Intentionality for the year

First Holy Night

December 24-25 - Capricorn

Christmas Eve, when Christ is born in the soul. The soul asks: Can I, with all my weaknesses, deficiencies and passions, be heard?

Symbol: The stable of Bethlehem, where the Light of the World is born in humility and poverty. The Voice of Silence penetrates the soul and teaches to joyfully affirm the good in us and in others.

Capricorn. The Divine Spirit is born in Matter. Spirit and Matter, the Alpha and Omega touch and life comes into being.

Mystery: The seeking soul in the darkness of a pathless forest.

Rudolf Steiner’s indications for the Holy Nights given to Herbert Hahn

The music of gamelan, more than any other music, to me is the music of South East Asia. An amalagam of metal and stone, its metallic, earthy hollowness is the sounds of the forest and the rain, the coolness of a night, the squinting of the eyes in the day. I am transported everytime...

This mediation of Steiner's is useful but also pessimistic - I know there is something about humility and the poverty of where we are in our life as the human being, but consider this - if we keep on going on about our lack of worthiness, then how are we supposed to transform the world, especially those of us who have the solutions but are either too unconfident or preoccupied to take what we can in our hands and see to it and we prosper as a collective... and I mean an entire collective - not just the collective of assholes.

The time of the genius billionaire is hopefully over. We were watching The Social Network last night and it seemed clear that really, the idiocy of youth - which we all went through - accidentally discovers something and then with the arrogance borne of self belief it proceeds to believe it is invincible. 

If I have learnt anything it is that we all are better when we are helping each other - also we all are worse. It is a double edged sword. And we have a choice about that.

So, as part Capricorn, the water goat, or mermaid goat, as Ghin likes to call it - here we are... here we are...

There is so much to talk about here. But the goat has always been associated with sacrifice. The Scapegoat, marked with our sins and run out of town. Pan, the satyr, the ungovernable part of us. Pan, the god of nature. Gentle yet wild. And also Pan, the Devil. Adaptable, irascible and randy, unlike the sheep, the goat is the conqueror, the climber, the original sigma animal. Here we forge our way into the new year, who knows what we may find. The goat is unconcerned. It will do what it must, fulfill its destiny. And the fish? The fish hybrid is reminiscent of Matsya, the first avatar of Vishnu, that saved us from the Flood. Where life first begins, in the sea. Where there is impossiblity and mystery - a chimera. The future is unknown, it is neither fish nor fowl, or in this case, bovine. To be feared, to be worshiped, to be respected, to be played with. To be traveled. The goat-fish is the Fool. The year is the blank slate. 

Today i will finish making Christmas lunch, then we will go for a walk somewhere, although Ghin doesn't really like that. But I then need to start planning and doing stuff over the holidays and there is much to be done. 

It is good to be older. I know I keep saying this, but I think what it is is that I can't believe how much better it is than I would have ever believed. 

I must keep exercising though, keep running, keep stretching, so today I will clear the reflection room properly and start reflecting in there.