Decorated our Christmas tree today. More ornaments than branches, so I narrowed the scope into one dominant theme: silver and blue, allowing for slight variations to make way for favorite ornaments and those which have significance for this time.
I've easily given away so many things since we moved from the large house to this apartment, but I've found it hard to part with ornaments, even or especially the ones that stir up painful memories. Many of them were given to me by my mother during simpler times, for instance.
But pain isn't valueless when enough space is given around it. I can appreciate moments of love, regardless of whether they last forever. And there is empowerment in choosing what to keep or give away, when and how to honor such moments. Same goes for ornaments with religious connotations that don't match with life now, except in the sense that any knowledge does.
Our tree is an irregular timeline honoring various lives lived through, flowers that have bloomed then faded, giving way to the next.
Lineage itself can also be seen this way. One teacher compared lineage to an internet stream; although it's invisible, being connected matters. In my life I've sometimes held the notion that like modern internet service, one can only be fully hooked up to one stream at a time, that not to be means muddling. Obviously, this isn't so, yet there's a bandwidth issue.
"Rituals are meant to honor where we came from, so we're not stuck there the rest of the time."
Me, while decorating the tree
Later, organizing my planner for December, I happened upon a little note I'd written myself who knows when. It read "I can change without abandoning all that came before." It's true. I can even take in new information that seems to contradict facts I'd been led to believe as a child, and recognize it (and those teachers) all as merely and woefully incomplete. Incomplete, yet part of me.
In this way one keeps going; energy moves and new choices bloom.
[Around now is when I begin unpacking the year that's been and homing in on goals for the new one. The impetus toward doing that feels stronger than ever. More than what I did in 2023, I am wondering what I learned. This is POST 2.]
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