Editorial Video-Blog for December 2021

Hello Everyone,

December is a wonderful time of year, as so many faiths and cultures celebrate their year end holidays that make way for anticipated new beginnings for the coming year.  I love it.

I love the social gatherings, the friends and family time, the hustle and bustle of holiday shopping. I love the music as old and comforting songs and hymns fill the air.  I love the quiet moments, time around the fire, and decorating, and those special moments deep in meditation and prayer.  I even love the hours of cooking and baking and the kitchen gossip that follows every feast. These are my memories of simpler times.  I still cherish them. I re-create them whenever I can.  This year is no exception!
   

I look forward to the Holiday Season each year as a sort of culmination of the year.  The month of December with its festive aura is filled with activity – yet it also gives us an opportunity to look back at the past year as we prepare to put it behind us.  It is our time to celebrate our successes, understand our failures, and integrate and accept our losses.  All of these things are normal for us at this time of year, and help us to begin each new year with a healthy and strong mental and emotional outlook. This last month of the year is a time of looking back, of remembrances, and recalling past happy times spent with those we love.  Sometimes our remembrances bring up pain, too.  Many of us find ourselves going through depressions, or mood swings, or experiencing sadness or even grief.  It’s important to allow these feelings, but also to let them pass through you so that you can let them go.
    

I regularly hear from my much-adored sister, Pam, who passed away a bit over four years ago.  I’ll sometimes feel her emotions as she reacts to someone or something I am experiencing, or I’ll hear her laughter in my mind, and it gives me a sense of peace as she lets me share her contentment and joy from where she is on the other side. For her, death was freedom and she wholeheartedly embraced it when she passed.  But I heard from her again recently, as I was making my holiday plans, and it was a totally different experience.  As her presence enveloped me, it did so with a deep sense of sadness.  The sadness lingered long after she was gone, and I wondered at it.  She was never sad.  Only happy.  Where did the sadness come from?  What did it mean?  I let it go, knowing the answer would come.  And it did.

As Pam observed my holiday planning, and peaked in at all her other loved ones too, it brought back holiday memories for her, too.  She so loved all the holidays, most especially Christmas.  The holiday season was her favorite time of year too.  She’d get the biggest tree, cook the most amazing dinner, gather all of her most cherished people together, and manage to give something special and memorable to each of them.  This year she’s finally awakened to the understanding that she’ll never have that experience with these loved ones, here on this earth, again.  She can look through our eyes, she can share in the spirit of our celebrations, but she is no longer the center of them, nor even a part of them.  That is the root of her sadness.  Her life was cut short, and though she is happy in her world on the other side, the activities of the season here brought home to her all of the times with those she loved that will never happen again, and that would have been hers had she lived.  In her sadness there was acceptance.

I realized too, that Pam is sad for all of us here as well.  She sees the future of our world changing.  We are evolving and transitioning into something new, and as we do, it is inevitable that much of what we are familiar with will be left behind.  Pam sees an end to many of the traditions that brought her joy while she was here.  Through her emotion, shared with me, she gave me a glimpse into things she sees that must change in order for us all to grow.

This year, my friends, celebrate with all your hearts and souls, with the people you love most.  Put fears and worries, battles and rifts behind you.  Find forgiveness in your hearts where it is needed, and courage too.  Be clear about what, and who, is important to you.  Create your own traditions, and memories you can hold forever in your hearts.  A new era is coming.  It will have its own blessings and joys, and my own heart is filled with excitement at the prospect of all that new territory to be explored – but I know that many of the people and things that I love, and people and things that you hold near and dear are passing out of your life and mine this year.

My Guides told me many years ago, that we must remember.  Now I understand.

I am wishing you and yours the Happiest Holiday Season you’ve ever had!

I hope you don’t mind – I feel the need to share an old blessing – “May God shine his light upon you and bring you peace.”

Love and Light,

Sandy Anastasi