The Ghost of Christmas Present? Is now the Spirit of Solstice Presence!
Life lessons
Welcome to the second of this weeks triad of postings! I took my inspiration from the Classic novel by Charles Dickens: A Christmas Carol. As I was pondering this great work of fiction I came to realise I wanted to write my own past, present and future at this seasonal time of year.
In my posting a few days ago I was recalling some-of the happy memories from my past life at this celebratory time of year. Im glad to say there were many more I could have chosen! So this second posting is about the present. Unlike Charles Dickens’ ante-hero Ebenezer Scrooge, my present is already a different pathway than that of the my past. Scrooge actually needed to be faced with his future doom, to change his life choices or repent.
My choices and life are already different from the past. Is this really a surprise? Who is really static all their life? Who does not bend with the winds of life as they blow sometimes fiercely in hurricanes and tornadoes and yet sometimes as softly as with a lovers rosy scented kiss? Who does not rise and fall as on the tidal rivers like the mighty Pasig through Manila or the grey Thames of London and others that run through our major cities? Who has not replaced the planks of their life's Argo, perhaps many times over?
Thus, these have been my thoughts, wonderings and wanderings that I have been contemplating this past few days. In fact they are are never far away.
Todays posting is really akin to a piece of cloth made up of many coloured fibres. For Christmas Present is in fact, for me, a misnomer now. This is Blessed Winter Solstice and Yule for me! Yet living in Bahrain is not so easy for the modern Druid seeking to live his life in accordance with his guiding voice and relationship with the Goddess. My Goddess is Mother Earth.
At this time of the year for me, I am contemplating the darkness. I am in fact enjoying the darkness! As the nights in the UK draw longer from Autumn Equinox to Samhain and then deeper onto and into the Winter Solstice: I am thinking of the end of life. When and how I will join my ancestors who have gone before.
The symbols that resonate with me are the traditional ones from my kinship with celtic (broadly conceived) traditions reimagined in my very modern practices. One of the symbols that resonated from the very first day of my Druid pathway, was the Celtic Tree of Life. I have this symbol in a necklace. On clothes. On my altar cloth. Even on my duvet cover!
Trees are the reason I am a Druid. The trees of my Grove in England are the Oak, the Sacred Yew and the Birch. Yet also Pines, Chestnuts, Alder, Elder and Ash each play a part. When I lived in Qatar, I was blessed to find a circle of Eight Date Palms Trees (resembling in my minds eye, the Wheel of the Year that I use) that welcomed me with opened arms in a most friendly way. For four years they were a part of my devotional, meditative life. I will be seeing them again this next week. To say hi, how you doing? Listen to their words and voices.
شجرة الحياة
Imagine my surprise and joy then, to be told about Bahrains’ natural wonder: the Shajarat-al-Hayat (the Romanised form of the above Arabic Script). A solitary tree, in the middle of a desert, that on the face of it, should not be there. There are no springs nor streams or rivers. The tree is a Prosopis cineraria. I think we call it an acacia tree. Normally they live for up to three to four hundred years. Shajarat al Hyatt is growing now into its fifth century in this place!
Check this site for all the theories. Personally I quite like the Enki theory…… https://arabiconline.eu/tree-of-life-in-bahrain-a-symbol-of-hope/
This my dear readers is where I travelled too in the darkness of the morning at 4am. My intent was to hail the Sun as he rises on Solstice morn. I would breathe, meditate under the canopy of the Tree of Life itself and watch the Sun rise on this the shortest days of the year. Give blessings of peace to the Four Quarters and for the whole World. I hoped that I could connect somehow with this place, even though I am not a native of this soil nor connected by ancestry to this desert.
Mother Earth is gracious. Her children come in many wrappings. When I first came to the Shajarat-al-Hayat some of Her children, the resident birds where already anticipating the new morn in their early morning chatter. The very thin waning crescent moon shimmered behind lazy cumulus clouds as if playing peek a boo with me.
Two other of her children were there. This time in human form. Blessing me immediately in the darkness with hospitality! Early morning tea. We chatted about why we were there. They two are close friends. Elif from Turkey visiting her friend Ghaidaa from Bahrain. They wanted and wished to see the Sunrise in this beautiful place on its own terms. The Tree of Life has many roots or should that be routes to connection?
This unexpected meeting is the second strand of my Solstice Presence. For although I will never meet these two young Ladies again in all likelihood: nevertheless they taught me once again that hospitality, openness and a willingness to treat people and places with respect: is so valuable and yet so often neglected. Is that not such a valuable lesson to (re)learn and apply as I contemplate mortality in the dark time of the year?
What would I like to remembered as? In this my Spirit of the Solstice Presence those two persons now exist and are remembered. Things happen for a reason so they say. Perhaps I needed to be reminded of some true values on the Solstice Morn. Alongside the mysteries and connection I felt under the Tree of Life itself…..
The next strand is my meditation and thinking of the importance of darkness to me over the past years. It never used to be. Now it is vital. I need darkness. I seek it. This is the perfect time of year usually in the UK when I can find it. In Bahrain, a tiny Island that is gradually it seems to me becoming an island metropolis, darkness is at a premium. So I loved the journey towards the Shajarat-al-Hayat. As we left the highway of lights: we briefly got lost on the dark desert track. Entirely fitting for me.
Although my driver was frustrated [What kind of idiot goes there in the dark anyways? Everyone goes in the day! I pointed out that I am in fact “English”. Which seemed to answer his questionings with a knowing click of the tongue. I have learnt to say this as it seems to rather like a-bra ca-dabra, works everywhere!].
I was rejoicing, revelling in the fact of being lost in the dark! One mans meat is another mans drink. Another lesson in tolerance methinks.
So, as I write this I am in fact on a flight to Doha. I am going to spend a few days in the company of Jean and the Filipino Diaspora! On the 24th December I am promised a traditional Filipino ‘Noche Buena’ celebratory evening and dinner!
My flight is via Jeddah. Thus many pilgrims to the Holy City of Mecca; the men dressed in white cloth are onboard travelling to do Umrah. Perfect company and example for a Druid to contemplate at his Winter Solstice Presence.
I give thanks for how this Dickensian Ghost of Christmas Present format has found me. I am taking conscious steps into who I want to be. Walking my pathway. Sometimes solitarily or sometimes with Jean when we are together; sometimes with my Sons on a skiing trip; sometimes with Druid and Pagan friends like Mandua Briga group in Darlington.
Now, this Winter Solstice Presence for a brief time, with unexpected folk met just once in a lifetime on a desert plain that has a magical, mystical, beautiful Tree of Life.
