{"id":1568,"date":"2013-12-03T12:56:53","date_gmt":"2013-12-03T20:56:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blatner.com\/adam\/blog\/?p=1568"},"modified":"2013-12-03T12:56:53","modified_gmt":"2013-12-03T20:56:53","slug":"a-christmas-tree-contemplation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blatner.com\/adam\/blog\/?p=1568","title":{"rendered":"A Christmas Tree Contemplation"},"content":{"rendered":"

I\u2019m singing again, for the 16th or so year, in our community chorus, getting ready to perform our Christmas Holiday conference. It\u2019s pretty Christian, but also some Hanukkah melodies sometimes, and some secular melodies about the contemporary Holiday season, \u201ckids jingle-bell-ing\u201d and that sort of thing. I really like this, even though I\u2019m more an interspiritual sub-mystic or other unclassifiable enjoyer of the general idea of relating favorably to the \u201cMore-ness,\u201d whatever name is given to it.<\/p>\n

\"tree13\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The mind can imagine meanings and for me the meaning of the Christmas Tree is that it\u2019s an arrow pointing at the Star, which in turn is a symbol for the \u201cPromise.\u201d Now folks tend to imagine what that promise is in terms of their own culture, tradition, history. For me, the star, as manifested in the stories of spiritual leadership or enlightenment from many cultures, is what they were all talking about, \u201cGod,\u201d \u201cAllah,\u201d \u201cAdonai,\u201d \u201cKrishna,\u201d \u201cGreat Spirit,\u201d and others. I also have many names: The Everything. (Challenge: Aw, man, it\u2019s way more than everything. Response: Have you ever even begun to try to imagine what everything includes? It is beyond comprehension. You cannot limit its definition!) <\/p>\n

I call it \u201cThe More,\u201d or \u201cthe More-ness,\u201d \u201cBeyond the Beyond,\u201d \u201cAll-Inclusive,\u201d and so forth, poetic ways of stretching my mind towards whatever is well beyond the power of my mind and any human mind to begin to begin to conceive of. (This is called an \u201capophatic\u201d position.) But for me it\u2019s also the future that we\u2019re building towards, and I am excited to be celebrating this unfolding, and helping in my tiny way if only by advocating some trends or tools that may help it become; by joining with others in play and celebration and good will; by supporting friends and family and letting them support me; by loving my dear wife Allee and keeping this tiniest of tiny units alive to serve; and so forth.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a privilege to be alive and to be part of this unfolding. That\u2019s my myth. I\u2019m a bit more thrilled and captivated by mythic images and poetry of where we\u2019re going (positive images, let me say), than dwelling on the glories of the past. There\u2019s a generous element of savoring the present moment, I will confess, but an equal degree, I\u2019m thankful to say\u2014very thankful\u2014I can envision positive trends that may magnify in the future. That\u2019s nice. <\/p>\n

So what has struck me as the contemplation for Christmas is that the tree is a marvelous structure, but it is designed (in my latest thinking) as an arrow to point to the star, which in turn points to what the star points to, represents, symbolizes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I\u2019m singing again, for the 16th or so year, in our community chorus, getting ready to perform our Christmas Holiday conference. It\u2019s pretty Christian, but also some Hanukkah melodies sometimes, and some secular melodies about the contemporary Holiday season, \u201ckids jingle-bell-ing\u201d and that sort of thing. I really like this, even though I\u2019m more an […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[38,24,15,13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1568","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-art-mandalas-doodles-scripts","category-autobiographical","category-favoritethings","category-spirituality-and-philosophy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blatner.com\/adam\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1568"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blatner.com\/adam\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blatner.com\/adam\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blatner.com\/adam\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blatner.com\/adam\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1568"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blatner.com\/adam\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1568\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1569,"href":"https:\/\/blatner.com\/adam\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1568\/revisions\/1569"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blatner.com\/adam\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1568"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blatner.com\/adam\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1568"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blatner.com\/adam\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1568"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}