In early December this year I noticed I felt empty, uninspired, shallow. It had crept up on me, like invisible slowly-accumluating dust as I went about my daily life, until I had a conversation with a friend and in listening to his admissions of feelings of heavy numbness, realized I feel similarly.

It’s winter and the days are monochrome and brief. News of the world clanks around in my heart with its terrible sharp edges. And Christmas is coming.

I’ve historically had the attitude of a surly teenager toward Christmas, like a friend who so poetically quipped, “Christmas is kind of on my shit list.” Long ago I was disillusioned out of the magic it held for me as a child. In those days, I crafted gifts for everyone, immersing myself in the unfettered creativity of time-without-a-job. Then gift giving grew into more of an unquestioned obligation and the noise of holiday sale advertising entered my awareness. All too soon I no longer had the luxury of open time and the stories of Christmas were diminished by experiences of a larger world.

It was such a heartbreak, I guess, that I decided to more or less shut it out, like a former lover.

I rebelled and didn’t give gifts, solely because I thought I had to. I dutifully went to Christmas concerts and participated in holiday parties and yes, sometimes the magic appeared. But I’d be damned if I was going to count on it!

I knew that there were so many people who were working very hard to create Christmas magic for others, often becoming quite stressed out in the process. Some were alone and their aloneness was amplified tenfold by cozy gatherings they were not part of. Others had it right – some loved the holidays — loved creating and preparing, loved shopping and cooking for the ones they love. They were the lucky ones, I thought.

Now in my more mature years, I get that life is what you make of it, and this applies especially to Christmas. I’ve outgrown my teenage surliness but somehow Christmas still presents me with a weird ‘meh’, underneath which there is a longing. (It’s somewhat embarrassing to admit this. I feel like I have a Christmas disability or something.)

So that conversation with a friend got me thinking.

What if I reached out and connected to Christmas this year? What if I courted Christ Consciousness? What if I got over myself and stop expecting it to come to me?

Relationship, after all, means taking a risk and putting yourself out there. I’m good at being a wallflower. What if I initiate the dance?

But how?

When I take people on medicine walks, I sometimes call it ‘sacred theater.’ We go out, choosing a particular frame of mind: like being a child where everything is talking to us in the language of synchronicity and intuition. Beauty arrests us, we open and can receive messages that we can’t hear in the work a day world. One part of us knows the ants are not really telling us that we’re never alone, and another part understands the ants instantly and perfectly.

Being willing to slow down and play is what opens the door to the sacred.

Perhaps I can simply engage the modern rituals of Christmas as if I’m on a medicine walk . . . following my intuition, suspending judgement, listening in metaphor, open to beauty.

It tickles me because just now, as I write, I feel this little flame in my heart — a laughing kind of joy.

Ha. I’ve made eye contact.

Let’s see what unfolds.