More, perhaps, than we think . . .

It's Christmas Eve . . .

“Maybe Christmas,” he thought, “doesn't come from a store. Maybe Christmas, perhaps, means a little bit more.” — – Narrator (Boris Karloff) in How the Grinch Stole Christmas, which premiered on television in 1966.

Treasure Islands

Somewhere, someone is praying for things

most of us take for granted: people

and things in our lives that bring

happiness, joy, freedom and peace.

We here in the Northern Hemisphere are celebrating

the return of longer daylight after the long stillness

and renewal gifted to us by the darkness. How often

we forget, while Creation's Watercourse moves in silence

and shadow to impregnate our future, it is

simultaneously forging ahead in the bright light

and songs of the present in our brothers and sisters

Southern Hemispheric neighborhoods.

For millennia, this time of year has been sacred

to human beings. Some of us believe with the ancients

that a window opens between the Solstice and New Year worlds.

This was and remains a time when people create magic

while walking between those worlds with poems

and songs about belief. What if, what if what we had

right now was enough? An ancient Tibetan proverb answers:

“Being satisfied is like having a treasure in the palm of your hand.”