Winter Celebrating

Posted on December 25, 2019 by Professor Taboo

During this time of year, the holidays or Christmas and New Years, have always been a jolly, entertaining time of year of expectancy, of buckle your seat-belts and brace for anything. Sixteen days or so of all things good, sparkle and wonderment, uplifting or mysterious it all was/is possible. Taking time for the less fortunate in a plethora of ways. Reuniting with family around meals, in the kitchen or living room for games, maybe telling stories past or present with traditional beverages and libations for cheer. Most things are fluid, undefined precisely, other things traditional, conventional, predictable, and new. The exception? Young children. Then holiday gatherings are certainly fluid, very undefined, traditionally loud, unconventional, unpredictable, and newly broken. Messy. Pass the broom and dustpan.

There is also a never-ending amount of wishing. Wishing everything was neat and tidy. We wish you this, we wish you that, we wished you’d come, we wished you’d leave! Lots of wishing everywhere, wishing some things were different. Wishing other things and people were all the same, maybe equal. Identical? Wish you were like me, like him or her or it. Or a very popular wish of the last couple of millenia: wishing things were meticulously, undeniably true.

Not the case.

No matter what time of year it is I find things are wonderfully messy. People of all ages are messy. Life is messy, past and present, and near certainly will be in the future. That’s what it means to be human among 7.7 billion other humans. We are all alike, but equally different, from just as many different places and backgrounds. Normality and paradox somehow coexist. Going against this truth will eventually drive you mad. “Life plays and swims in paradox while the kill-joys go mad and the libertines live.” A quote from yours truly on my Favorite Quotes page. But enough with my rambling!

Why do we celebrate this time of year? When and where did this celebration begin? Who should I ask? Or should I not ask and go find out for myself? Ahh, more messy answers from previous messiness. “One is never served so well as by oneself” as Charles-Guillaume Étienne coined. The common version is “If you want something done right, do it yourself.” There is some truthiness to either one, I think. Some will exhort the Golden Chalice exists and certainly can be found! Others will posit no such thing exists. Still others will have no answers of any import. Perhaps it’s wise to saddle both, or maybe all three? HAH! A ménage à trois beaucoup! Oui?

Apologies. Now I’ve slipped into delicious hédonisme and débauche as the French would say with a sly grin.

There are many wrong answers to those questions, mostly wrong… most likely. Yet, if one puts on their forensic hat and goggles, with some persistence, equitable examination without rash simplification and disassociation, 😉 the messy truth can and will be found. It’s not so scary. Much of this messiness is well-known, checked and rechecked. Nevertheless, here are a few starter-fireworks, kindling if you will, sure to light-up and excite your holiday bonfire, conversation, and show:

Christmas is a multicultural Pagan festival dating back to at least the late Neolithic and Bronze Ages, i.e. 5000 BCE to 600 BCE, as winter solstice festivals.
The year and precise date of “Christ’s birth” is unknown, but the time of year is estimated by scholars to be in Autumn, not any later than September.
Earliest Christians from Yeshua’s (Jesus’) The Way Movement never celebrated his birth; it wasn’t until the 16th or 17th centuries CE that Western churches in Europe incorporated popular Pagan winter festivals in December into their Catholic Christ’s Mass or Mass for Christ.
Several Protestant denominations throughout the world banned Christmas celebrations completely, English and American Puritans, for example. Quakers, Jehovah’s Witnesses, and the Church of Christ are three more examples.
Our familiar gift-giving charity originated in the Victorian Era (1800’s) and the traditional Christmas tree is Germanic-Teutonic in origin where greenery from outside is brought inside to cheer up the dormant, colorless, glumness of winter.
Christians of the mid-1st century to 2nd century CE celebrated Christmas in April to May; this greatly bothered the Church Leaders because Jesus’ place of birth, or death, or burial were completely uncertain, speculation and conjecture. Therefore…
Pope Julius I in 350 CE declared Dec. 25th as the official imperial birth-date of Jesus; it was the same time of Rome’s very popular Pagan Saturnalia festival.
Nativity stories, plays, and decor are taken from several Pagan celebrations and imagery, like the ideas of shepherds, wise men (Magi), and an illuminating star were all secular in origin.
In the modern era Christmas has taken on more diverse forms, various rituals, and commercially energized out Rudolph’s cold, red ass; I mean, nose!
Saint Nicholas was an obscure 4th-century philanthropist and turned into a chimney-diving Santa Claus with elves and flying reindeer, a mingling and mixing of the ancient German king of the gods Odin and his Yule celebration.
The story A Christmas Carol was a quick-buck publication by Charles Dickens in 1843 turning traditional Christmas scenes into heavy sentimental, heart-grabbing sharing and giving.
The Advent Calendar of the holidays was once just an unromantic invention by a weary 19th-century Munich, Germany housewife to silence her pestering children who would not stop asking Momma, how many days until Christmas!?
Yes, now is the time for some good song! Hit play (below), give hugs, find mistletoe, and be of good cheer because it is the most wonderful time of the year!

As it turns out, if truth be told historically, the Christmas holidays actually have nothing to do with the birth of the anti-Semitic Greek Jesus Christ, but instead is a winter celebration and festival of diverse, all-inclusive, ancient cultural Coming Together. A gathering of family, friends, and strangers from many messy traditions and perceptions to form a messier, melting pot of holiday mess! I vote to call the winter celebration Good-mess. Goodmess Eve, Goodmess Day, and have a cheerful Goodmess New Year. Yes? Say Ho ho ho if you agree.

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New Perspectives

Posted on January 1, 2015 by Professor Taboo

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From 250-miles up in Earth’s orbit on the International Space Station, Russian cosmonaut Sergei Krikalev said while looking down at our home planet, “from space you do not see any borders… you feel yourself part of humankind, not just man from one country or one city.” National borders and racial-ethnic distinctions disappear when one looks down from way above. As if from a height of incredible omniscience, (from my Jan. 2013 post: Our Family Reunion) Sergei points out that Earth is not a child’s sandbox to be selfishly divided and toys hoarded by the biggest bullies. Humanity MUST join together in more collaboration than ever before to change Earth’s current life-giving warnings in which mankind has created and exacerbated over the last century.

Therefore, for this New Year of 2015, I am posting a large collage of images showing Earth’s wonders and human ingenuity in hopes that over the next twelve months and further, all of us will try to gain a few NEW perspectives of our existence. Open wide your minds and let the entire world and its fascinating creatures inside and begin in earnest a lifestyle of conservation. Do it not just for yourself, but for your children, your grandchildren, and their children!

Happy New Year everyone!

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How big is your perspective? How much of your incredible planet have you yet to see and experience with others?

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Live Well — Love Much — Laugh Often — Learn Always

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L’absurdité de la Guerre

Posted on December 5, 2013 by Professor Taboo

It was known as the war to end all wars. In all the history of mankind the scale of destruction and death of World War I had never been seen or remotely imagined. From all the major world powers fighting in 1914, an estimated 65 million men put their nation’s uniforms on and set off to the front-lines to obliterate their enemies. In the end, more than 10 million men would be killed; 20 million would be maimed for life. Thirty-million families lost husbands, sons, fathers, brothers, or the return of their permanently disfigured bodies and minds.

L’absurdité de la Guerre – The Absurdity of War

From the very first shots fired the war spun quickly out of control. By the summer of 1914 European empires were realizing an era of unprecedented scientific and mechanized advancements as a result of the Victorian industrial revolution. The killing efficiency of these new 19th century national armies wiping out swaths of soldiers in a matter of minutes had never been seen on any battlefield at any time earlier. Central Europe was literally a 600-square mile butcher’s block of human and animal limbs and carcasses scattered everywhere in pools of mud, blood, and disease. The poet-novelist Robert Graves wrote:

“[the bodies] we could not get from the German [barbed]wire continued to swell…the color of the dead faces changed from white to yellow-gray, to red, to purple, to green, to black.”

The stench of death is unlike any odor known. I know; I’ve smelt it. Overlooking these unbelievable scenes one looses any remaining hope for humanity’s survival. None of the warring leaders and monarchs had any conception of what killing-machines were being set in motion. The fact that most of them thought the war would be ending by Christmas 1914, shows how arrogantly disillusioned they had become with their national status and power. Too few thought the apocalypse had arrived but watched as masses of ordinary people and soldiers were lead to their deaths.

In some of the darkest hours however, there are some that rise above their circumstances.

In a letter to his brother Nickolai in 1886, Anton Chekhov – thought by most historians to be one of Russia’s greatest writers – described eight simple principles of human decency.

Respect others as individuals, no more.
Have more compassion for others beyond beggars or pets.
Respect other’s property, even pay their debts.
Do not be devious. Fear lies as you fear fire.
Do not solicit sympathy from others.
Do not be vain, thinking you are above certain others.
Value beauty and talent; nurture it, doing your part to grow it.
Develop your aesthetic sensibilities, doing your part for the greater refinement of the whole.

Chekhov would conclude that any level of pomp and arrogance was only as noble as the least of your fellow man. That was his standard of a true civilized human being and people.

On Christmas Eve December 24^th, 1914 bitter enemies in opposite trenches of Europe’s Western Front despite the hatred their national leaders, families and military commanders felt toward their enemy, decided not to fight, but to sing. The Germans lit candles and in beautiful harmony sang “Silent night…Holy night.” So moved by their cheer, the British soldiers responded with carols of their own. This goodwill inspired many soldiers on both sides to toss gifts of food over into their enemy trenches. The German side applauded the British singing then the Brits cheered and applauded the Germans. One miracle act of goodness led to another, then another. By dawn Christmas Day, chivalry and kindness were as out of control as the war. They even played a football match together around the large cannon-shell craters and wired obstacles.

I often understand the causes of war and killing: it is the utter failure of peoples or their leaders to do everything humanly possible to resolve dispute, or it is merely the greed of egos and the ignorance of those who follow them. In the end, in every single conflict throughout all of mankind’s history, the price of war and killing is too high and never completely measured for generations to come. In certain obvious cases today it never ends.

Yet on a small level, on an individual basis, when humans can step back and understand the person facing them on a personal level, not as a total stranger who is being led by a delusional greedy ego-maniac monarch or king, that spirit which Anton Chekhov speaks about can and will courageously step forward. The real miracle of this 1914 Christmas between “enemies” was that a few good men did not bow to the fear of a firing-squad or court-marshal by their superiors. Instead they recognized the moment was greater than themselves or their nations — as is almost always the case in any situation of dispute. When people view strangers as anything other than another human being, a human being who also has parents, husbands, wives, brothers, sisters, sons, daughters all with the same basic needs as you…the higher perspective, the higher road comes to focus. What remains is the decision to take it.

The Christmas Truce of 1914 was a supreme act of humanity and goodwill by a group of courageous men in uniforms surrounded by the most despicable acts of nations. Such a truce had never before taken place. And for no apparent intelligent reasons, has never happened again. Though I am not a Christian or a religious man during this time of year, I am the biggest fan-fanatic for humanity and the potential brilliance of the human spirit.

Peace on Earth, goodwill to all men and women. Happy holidays everyone.

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