Thinking outside the gift box

 We live in an unprecedented time of consumerism, when the world is telling us we need to go big or go home.  We watch holiday movies where people give extravagant gifts to each other, from cars to piles of presents.  Social media builds up these insane expectations and people judge gifts without context.

We also live in a time where many people have all the things they need and often even most of what they want.  It's not uncommon to know someone (or multiple someones) who buys all the things they see that they like, which can make gift giving hard.  Or maybe you know someone who really doesn't have any hobbies (and you don't want to get them a 'useful' or work related gift).  Or someone who constantly complains about having too much stuff and how they don't want anything.

And this year, we add in shipping issues, where one of the things we take for granted in the modern age (being able to buy just about anything online and have it at our doorstep in days) might not be possible.  We are seeing things stuck 'in transit', shipping costs have gone up and many places are giving shipping estimates that are much longer than we are used to.

This has led a lot of people to be unrealistically concerned about holiday gift giving.  Which is sort of strange considering how long, in the history of gift giving, overnight shipping just hasn't been an option.  Of course there is always the (wonderful) option of buying local and supporting small businesses, but that still may leave you struggling to find things for those tricky people in your life.

 

We often get trapped 'in the box' so to speak, when it comes to gifting.  We think that gifts need to be things we have bought, stuff that is will last for years, things that can be wrapped and put under a tree or in a stocking.  And yet, that leaves out a whole realm of gifts that are often well received and might be more desired than another item that will sit on the shelf and collect dust.

Let's first talk about the elephant in the room.  Gift cards and money.  These are often seen as generic gifts, like the things you get people you don't know much about.  And they certainly can fit that bill, as money is useful for anyone!  Especially for people who are struggling (and aren't we all right now...), a little extra cash, or a gift card for somewhere we like to go, is just so useful.  Plus, many places give extras when you purchase a gift card, so your money can stretch just a bit more.  Honestly, I've never gotten a gift card that I was unhappy to receive.

Another gift that many people don't think of as a gift, or think of as a generic gift is food and drink.  But it's a great way to treat someone to something a little extra.  Think of a food or drink they like, and look for a fancy version of it.  Do they like cheese, maybe find a nice cheese sampler box, so they can try a variety of cheeses that you just can't find at the local grocery store.  Maybe get them some exotic coffee blends or chocolates from around the world.  If you want to go homemade, bake or cook their favorite dish for them, or share with them that coveted recipe that they always ask for.

Speaking of handcrafted, this is a great way to support small businesses.  This is especially great if you know they like a particular artist, but haven't gotten something of theirs yet.  Or maybe you know someone local who is making things for some extra money for the holidays.  You can help them out and get a nice gift in the process!  One of the best things about handcrafted things is they are unique.  

And, if you are the crafty type, you can make things yourself!  Some people scoff at handmade gifts, thinking they are cheap, but let me tell you, firstly crafting supplies are not cheap, and even if you do start with cheap items, making stuff by hand is a labor of love.  It always takes longer than you think it will, and normally ends up having some kind of issue along the way you have to figure out.  But it's also super fun and you can literally make things specifically for the person you are crafting for.  Fair warning, if you are planning on crafting gifts, double the time you think you are going to need....you'll thank me later!

Time is also a great gift.  Time can be gifted in a lot of ways.  Maybe you spend extra time with someone (a wonderful way to gift any elderly people in your life who may not get out much, especially if they live in any kind of assisted living facility).  Also great for stay-at-home people, who might spend a lot of time alone in their daily life.  Or maybe you take your time to give them more time.  This might mean doing some housework to give someone some extra leisure time, or offering to watch the kids so they can have a date with their partner.  If you are going to a gathering, you can help organize or show up early to help set up (or stay late to help clean up), as a gift to the host.

Another neat thing to gift is experiences.  This might be giving someone a coupon for a spa day or a rock climbing adventure.  Some kind of activity they can go and do makes a unique gift that will give them memories to remember.  You could also make it a group activity, and go with them, so it becomes a shared memory!

And finally, if you have someone who is really trying to downsize their life, and who also is very community minded, making a donation to a charity in their name is a unique way to gift them.  Some companies also do a combo-gift, where you get a small token to remind you of your donation, but the bulk of the money goes towards the cause. 

Whoever you are gifting this holiday season (or whenever you need a gift), it's okay to think outside the box, to give something that may be less commercial and will definitely be more unique.  Think about the person you are gifting, think about what kinds of things they like, and what might make a good gift.  I think that is the most important thing of all...to ignore what you might want or any thoughts of how the gift might appear to other people, and just think about what the person receiving the gift wants.  That is the key.

Winter crafting

 As winter time approaches, we may find ourselves with more free time, as we are unable to do our favorite outdoor activities.  It is a time of year where many people spend more time inside, and often look for ways to fill the time.  Crafting is a great activity to pick up in the winter, whether you consider yourself a crafter or not.

First, I think we need to bust up some impressions of crafting.  The first one is that you don't need to be 'good' or 'artistic'...and yes both of those are in quotes because I really dislike how these types of valuations are thrown around.  Crafting is a wonderful hobby, and the great thing about hobbies is you don't have to have any kind of skill.  The important thing is that you enjoy the process.  It's very much about the experiences and not about making a thing that has value or improving or any of the other judgments we level on the rest of our lives.  In fact, I might say that is the value of a hobby, it is something we do purely for the fun of it, and we give ourselves permission to be bad at it but still love doing it anyways.

Also, crafting is for everyone, young or old, irregardless of gender.  I promise I'm not going to go on a rant about the ridiculous gendering of things (I could, I have some great rants saved up!), but really there is no craft that can't be done by anyone.  If you wanna sew, carve wood, bake, paint, sculpt, scrapbook or forge metal...go for it!  If someone tries to give you a hard time...craft harder out of spite!  (Or find people who are happy to support you and ignore the rest)

Now, back to the bit about not having to be good at it.  It really doesn't matter if you have any experience at all, or really any knowledge about a thing.  If it looks interesting, try it!  There are resources all over for anything you can imagine.  I have talked to a few people who taught themselves how to forge metal (watching videos online), and that's pretty impressive to me.  There are groups for about every hobby and craft you can imagine, where you can chat with people who are just as excited about the craft as you are.

It also doesn't have to be something you do alone!  Poke about and you might find that there are groups in your town that meet up and craft together.  Our library (which is always a great place to find out information about anything) often does crafting workshops, where you can go and try out a craft.  Many are free, and the ones that aren't have a low fee (to cover materials).

You can also throw a crafting night, invite some friends and make a party out of it.  Potluck snacks and drinks (so you don't have to do it all), and have fun making things together.  One of the great things about crafting is it often is something you do with your hands, so it leaves you free to chat and hang out while you do it.  I used to go with my mom to her quilting group, and that was pretty fun (speaking as the only teen who went, it was still fun to chat with the older ladies).

Winter crafting can also be a time of experimentation.  Just because you try a craft doesn't mean you have to do it forever.  Maybe you don't like it once you get into it.  That's fine, put it aside and try something else.  Or maybe you like it just fine, but you don't want to get further invested in it.  Play with it for a season and then, when the weather warms up and you get into other things, you can set it aside.  Maybe you come back to it next winter or maybe you try something else.

Crafting can also become part of your spiritual life.  Crafting as devotion is nothing new, and maybe you find a craft that is associated with one of the deities you work with, or that is part of your cultural heritage.  Learning the craft brings you closer to that part of your spiritual life.  

You could also craft things that directly enhance your spiritual practice.  Making tools is something that a lot of people enjoy doing, and there are many different crafting options that can be used.  I've made wands, smudge fans, statues, offering stones and more!  Maybe you have seen some of those amazing videos of people making fancy scrapbook style BOS and you want to try your hand at that.  

You can also craft things to give away.  With holidays coming up, many people don't have family to share the holidays with, and gifting handmade things to retirement homes, hospitals and the like can make a huge difference in someone's life.  If you are enjoying making food items, you can gift those to friends and family (you might be able to gift to other places, but you would want to check first if they can accept home-made food items).  

And, if you are someone who feels a little down, or stressed over the winter and with all of the holidays, crafting is a great mental pick up and way to unwind.  There is a real sense of accomplishment when you make something, especially when you figure out how to do something that you were struggling with.  Many crafts also include things that appeal to our senses.  Fiber arts, metal and wood working all involve our sense of touch.  Baking and cooking invoke our smell and taste.  Painting and drawing utilize color.  Learning an instrument or singing gives us sound.  Engaging our senses helps ground us and energize us at the same time!

So, whether you think of yourself as a crafty person, an artsy person....or just a person, winter crafting is a great activity to explore as the weather turns cold and the nights get longer.  Look around and you will find crafting inspiration everywhere.  Let yourself be curious and see what crafts call out to you.  You might just surprise yourself!

Focus on what is

 

We have this tendency to slip out of the now and either worry about what is coming or focus on what has been.  Especially around the holidays, I think we experience heightened nostalgia as well as a looming sense of concern for the future.  Sometimes we fall into the opposite trap, where we look at the past and only remember the horrible things or we paint the future in some kind of idealistic way (that is often unreasonable).

This can be a very dangerous thing, because too much focus, either good or bad on the past and/or the future drastically influences how we experience the now.  It flavors everything that happens in our lives and often ends up robbing us of being able to be fully present and actually experience what is going on.

When we look to the past and we think of the 'golden days', we are remembering an idealized past.  There hasn't been a time in the past that was magically perfect, and when we think of 'better times' often we are using very closed vision, looking at specific events or remembering certain parts of life...and completely refusing to see what else was going on at the time.

Fact twisting is a common thing, when delving into the past.  When we look back and we decide things were good by looking at a very small set of statistics, we not only set ourselves up for feeling dissatisfied in our current lives, but also we make these unrealistic expectations for the future (since it wasn't actually that way in the past, how could we possibly expect it to be that way in the future?)

Take marriage, for example.  I've heard many people talk about how 'in the olden days' marriages lasted and people didn't just get divorces willy nilly.  Which is statistically true, that divorce rates were very low.  But it's not because marriages in those days were good (of course there are exceptions, there are good marriages in all times, even from crazy starts), it was simply that there were no other options.  If a woman had no access to money, would be branded as some kind of moral and/or social outcast and literally had no place to go...she couldn't leave.  And if both partners needed to be in an altered state (remember that in other times many drugs were readily available) or seeking companionship outside of the marriage bed, or were miserable but stayed married because that was the only option...was that really better?  (Hint:  my answer is no).

When we cherry pick our history like this, we set up unreasonable standards for the present.  If you start with the standpoint that marriage is the golden standard, than you make anyone who has left a marriage (or who hasn't gotten married...or has no desire to get married) feel like they are a failure.  And that's not even dipping my toes into the pool of horror that is the way that we try to regulate who can get married (not just talking about the LGBT+ community, but if you aren't aware of the struggles of disabled people trying to keep their health care and income and get married....well let's just say it's pretty demeaning).

If we look to the past and we see only the worst, if we focus on how hard things were, how bad life was, we can rob ourselves of some really good memories.  Life isn't always just one thing or another.  It is entirely possible for a time to be both good an bad (and surprise, people can be both good and bad as well).  When we forget this, we may feel conflicted when we face the good parts of something we saw as bad, and we may start to feel that those good bits couldn't possibly be right, because it was a bad situation...right?

The danger with this way of thinking is that it seeps into other places, specifically how you feel about yourself and the people close to you.  If I fall prey to the mindset that things are either good or bad, and I recognize the bad habits or choices I've made...I might completely discount the good things because 'obviously' I'm a bad person.  We can also end up making harsh decisions about people in our life, because of previous bad experiences.  When someone does something nice or good, we may not be open to it, because we have already decided they are a bad person, so obviously they can't do anything good.

If we are focused on the future, and we expect everything to fall into ruin, it becomes very hard to stay invested in our daily life.  I mean if everything is going to turn out horrible, why bother?  If your job isn't going anywhere, why should you do more than the bare minimum to not get fired?  If your family is going to hate you, why try to mend those bridges?

Future fatalism is extremely dangerous because it causes us to create the very future we are worried about.  When we stop trying, we stop noticing opportunities.  We don't set ourselves up for success and we see everything as the precursor to something bad.

The funny thing is, seeing the future as impossibly bright sometimes has a similar effect.  If we believe, without any doubt, that the future is going to be amazing, we may not try as hard as we should.  Why should we push if things are going to turn out great no matter what?  It's like if you know you have a big paycheck coming in, you may not work those extra hours, even though you are trying to save up for a luxury purchase.  Your windfall is coming, you just have to wait and everything will be fine.

The thing is, nothing in the future is set in stone, and there is always room for change.  Maybe whatever it was that you were counting on doesn't happen.  Maybe some other thing comes up that changes your circumstances, and now the money that you thought you could spend on whatever you wanted is needed for something else.  

Worse, when we assume the future is going to be bright, we can turn our back on problems that are happening right now.  If we think 'change is coming,' then maybe we don't fight as hard as we should against the injustices that are happening now.  This is especially true if it's something that doesn't directly involve you, as I don't know about you, but as well intended as I might be, I'm much more likely to overlook issues that aren't smacking me in the face.

I think the biggest thing to remember, is that both the past and the future aren't 'real'.  Yes, the past happened, and the future is going to happen.  But the past is inherently flavored with opinion:  the opinions of the people who observed it and recorded it, the opinions of the people talking about it, the opinions of the people hearing about it.  And whatever influence the past might have had on leading you to the now....in the now it has no power over you.  

 

The present is a powerful thing, but all it's power is tied up in what is and what you choose to do with it.  Nothing that happened in the past can change the now...because it's already happened, all it's power is spent.  In this singular moment, all the power lies in your hands...in your ability to decide how you want to respond to what you are presented with.

And the future...well the future is just fantasy.  It is a dream of what we hope or fear will happen.  Dreams can't effect you unless you let them.  You can allow a dream to lead you astray or you can use your dreams to motivate you.  You can get caught up in your dreams and loose track of reality or you can enjoy your dreams and then do what is needed in this moment.

One of the joys of focusing on what is....is that now is both eternal and already changing.  Each fleeting second is gone in the time it takes you to notice it.  If you keep focusing on now, you don't have to worry about the past or the future, because now is keeping you busy.  

Yes, I think there is a time and a place for both the past and the future.  We need to learn about our past, in a way that is balanced and with perspective.  And we need to look to the future so that we can plot a course to aim for.  What we need to avoid is loosing sight of the present.  Because when we forget about now, we loose all our power.

Appreciating food

 Thanksgiving is a tricky time for a lot of people.  Firstly, family can be tricky, and even if you have a good relationship with most of your family, gathering them all together in one place can be a lot.  If you don't have a good family dynamic, you may be looking at a horrible family event, or missing out entirely (and wishing you had the kind of family that is often shown on tv).  And that's not even mentioning any issues with the holiday itself!

But underneath all the drama, I feel that the heart of Thanksgiving is about giving thanks.  And because it's a feast-based holiday where the food isn't just trappings added on at the end, it is a time where we can give appreciation for the food we have.

Food is another thing that is tricky for a lot of people.  Many people have food restrictions, that find their roots in medical, religious or monetary issues.  We may love foods that are unhealthy for us, or struggle with eating in some other way.  We might harbor guilt for having so many foods at our fingertips knowing that people in other areas of the world have so very little.  We may be envious of people who have more than we do.

Food is such a basic necessity, and yet it is also something that many people take for granted (especially if you have never had any issues with it).  It is ever present in our modern world.  We may complain about having 'nothing to eat' but still have a cupboard full of staples.  We may miss eating out when we still have access to frozen means or delivery.  We watch shows that show food in many forms, and in fact  have entire channels dedicated to food!

I am one of those lucky people who hasn't ever had to worry about starvation.  Like many people, there have been lean times, and I try very hard to not be wasteful with my food (for a variety of reasons, but one of them is absolutely the recognition of the fact that there are people in this world who would love any food that I might carelessly toss away).  I also have some food issues, I very much enjoy foods that aren't good for me and I have quite a bit of food anxiety (especially in regards to improperly prepared food, food spoilage or cross-contamination).

But on the whole, I recognize my food privilege and try hard to appreciate all the blessings I have, when it comes to food.  And for me, that starts with being more mindful of the foods we buy and eat.  One thing I think sometimes gets forgotten is that mindfulness doesn't always mean avoiding convenience foods or going super green.  I'm definitely not shopping in the all organic section or avoiding processed foods.

What it means, for me at least, is paying attention to what I am buying.  Being aware of both the healthiness of food and it's crave factor (and knowing which foods I'm likely to binge eat).  It's balancing cost and taste (obviously we try to shop in our budget, but we aren't at a place where everything needs to be the cheapest).  

Part of my personal food journey is thinking about my eating habits in a bigger picture sense.  I'm often home alone for breakfast and lunch, and I know I'm a grazer so I typically get hungry after dinner and before bed.  Which means I need to plan for all of that.  I also know that I'm a pretty basic eater in some ways (having the same food every day for breakfast is not a big deal, and often I prefer it as it means I don't have to decide what I want to eat).  

Food appreciation intersects with self care when I think about lunch foods.  There are lots of great, cheap options, but there are also some really appealing choices that aren't so bad when you price compare to, for example, grabbing a meal from a fast food place.  Part of my self-care and self-worth work is finding things that are slightly more pricey and reminding myself that I don't have to always pick the cheapest food.

Eating out is another place where food appreciation can be overlooked.  Eating out is often both convenient and sometimes can be cost effective.  It's one of those things that sneaks up on you, but sometimes when we plan meals at home, they end up costing us more than if we went out to eat.  On the other hand, fast food is often deceptive, and there are quite a few great sit-down places by us where we can eat as cheap (or sometimes cheaper) than if we grab vast food (and often I'll get two meals out of a sit-down meal, as I'll take leftovers home).

There's nothing innately wrong with either out, either at a fast food place or a sit down place.  But I think it's easier to take that food for granted as it's convenient.  With all the changes lately in how food places are managing to stay open (or not, as many places have either had to shut down completely or drastically change how they operate), many people are coming face to face with just how much they took for granted these places being at their disposal.

In some ways, Thanksgiving reminds me a little of Valentines day.  Both are 'once a year' holidays to recognize things we should be doing every day.  Just as we shouldn't wait until Valentine's day to tell the people we love that we love them, we shouldn't wait until Thanksgiving day to give thanks for our food.

Whether you want to incorporate some kind of mealtime prayer or gratitude, acknowledge your blessings as you do grocery shopping or simply take a moment as you prepare food (or order it, if you are going out) to recognize the bounty you have, expressing our gratitude helps us appreciate the food we consume more.  And having a solid appreciation for the foods we eat can help us maintain a healthy relationship with food...and ourselves.

Seasonal practice

Many Pagans and witches still use the Wheel of the Year as some part of their practice, even if it isn't the core of their work.  We honor the cycle of nature, and there are natural points in the year that we celebrate as part of the turning of the seasons.

But often our regular practice remains the same throughout the year.  Some small things may change (like we may be less inclined to take long walks in the winter or the summer), but especially if you are an 'indoor' Pagan, like me, your daily practice might not take into account the seasons.  

This mindset stems from our modern mastery over the natural world...in the sense that virtually nothing else in our daily life changes depending on the season, so why should your spiritual life?  And yet, even if you spend the bulk of your days inside, the flux in the world seeps in.

One of the most basic ways in which the world effects us is the amount of daylight per day, and when those daylight hours are.  Our brains react differently to sunlight than to moonlight (or artificial light), and this is one of the reasons we are drawn to be more active (and often to be outdoors) more in the summer, when the light is at it's height.  On the flip side of the wheel, in winter we may find ourselves more likely to cuddle up with a blanket and a story (whether that means a book or a show).

Learning to embrace these seasonal tides can help us work with our own natural cycles.  Even though there are general tendencies, we each have our own unique nature, and so we may find that we get personally invigorated in the fall and in the spring we find ourselves more lethargic.  Taking note of what you are drawn to...as well as what you resist, helps you develop a cyclical practice that works for you!

One of the benefits of having a cyclical practice is that you can include more things without overwhelming yourself...and without spreading yourself too thin.  Most people find they get the best benefits from sticking with a practice, doing it on a regular basis.  But we only have so much time in any given day (and we have many responsibilities!), so you may only have time to do one or two spiritual practices every day.

If you have a lot of interests, this can leave you feeling like you can't focus in on any one of them as much as you would like.  If you have ten different things you are wanting to work with, and you do one every day, that's a week and a half before you do the same thing again...much too long to retain much of what you did the previous time.  By splitting your time by seasons, and working with different things in each season, you can work with things for a block of time, and then work with something that suits you better in the next season.  It allows you to not only stick with something but also change it up and keep things fresh.

And these don't have to be all or nothing swaps either.  You might do divination all year, but really dive deep in the winter months.  So in winter, you might do weekly or even daily spreads, bust out your books or study your decks, while the rest of the year you might stick to a monthly reading.  Or, you may want to work with several divination methods, and you find that you get more understanding from your tarot cards in the spring but from runes in the fall.

Some practices naturally fall into certain parts of the year.  If you like wildcrafting, you work with things when they are in season.  Spring and fall become busy times, while winter might be a time of playing with new recipes and combinations.  

There are also mundane considerations to think about.  If you have young kids, summer might be a very busy time for you, as the kids are home and needing more attention.  You might need to pare your practice back, and then in fall, when school starts up again, you might feel the call to really dive back in full tilt.  Fall might be your deep study time, where you do a lot of reading and research, so you have plenty of new ideas to mull over during the rest of the year.

For me personally, Halloween marks the start of what I call holiday season.  From Halloween through New Year is just super busy.  There are not only family holidays, but I do NaNo (which demands a lot of both time and brain focus).  There are gifts to plan and acquire, meals to organize and cook, gatherings to attend...it just feels like I'm moving non-stop through the last months of the year.

And yet....I also am motivated by that movement.  I often get my big ideas for the next year during this almost frantic time.  I write myself notes and make plans.  It's a time of big transition for me, and I'm working on making my new planner, figuring out what my focus is going to be for the coming year, reflecting on the past year.  

When the New Year actually rolls around, I feel like I need a break.  I tend to spend January doing the bare minimum.  I'd like to say I hit the ground running, but I tend to start each year with a rest time, focusing on recovering from the crazy end of the previous year.  Even though I often have big spiritual plans for the year, I start soft, I kind of let the dust settle and then ease into things.

Developing a seasonal rhythm to your practice isn't something you need to set in stone either!  You can try things out, and see what works...and what doesn't.  A season is only three months (or one and a half if you want to break it down by Sabbats), and if something really isn't sitting well with you, you don't even have to finish out the season....especially if you are finding you just can't keep up with a practice, or if you find you are really craving something that you aren't doing.

When you notice things like this...write them down!  If you are finding a practice isn't working for you, spend a bit of time thinking about why it's not working, and consider if another time might work better.  Make a note to revisit it then.  If instead you are missing something you aren't doing, that's great!  Remember what time made you crave that practice and plan on doing it more at that time of the year.

The more you work with feeling out what practices fit best at different times of the year, the more you will create a unique, and seasonal, practice that fits your life.  And you may find that you get to do more, and things just flow better...because you are doing them in their best time.

Honoring non-combat Veterans

 On the surface, Vetaran's day isn't technically a Pagan holiday.  And yet, many of us owe great portions of our daily life (and freedoms) to the soldiers who dedicated part of their life to the defense of the country we live in...whether or not they actually fought in a war.

I'm not, by any means, belittling the hardships and sacrifices made by soldiers who have taken part in combat, simply voicing a reminder that joining the military is a relinquishment of a lot of the freedoms we take for granted, often freedoms we have these same soldiers (or ones like them in other times) to thank for.

I grew up in a military family, and while I was only a child, I saw some of the sacrifices made in everyday life for a soldier.  The military decided where we lived, and for how long.  It decided when my father would travel away from home.  

I have known people in the military my whole life, and they often are required to live by certain standards that most adults don't have to consider.  They are expected to look a certain way, act a certain way, and often these strictures extend beyond their 'working' hours...as the whole time you are part of the military you are considered a representative of your country, so you can't do some of the dumb things the rest of us have the freedom to choose to do.

And while they do get days off and vacation time, those things can be recalled at any time, if it is deemed necessary.  In a fairly real sense, by joining the military you have signed away those years of your life, dedicating yourself to the greater good and to doing what is needed for your country.

It always makes me both sad and mad when I see people make light of military who haven't seen combat.  Of course combat veterans and military folks are dealing with stuff most of us can never truly (hopefully) understand.  But simply being in the military means living with the idea, every day, that you could be in those situations.

When we honor Veterans (and members of the military), we should honor all of them, regardless of whether they have seen combat or not.  We should recognize the sacrifices of personal freedoms they have made, in order to better protect and serve the people of their homeland.

As a Pagan, I feel very deeply that my life is made better because of the people who serve in the military.  I hope that we can find peaceful solutions, but I am grateful that we have men and women who are willing to step up when that isn't the case.  I also trust that when disasters happen, the military is often called in to help with rescues and cleanup.  

I don't think of it as a debt owed, in the traditional sense, but I do feel like I need to acknowledge how my life has been impacted by the people who serve my country.  For me, this means saying prayers for our military, so that they can find peaceful solutions, so they can come home safely (and so the military of other countries can also come home safely).  It means sending energy and blessings to our soldiers, many of whom are young and away from home for the first time (or not able to be home with their families as much as other people). 

Though I will never be military myself, the one thing I can do is support our military folks.  Whether I agree with the decisions politicians are making or not.  Whether we are in a war I approve of or not.  The men and women who are putting themselves out there, whether they are in an active conflict situation or not, deserve my respect and gratitude.

It is very easy to transfer our opinions about our government and about war in general to the people who are doing the fighting, but I feel it is important to remember that most of them don't have a choice about what they are doing.  Yes, they chose to join (though in many cases, it wasn't a choice at all), but once they are in, choices are gone, and they are left with following orders. 

So regardless of I feel about the greater issues at hand, no matter what other magical work I may be doing to change the system...I feel it is vital to remember that the actual soldiers, the people who are in those unenviable positions of serving their country.  And I will continue to treat all of them with the respect they are due, and to hold gratitude in my heart for their sacrifices.

Daytime versus Nighttime

 With daylight savings time just around the corner, it's time to once more look at...well time!  The purpose of daylight savings time was to create more 'usable' time during the daylight hours, so that businesses would be open and people would go about their daily routine when it was light out, trying to make the most of those precious hours of daylight in the winter.

One of the obvious advantages of doing things in the daylight is that you can see (without using artificial light).  We now know that the exposure to actual sunlight has a physiological effect not only on how people sleep but on their mood in general as well.  

Many people find that being on a night schedule is exhausting (and of course it is inconvenient...trying to run all your errands on a nigh shift schedule is near impossible), and even if they tend to be night owls and naturally stay up later at night, not going to sleep until after the sun has risen can be difficult.

A lot of people believe that waking up early is somehow better than sleeping later and staying up later (and I'm talking about when you can schedule your day however you like).  Almost every productivity schedule has an early rise time.  And if someone needs to stretch their day to add in workout time or meditation, it's rarely suggested that you stay up later to make more time, you are always expected to wake up earlier.

Now, speaking as someone who isn't a morning person, at all, that always struck me as somewhat odd.  I understand why, if you need to be at work by 8, then sleeping until 9 is a problem, but I never understood why it was an issue if you weren't bound by such a schedule.

And I think that part of it is our association with day time, the sun and the external world.  If we consider the sun and moon as the ruling heavenly bodies of their respective times, the sun is out outward facing selves and the moon is the inward facing self.  The sun is how we interact with others, the going out and doing, while the moon is our inner world, the sitting and thinking and dreaming.

So it sort of makes sense that we lump 'work' and active times with the day and sleep with the night.  But it might be worth considering what kind of work you want to do.  I definitely find that some things come easier at night, and some things I prefer to do during the day.

I read an interesting correlation between electric lights and candle light, how when the electric lights are on, we talk about the outer world, but when we are light by candle (or fire) light, we focus on dreams and spiritual matters.  I think this lines up quite well with the sun and moon energies.

If I have a lot of stuff to get done in a day, I would much rather sort out the outside stuff first.  I may not even be fully awake, but if we have errands to run, I'd rather do them early and have the rest of the day to enjoy, than take my time waking up and piddling around the house, then have to go and get everything sorted.

And while I can get more done during the day, I often get great ideas at night (especially after I'm 'done' with my stuff for the day).  The evenings are my time to just unwind and do whatever, and I often feel like my brain is just done for the day, and yet if I engage in a creative practice (with no expectation of 'producing' stuff, just focusing on the process) I make leaps I might not make at other times.  The best time for me to think about new ideas is right before bed (though that does make it sometimes hard to remember the ideas!)

Our brains work in different ways, so some people might find that fresh energy in the morning, when they first wake up and soak in the sun, is what vitalizes their mind and body.  They may be someone who can get a million things done in the morning, and when they harness that drive their life moves smoother.  For them, waking up later might throw their entire day off, and they might feel like they are playing catch up the rest of the day, like they are always behind.

Others may be more like me, and when I have to get up early, almost irregardless of what time I went to bed and how much sleep I get, I'm groggy and tired and I just can't think straight.  But on the flip side of the day, even if I was up since the crack of dawn and yawned my way through the day, once the sun sets, it's like my batteries recharge and my mind wakes up.

Whichever way you seem to lean, it's worth paying attention to how you feel and what you excel at in the day and night times.  Find ways to structure your day to make the most of how you personally react to the times of day, and try swapping things around whenever you can until you find the way that works best for you.