In the constant struggle to find a place in this world, we humans are busy building, rejecting and transforming ourselves. In my parents’ day it was not just a choice but a spiritual aspiration to work hard, to achieve, to own. Today we are repelled by the commercial nature of the Christmas holidays, as so many question the idea of gifts, over-spending, and the focus upon material things. The eastern traditions which now permeate our western lives teach us to divest ourselves of possessions. We are all too aware how worldly needs drive us, yet our lives still seem empty and fraught with pain. Our hearts may be torn, remembering the sweet beauty of childhood holiday traditions, even as we question their meaning and value. We may give to others in need, to ease the imbalance. It seems those without enough stuff are still looking for it, and those with too much stuff are shaking their heads and threatening to give it all away.

Memory.

Christmas, mid 1960’s, Toronto, Ontario, the living room of the house my father built by the Scarborough bluffs, in a peaceful enclave of wide-spread homes south of Kingston Road. When my parents first bought the land there were horses in the field next door, and the renowned Canadian artist Doris McCarthy lived at the bottom of the street, on a striking southern property overlooking the lake. There were no sidewalks, no cell phones or computers, and only three TV channels. We rode bikes home from school and roamed the neighbourhood, playing outside until dark. It was an innocent, suburban time.

I was perhaps eight years old, and had asked for only one thing for Christmas – a marionette. I have no idea why I wanted one so badly – something about the human-like form fascinated me. I must have seen one somewhere to get the idea, or perhaps it was the reading of Pinocchio as I was a bookish kid. To me stringed puppets were a kind of magic; small beings that could be made to clatter and dance or collapse into a little ball of wooden limbs according to the impulse of the handler, and I wanted one the way a mother would want a child. I had beloved dolls made by my grandmother, but these puppets were different. They moved, and came alive in your hands.

Christmas mornings of my childhood were suffused with innocence, hope, and the extraordinary. So many things happened that never happened any other day. The milk and cookies left for Santa were always self-consciously gone, but for a few crumbs. The house was filled with the scent of pine, and the opulent promise of piles of shining boxes beneath the tree was overwhelming. My father would light a fire in the fireplace as the family gathered still wearing pyjamas – no one complained or argued. Christmas music played on the record player console, and my mother fussed in the kitchen over all kinds of food that not only smelled good, but looked like the pictures in her Betty Crocker cookbook. Even breakfast would be unusual, as my father would not go to work or hide behind his papers – not once. These things never happened any other day.

Arrival.

This particular Christmas, it was all so utterly distracting, I completely forgot to hope for the marionette, completely let go of all expectation as I was handed my boxes to open. When I weakly ripped the pretty paper in that somehow sacrilegious act of destruction, I was stunned to find a gorgeous, wooden Pelham marionette inside the first box. And another, inside the second. Hansel and Gretel lay there looking up at me, their wooden faces shining. There were two of them. They were perfect, and they were mine.

After duly hugging and thanking the quietly pleased parents who made this miracle possible, I took the puppets out of their boxes, each in turn. Gretel was incredibly beautiful. She had thick braids, an apron, and a forest green scarf right out of the fairytale. Her cylindrical wooden feet were green to match and she had cheekbones unlike any I had ever seen before and painted red lips. Her wooden skin was cool like silk.

But Hansel, Hansel was magnificent. He wore green overalls of a linen fabric that felt just like what a real boy from a hundred years ago would wear. And his hair. Soft, fuzzy and blonde, fluffed out in what we would now call a full afro, his hair proclaimed him as dominant, proud and yet touchable. I picked him up and felt his limbs bend and collapse in my hands, limp as a sleeping child. His small wooden frame lay smooth and cool, as his huge eyes looked up at me with trust. I cradled him and watched his perfectly proportioned body respond as if it were alive.

I cannot count the number of times I have moved since I left that childhood home at seventeen for university. Mine was a geographically stable childhood – my adulthood has been much more the life of a gypsy. But every move I have packed those puppets and brought them along. The strings are now utterly tangled and frayed, Gretel’s apron crushed and faded. Her hair looks well slept in, and Hansel’s is a matted mess. I keep promising myself I will find someone who restores old dolls to fix them up like new again, but I almost don’t mind their age and incapacity to dance. I can still pick them up and watch their softly jointed limbs move and flow. I can still remember the morning the dream of them came true.

Desire.

I was in many ways a privileged child. I was never hungry, I never lacked a warm coat or shoes that fit. And yet of course my own karmic journey led me to much inner suffering, to all the many ways I felt unloved, unseen and unheard. My dominant childhood memories are of anxiety, fear within our family dynamic, and the pretence required to survive. But there was once, one magical moment when a dream came true and a pure, heartfelt desire was answered in my life. That desire was made manifest through a physical object, two of them in fact, simple toys and yet beings in their own right. The idea that there were forces beyond me who heard my wishes and whispered them into my parents’ ears, that the world was a place where hopes could be fulfilled, was born in me that morning.

My faith had nothing to do with Jesus Christ; he was simply a biblical concept to me at the time. Nor had it to do with the pagan rite of the tree, the legend of Saint Nicholas, or Father Christmas. No, my hope was above all the expression of a simple human desire fulfilled, which then birthed the belief in all possibility, an answer to every search for divine alignment, a faith which lives with me to this very day.

Of course an experience of joy come true needn’t take place only on Christmas. And yes, a mad search through Wallmart for the perfect present on Black Friday is not likely to lead us to any truth. But before we throw the baby out with the bath water and insist that we never touch Christmas wrapping paper again, perhaps we can pause to acknowledge the beauty of this kind of experience in our lives.

In fact I will go so far as to suggest, let us consciously continue to make way for ritual, for surprises and thoughtful gifts, wishes and magic beyond the every day. Let us honour art and craftsmanship, the purpose of play and silliness, the power of whatever sweet traditions we may have left. There are still elements of our material world which hold beauty beyond imagining, and these are not meant to be cast aside, even in these days of downsizing and a greener way of life.

I believe I can develop the capacity to let go, to experience non-attachment in my heart, and yet still find room in my world for the texture of Handsel’s overalls, and Gretel’s wooden feet. I believe I can find love in unsuspecting places, and that it is above all, always Love we seek, in all its divine and human forms.

My own wish for this season, is let there be joy here on Earth, not just in the Heavens, and let us find delight in the small, perfect craftsmanship of a toy with no real purpose except play, pleasure and expression. Let us each discover our own power to create, be our creations ever so intangible or politically incorrect. Perhaps at times it is even possible that through the treasures of our material world we will find the respect for their creation, and thus the natural world which sustains us as creators. Perhaps what is most important is the chance to come to know our meaning and purpose, and within this, the courage to permit a dream to come true. Perhaps when every day is focused upon the allowing of love and joy, we will no longer waste our breath on denying others what we ourselves so fear to lose.

Permission.

The story of Hansel and Gretel is a favourite archetypal story I like to share with my clients. I believe that in the journey of our waking up, we all will one day find ourselves cast out from what we thought was home, seemingly separated from unconditional mother-love, searching for crumbs to show us the way in the deep, dark forest. And one day we will all encounter that tempting cabin lost in the woods, candy and sugar on the outside, ruled by a dark and malevolent creature within, one who threatens to keep us enslaved or entrapped, away from our joy, our lives, our freedom. It may the fire of her oven which transforms our darkness, or it may be the discovery that for every Hansel and Gretel, woman and man, Shiva and Shakti, anything is possible. We are all daughters and sons of God, Goddess, Source, the Creator. We are all worthy of every joy our hearts can imagine, and the real magic is that it is our own self-permission which finally invites our dreams to come true.

This holiday season I wish each and every one, loving ritual and celebration with those you hold dear, through Winter Solstice, Bodhi Day, Christmas, Hanukkah, Saturnalia, Yule, Kwanzaa, Omisoka, Shabe-Yalda and the birth of the prophet Muhammad. May you find the source and expression of your fully deserved joy. May you dance, and sleep, and be eternally held, nestled in the arms of Love. From my hopeful heart, to yours.

AdiKanda