The Tao of Christmas Eve

There is an oriental medicine theory about yin and yang (that’s yaaaaang, not yang like bang) that goes something like this:

The Tao of 0 (nothing/everything at once) is split and becomes two (duality, the dark and the light, the female and the male, the inner and the outer)…

This same idea exists in Thelema (of Aleister Crowley fame – he was not indeed the wickedest man alive but another eye opener to this ultimate reality…having read two biographies, one 700 page autobiography and naming the black cat I rescued from my Red Hook street Aleister, I have a certain understanding of these things…in truth Aleister the cat chose me and followed me to and from the bus ever single day, knowing when I was coming and bellowing to me. He now bellows to me at 4am in the morning a few inches from my ear which explains this tired run on sentence of oriental philosophy and the occult). In truth occult means “hidden”/”secret” to knowledge, and finding out the true meaning of words and how we use them and what we allow them to mean to us and do to us is a very important thing.

Back to the Tao and the split into duality / 2. This idea of yin and yang, the female in repose and the male in activity – it applies to just about everything you can imagine. In thinking of childhood, I am saddened that children in cities, American children, modern children, children of today generally speaking, are high on yang all the time. America is a yang nation. Ruled by activity and goings on. I had plenty of activity as a child – dance lessons, the most casual sense of Catholicism, gymnastics, piano…it got so much I was forced to regress into my own head once pre-teen dom hit. Still, I look around and see children staring into screens, much like their parents, watching mindless entertainment on long drives, playing games with invisible pets on gaming devices, moving and going and doing un-actual things…yet this is yang, and it has its purpose.

But children and most people in this place seem to be sorely lacking in the yin. I practically lived on yin as a child – climbing trees and finding new, green, tiny strawberries at the base of their roots, creating a whole epic woodland adventure involving invading armies along with my protectors in the form of german shepherds who took part every time, being outside on my own from morning until supper time, picking up rocks and leaves and plants for a magickal potion which I would concoct indoors later on – usually tasting too dirty to drink, but still, having its worth to the story, and examining the textures, colours and depth of a particular leaf for hours on end, no talking required. Nothing was officially accomplished, or gained or won. If asked what I did that day, I wouldn’t know what to say.

In adulthood it’s no different. The idea of being with people, talking (not debating or throwing facts around which were skimmed off of a facebook post or a blog’s news taken as truth), about experiences, thoughts, memories seems alien to most these days.  From my very first Christmas to the very last one at which my father was present, Christmas Eve always ended up in front of the fire (or in front of the palm tree laden windows we had when in a rental house in Florida), talking about our family, my parents’ lives and relations, old gossip and rumours, Croatian traditions and my dad’s life back home, everything we would imagine up and relate. Over drinks, laughter, good food and each other. Falling asleep with each other over quieter conversation, and a happy warm bellyful of wine and sljivovica.

Even these past three years without him, my father attends these Christmas Eve nights through my mother’s albeit shady memory, through my brother’s obsessive recalling when he is around, and through me it seems. Since I lost my mirror when he suddenly passed away, I see the duality broken or at least lopsided. My brother and my mother – two curly haired, anxious and energetic people – loving their daily routine talk and holding the same fears and oddities from her side of the family. I was my father’s daughter in every way. Looks, gesticulations and spirit. He had the spirit of a poet and the greatest ability at storytelling of anyone I knew – he regretted that he never learned English well enough to really Write. But he always told me to write and remember his stories because he had a lot of them. He remembered people and memories of my mother’s family more than she did herself. I hope I can still write them down and share them with the right voice. Since he is gone, I am the mirror of him to my mother and brother. My mother told me it gave her great comfort to see him in a million different things about me – the angle of my foot, the small shaped head, the talking and pointing with my hands as if guiding them through even the most mundane thought – the hatred of those very same mundane thoughts in lieu of grand ideas. The love of history, the Romans, my heritage, of learning that most anything you need to work through can be solved if you watch the goings on in nature, and how over a lifetime, you usually can count real, true friends on just one hand.

This is a lot to bear sometimes, but I’m proud to be living strong and purely the spirit of the man whose mold I take willingly and happily. Families are a constant duality – they make no sense to those who see it one way, but if going back and forth on the road trip, all sides make sense sometime, to someone. That comfort makes Christmas Eve ok – still today, still in childhood memory and still changing with every new stanza, every new note and lightness. Who says you can’t have Christmas in summertime. Being and nothingness in the shade of a flower, an empire in the folds of a family tree, and true beauty only providing awe when something is lost – the shadow remains your friend and will take you through all the hells you find only to shine its hidden light on something greater, unknown- split into a mystery well worth chasing after.

~ M. Lucia