do and get done we can lose ourselves in the media induced illusion of what the holidays are supposed to be, or try to recreate a past memory of the perfect celebration. The holidays come in the dark of the year, the time when we are biologically and psychologically most challenged. There is a reason we light candles in so many traditions, to call out the light we carry within ourselves. We must be the sun in winter's heart. We must be the warmth in the lives of all our relations. May you be thankful for all that you have and the love that you carry in this life.
Peace and Blessings,
Thomas Mooneagle
