Celebrate Your Light!
Celebrate Your Light!
By: May McCarthy
At this time of year, many of us choose to use light as an enhancement to our holiday celebrations. We decorate trees, light candles, and shoot off fireworks as part of our festivities. We often take for granted that the lights will go on in our homes, offices, communities, and cars simply because we turned on the switches. Light provides us with the tools that we need to live our lives comfortably, especially in the winter when sunlight is available for fewer hours to those of us in the northern and southern most parts of the world. In Seattle where I live, it gets dark at 4:30pm and doesn’t get light for almost 15 hours later during December.
In the past, when electricity and batteries weren’t available, light was valued more as a source of life. Sunlight served as the main source of light and provided the energy necessary to grow plants that release energy into the living things that digest them. It provided humans and other living things with vitamins and kept them healthy. The return of light was anxiously anticipated each year by peoples located north and south of the equator where sunlight was reduced in winter months.
In pre-historic times, the northern Aboriginal people found winter to be a very difficult time. They couldn’t grow any crops and the tribes had to live off of stored food and whatever animals they could catch. The people were troubled as the life-giving sun sank lower in the sky each noon. They sometimes feared that it would continue to sink and disappear forever. After the passage of the winter solstice, they would have a reason to celebrate. They saw the sun rising and strengthening once more, signifying a re-birth, and regained hope for a bright and warm future.
It’s no wonder that many spiritual traditions created winter celebrations for light as a source of life. The winter solstice, which occurs on December 21st, is a popular celebration that marks the shortest day of the year when the night time hours are at a maximum. Since the Aboriginal people didn’t have sophisticated instruments to detect the solstice, they relied on what they could notice. A few days after the solstice, they noticed a slight elevation in the sun’s path, so celebrations were often timed for about the 25th of December.
Other December celebrations include the Christian celebration of the birth of Jesus Christ as the “light of the world”, and the Jewish tradition which lights the menorah as a symbol of the nation of Israel and its mission to be "a light unto the nations." Light is a powerful and life giving symbol used by most spiritual traditions. The Holy Qur'an describes God as the "Light of the heavens and earth." It goes on to say that angels are created from light. I suggest that we learn to value ourselves and others as symbols of light on a much more personal level.
To see how you can share your light and be a symbol of life, I invite you to do the following:
- Become a light in your family.
Perhaps you could demonstrate peace and be a peacemaker, or take time to listen to one family member at a time with the goal to understand them instead of trying to be understood.
- Become a light in your work place.
Perhaps you could ask a coworker how you can help them with something that is overwhelming to them so that they can experience support and success.
- Become a light in your community.
Perhaps you could volunteer in a way that connects you with others in service to provide assistance; food banks, building shelters, serving on a non-profit board, organizing a fundraiser, etc.
- Become a light in your world.
Perhaps you could continue to pray for peace for all peoples in all nations no matter what the news reports or others share with you.
Author and poet, Arthur Tugman, said, Thousands of candles can be lit from a single one and its life no less diminished. Life increases exponentially with love. I believe that this means that you can choose to be a single source of light that can be shared with thousands of others without being diminished. And, as you do so, you will receive “exponentially” more than you’ve given out.
Being a light is to provide energy and life to others. As you do so, you will receive increased energy and life for yourself. Being a light is to share your skills and talents in unique and remarkable ways. There is something valuable that you can do to “nourish and restore life” to another person. Your encouragement can restore their hope, your help can repair their work life, your assistance can provide them with sustenance, and your caring can nourish their soul. As you share your time, talents, and treasures with others, you are demonstrating that you are a magnificent light of the world. And, as a bonus, you will receive exponentially more in return. That is truly a cause for celebration. I celebrate your light!
All the best to you for continued success in all of your endeavors. Thank you again for all that you are and all that you do in our world. May you be blessed on Your Path to all that is Good!
You can learn more success principles in my book, The Path to Wealth; Seven Spiritual Steps for Financial Abundance. www.bizzultz.com/book