Happy
Holidays, 2013,
Mikel Weisser
Greeting my kinsmen in this the midst of
our high holy season. My
encouragements in all your holiday endeavors. Find Light. There are many to choose
from: Thanksgiving, Hanukkah, Winter Solstice, Christmas, New Year's, the
others, or, my personal pick this year, Groundhog Day.
In making your
own choice, my advice is, choose them all. The worship of god is too
great a thing to remain contained in any one church. The purpose of god is to
see and to sing or enrich the whole world with your search. Saying
"just one church" is not about finding the best; but running away from
the worst, nor embracing and bathing the breast of the blessed, but numbering
the names of the cursed. For if god is love, and god is all, then each
church is holy--when all blessings be--and sown veils only cover-up
bloodstained stone walls when any some one's one word should set every any one some free.
Mark my word, it's the mark of a religion that's flawed when it's claim of
frame limits the worship of god.
Sounds great on
paper.
But then there's
the "having to actually deal w actual winter" part that so often sucks
so: cold swallows up the sun, everything starts to die and you have to take to
your cave hoping for some warmth. Mere survival takes faith and we, in
turn, take warmth from those around us instead of just from being; and often eventually
even make offerings all around in trade for hope of Spring. Festive,
huh? That may be the reason the US calendar provides us with these
winter festivals plus others that haven't quite scored the marketing just
yet. Basically they're all simply winter time excuses to gather, seek joy
and make offerings. Besides, in America we all get a chance to spend
money:
Thanksgiving (which will be mere bones by the time you read this) offers
heritage, pilgrims, football, sharing food and the eternal question of what is
the philosophical meaning of minced meat as dessert. Hanukkah, which is
beyond the realm of my experience, and Solstice--point of balance in the
deepest night, a godly time for light -- neither of which to my knowledge
incorporate football, though perhaps they should in search for ratings.
Used to be we savages sacrificed our king when the nights began to look like
they would last forever. Then Christianity came along and convinced us it
would be more profitable to simply sell our spirit to merchandisers crafty
enough to meld the ancient Nimrod winter holiday with our Pagan tree sacrifice
& phoof! waah laah! we have
Christmas.
My usual favorite, New Year's Day
(not Eve): the concept of time's birthday, the most prolific of our
national religious holidays (showing up on three different dates:
Oct. 31, Jan. 1 and April 1). The turn of the year says a little something
towards a sense of solstice, the getting rid of the old broken stuff to
make way for new breaking stuff. No
wonder, New Year' is so
well celebrated; we get to throw all past away in the pause between soap
operas, celebrate time's birthday and open a new present.
But then there's
Groundhog Day. Besides being an excellent Harold Ramis film, I am
talking about Feb 2nd, when we celebrate a medium sized rodent-like mammalia as
deities. Like many religions, the essence of the holiday is that if the groundhog does or does not
do a certain something then a set of conditions is fated to fall on his
followers. If the groundhog DOES NOT see his shadow then it's sunny
days, yippee! If he DOES … trouble and pain for all those who believe or,
at least, worry about trouble and pain, because the
weather is ultimately going to do whatever it DOES, the will of medium sized
rodent-like mammals aside. Sounds like any of the other winter holidays?
Everyday all
over the planet, billions of people do their certain devotions to their certain
groundhogs certain that it is going to make a difference. And, while it may
work for many, I've often had a question: Which ground hog will you
worship? I mean there are so many of them. If you had to pick just
one, how could you be sure? Hey, you might pick a nutria and where would that
take you? Then there's the bit about the shadow. Are you supposed
to watch him all day and he's never supposed to see it or does he make
allowances if he has to double back on his path? Can you just bribe
a groundhog to get what you want and if he doesn't come through should just go
pick another one? Even worse, what if the critical moment where it
mattered if he did or did not see his shadow happened before you were awake
that day? Are you stuck to just guess what he's thinking about the
weather or should you just go outside yourself and tell which way the wind
blows and judge whether you need a coat or not?
Used to be the
political leaders of a country presented themselves as the groundhog. And
of course everybody said long live the king, imagine the alternative.
Billions of dollars and great works of art have been made that way. But
after a few thousand years or so and some very fine artwork glorifying some not
necessarily fine kings, the people noticed that the prime proponents of the
king-as-god concept were the king himself, and his priests. So, of course,
that kind of thing fell be the wayside … in some cases, yet groundhogs continue
to thrive. Some groundhogs who claim if you don't adhere strictly to their
beliefs then their followers have ever right to kill you. This insures the
deity's power over your mortality, which has also led to some impressive
artwork; but still the rain it raineth every day.
Those
groundhogs.
Here in
America, we've made up this one groundhog all adults know as completely false
and taught our children to worship him. Of course it does sell soda water
and I wouldn't want to slander old St. Nick, patron saint of thieves.
Maybe all that groundhog business is
really just a mask that we wear to hide our fears. Maybe we're just afraid to not believe
in something. History's
always been that way, check the groundhog mythology yourself: Romulus and Remus
discovered the penis: but
Venus discovered Mars. The
terrible Thor clambered plunder for war; while Elohim made himself
from his stars. The
fierce Yahweh taught the people to prey, Mohammed led the people to sword;
while wise old Emerson called believe and all is one, but remains to this day
largely ignored.
Ah,
Groundhogs.
Maybe, we all
just want something to believe in, to comforts us, like Teddy bears. When we're
cold and scared in the dark our groundhogs do give us something to hold
onto. And it is true, being mammals, almost any groundhog you get a
hold of is likely to be warm, fuzzy, and to some degree playful unless you make
him mad. But then maybe all groundhogs, like all ground, are holy, maybe
the whole thing's holy and it's all just one big groundhog. You
know, because I was just dirt before ate by beans I ate; because I
am the air I breathe and all that's on my plate, I cannot think I am not
God (unless I think I'm not) and my part reaches half of all my hole, the
rest still blessed, I thought. Because I was and am and are and still a speck
of time I live to love all I am knowing and dare not doubt divine.
So … which
groundhog will you worship, pray tell? I hope you try them all; I hope
you find light. Happy Holidays.
Springfield, IL,
12/18/93
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