Where to start:
Christ-mas is not the most fun time of year for many, may be for most of us. It is not about the Christ story, although they can keep that story going for as long as they want. I certainly don't need to start a war about, over or on it. I actually admire the followers of Christ, but there are so few who actually practice the tenants, at least the way that I understand them from the New Testament.
It is a lovely story about a refugee family needing to be far from home at a time when there was chaos, trouble and strife in the world as they knew it. Oh my god, thinking of a time like that to be pregnant and so close to the due date - Ugh. EVERY woman's heart goes out - it's bad enough to have cramps, worry about your period and not know where the next bathroom might be. No, I have never given birth, but I admire Mary - whether or not she was the mother of God. She was certainly a mother in need (d: Not) and Joseph was probably as scared and responsible as any young man with a pregnant woman on his hands.
It is a time of Birth and re-birth, but this happens every year in the history of humanity - north or south of the Equator. There is always a shortest day and a longest night. A night that tempts us to believe that the day, the power, the healing of the Sun might never come back again. A day that might be frigid and cold, with crackling, snapping ice or a day like today in the Chihuahua desert almost mild and balmy might never ever exist again, might never come back.
Those long dark nights remind us of the power of the grave, the tomb, the end of life which we might never know again, the joys of that sun we may never see. A place where we might forever be alone with no other beings to warm and comfort us. So, of course, there is always resonance with the birth story of the Son / the Sun ! It has been told hundreds of thousands of times, if not millions, long before Christ was born and certainly even in those lands without a Christ to fathom - see ancient Egypt.
The Christians have forever been adept at building their edifices on top of those long hallowed structures that were dedicated to other deities, other mothers and sons. I am not blaspheming Christ, I am talking about legends and Cathedrals often built to convince the other - the native tribe - that the Christ story was a good story, a worthy story. And, why shouldn't it be - it totally resonated with the tribe's beliefs in the Corn or Wheat god, who died or was killed every fall in order to rise again in the new year with the coming of the light. The mother who of necessity must sacrifice her son that the Sun would continue to rise. The ultimate sacrifice of going in to death in order to facilitate the birth.
And, goddess knows the Mother always feared that cold dim passage of death either for the newborn or for herself. All that work, all that love for this undistinguished being, this small clump of cells with a beating heart who came from gods know where. Sure, it had something to do with the man, (e.g. Son of Man?) but that came much later. And, there were good and bad times to give birth. To give birth in the spring when there was strength, courage and hope, that was an easy thing. But, to give birth in the dead of winter when only the very strong and the toughest could survive that must have taken real courage. The courage and conviction that only the strongest baby might survive this time of nothingness and poverty of hearth and spirit. For who has hope facing an empty larder and the fear that it might never be full again. What woman trusts that she can nurse when there is nothing to nourish her.
As followers of Christ, we are often concerned with our nourishment just as the northern Europeans at this time of year must have feared for the coming of the cold. Despite the pelts, would we be warm enough; was there enough wax, tallow, oil, coals to keep the fires lit? Would we perish alone in the cold, or were there other beings willing to share, even sacrifice to see that we would survive another winter. Oh my, what a dreadful state of fear comes to mind as the cold begins to seep into one's bones, and, depending on one's age, one reckons how many winters we have already been fortunate enough to make it to this one in a half-way decent frame of body, and mind.
So, the birth of a child, probably a boy, bears with it tremendous hope and fear all in one small package. And, every mother who survives to care for that child knows with what grace both she and her child's life have been given in the midst of such a winter.
Is there such a thing as Altruism - or is it simply the biological necessity of the herd to maintain its numbers? But, again, I come back to the idea that there are better and worse times to give birth to infants, to ideas, to enterprises. The middle of winter with the question of survival around the corner does not always feel like the most blessed of times. But, hark, the Sun returns, it is waxing, guaranteeing a time when again there will be germinated seeds, green plants rising through a warm verdant earth to strive for the life-giver of the Sun again.
So, what am I doing on this Souls-tice - searching for meaning in a time of year that has such mixed blessings of hope and promise and fear all wrapped in one? I am contemplating 56 previous years of rotation - good and bad- thirty years in relative sobriety, happiness and sanity. Thirty years of recovery from the previous 26 of childhood, adolescents and all the destruction of young adulthood.
I think often of my grandmother - Mimi - at this time of year, the one force that made childhood almost bearable. As she got older, the loneliness of the season became increasingly difficult for Mimi to bear, but she tried to make it as lovely as she could for all of her progeny on the other side of the big pond (d: grosser Teich). We would call her Christmas eve, after all the presents were unwrapped, all of the packages unbundled and divided up. All of the warmth and glow of the Tree, the music and the family gathered together in one strong unit to share our warmth and strength with her over the telephone wires. We had all made it to another Christmas and the next year would shower us with growth and joy and hope for the future. We believed this and needed to believe it because there was still a gray and bleary winter to get through - but we would survive!
Mimi, like me and my mother, had been born in Berlin, that wondrous city of light for me. That city that was a real city, not just some American thoroughfares thrown together and called a city for the purposes of various citizens. Berlin was a real city, hundreds of years old, cold and dark this time of year. But, from pictures, and from Mimi, I knew it was all lit up this time of year because they so valued the light at this time of year in the northern Hemisphere. They even had real candles on their trees and the New Year's was more like the fourth of July than even the 4th of July.
So, Berlin was where my heart longed to be on most Christmas eves with my wonderful Grandmother, the woman who had born my mother and ensured my easy passage in to this world. I was my grandmother's vaunted ransom. Like the goddess Demeter, she had given up her one and only daughter to the green of the new land in return for some promise of attention from the child - ME - the first born. Fortunately, I was a daughter - which Mimi really did see as better. I think a boy would have been okay, but by this time in my grandmother's life, she saw all of the survival benefits in being a girl and a woman.
My mother and I had spent my second Christmas on earth with my grandmother, and there must have been something magical about it just being the three of us that kept my memories of Solstice / Christmas in Berlin as wonderful and magical as anything I ever saw or heard in the wondrous tale of the Nutcracker. Much like the rest of the northern Europeans, we celebrated the night of the shortest day with fire and light and warmth and family in order to prove our survival in to another year.
Later, when I finally moved to Berlin, after Mimi's death, I understood even better how all of our mutual survival was annually documented through this yule eve celebration. From Mimi's birthday in late October through the Christmas days, I remembered her sad letters from the fall and her late October death preceding my last Christmas in the Mid-west. Mimi's death at the end of October - right in between her birthday and my parents' wedding anniversary on Halloween (not celebrated as such in Germany) was a definite demarcation of life. No more 'glatt-eis' (tr.; black glass ice on the sidewalks - so treachorous for the elderly) for her. But, as her funeral witnessed - no more asters, her favorite flower, or celebrations with the few remaining relatives who gathered for that funeral and wake. Perversely, we celebrated the wake at the same inn where my parents had celebrated their wedding with the relatives.
After all of the proceedings, and settling as much of the estate as we could, both my mother and I returned to the states to get our own affairs in order. We had agreed that whatever we had left unfinished - I would take care of when I returned to Berlin in January. In mid-winter, I moved with 2 cats, one Raleigh touring bicycle and wearing my favorite Cowboy hat. I don't remember much of that last Christmas in the states as I hadn't attained sobriety yet - it was further down the road - a bottom destined to be found in Berlin.
No comments:
Post a Comment