A child is born.........................

A Child is born..................

I love how in this painting the cow is looking directly at us, the viewers, inviting us to share in this event. An unearthly, heavenly light shines from the child and is reflected in his mother's adoring face. The animals come to worship this child of love born on Christmas Eve.

From Mary Magdalene Within 

" I was surprised to find out that the creche scene with the animals has been with us only since the 1200's, when St. Francis of Assisi  felt the spiritual urge to create one. What did they do before that to express the idea that  our animal instincts are necessary to support the birth of "the new" inside of us? The Light within needs the manger within. It's that way in dream guidance, where it's very important to notice what the animals are doing. If they're acting strangely or are against us, something is awry in our own ability to support our own true self in continuing growth.  This true self  is pictured as the return of the Light in the manger.

   I've seen nativity scenes without alot of animals, with many people instead, and they look really wrong. We respond to them with our head instead of our heart."

Christmas Manger Scene with dogs 

The animals carry something of the earthly heart in the Nativity scene. Certainly they know who they're devoted to. I've seen Christmas manger scenes with dogs and they are a wonderful image of devotion and loyalty.  It's a moment for celebration when you've dreamed of a dog being with you.

 We need the animals and we need our own animal instincts more than ever right now as we work towards creation of a new world. It's our animal instincts which say "go this way for safety" and "go this way to be more comfortable" and "rest right now because you're depleted" and "this is just the right spot to be in". Our animal instincts save us from being in our heads too much. They help us define, with strong feeling, what we want to give birth to and to nurture into life. 

This year touches many of us with unbearable grief and in some strange way opens a portal to allow love to bloom inside in some "instinctual" part of us. We need our animal instincts to reach this portal. This year it's all about the children and the animals who come to help us learn to love. Children represent the emotional body, that which we try to heal.

This week will stand out in our memories as a time we prayed for 20 innocent young children who died last Friday in the Sandy Hook School Shootings. People across the world, especially those who have lost a child, pray with us. There is something about children that touches each of us. Perhaps this comes from our own childhood experiences or as far back as the moment we entered this reality when we lost our memory, our sense of who we are as consciousness and light, to come here and experience physical reality.

The 20 children who crossed over will make themselves known to those left behind, as their spirits move from fear and confusion on the day they died, to consciousness and light at this special time of the year.

The horror and pain is reverberating around the world. And the angels weep................

Most of us knew that this year would be hard, but I for one had no inkling that it would be this hard, I seem to weep endlessly. My heart is raw from all the sadness and misery. And then I remember..... Away in a manger, a child is born. And now I understand why so many noble animals offer their lives to bring comfort to us.

That child is our hearts. And it hurts to be born. May we all find comfort with each other and not be afraid to offer our hands and our hearts to each other. Please offer your love at no cost to everyone you meet today. We can all make a difference.

Love to all and may we all understand what is really important in this life and may it be born in this world.

Nativity by children helped by LoveLightRomania, who had no sanitation, education or hope.

 Published on Dec 15, 2012

This Nativity film represents the potential in children who live a feral life. In September 2010, a project was launched by Love Light Romania, to give one of these communities hope for the future. The children from Jacodu Children's Project were forgotten, not entitled to basic rights and had no hope.

They themselves prove, that with support, they can have a better life. The amazing progress they have made in that short time, shows the success, with dedication and commitment, we can help them make of their lives. The participants of this film are very proud to share, through The Nativity Story, how with support they are enjoying a new life.

Projects understanding the feral way of life in poor family communities in Romania and asking why? .....instead of judgement, alongside education, will help the children to survive in a more productive community. Where they have life opportunities their parents have not had and cycles of poverty will be broken.

The feral children in Romania today, if not discriminated against, but accepted and encouraged, can rise from the ashes of poverty and leave a legacy of prosperity.

To find out more about the Jacodu Children's Project and how you can help please contact jo@lovelightromania.com.

The Nativity of the Divine Light

Christmas Eve, sometimes called Holy Night, celebrates the ageless story of the birth of Christ. As the divine light of Christ incarnates in a tiny babe in a lowly manger, to us this story represents the nativity of the divine light within the Gnostic soul, the coming of the royal light into the lowly frame and darkness of this world. When the outer world grows cold and dark it is even more necessary to keep the spark of divine light kindled and bright.

Though the light shines in the darkness, the darkness can not itself give birth to the light. The earth would be naught but cold damp clay without the life coming from the light of the Sun. Even so, the spirit which gives life comes from somewhere else, a mystical dimension beyond time and space. The alchemists assure us that “nature unaided always fails.” Without divine assistance in the Hermetic art the alchemist can not achieve the goal of the Great Work, the Philosopher’s Stone. In the same way, our human natures can not transform our ego personalities without the assistance of that spark of our Divine Self and the birth of that consciousness within us.

It is reported that during delivery, as a baby’s head just breaks through from the birth canal, that for a brief moment an otherworldly light fills the room, like the light of a golden dawn. That light is soon obscured in this world but serves to remind us of the glorious aeon from which we have come and the darkness into which each new life comes. Our task is not to bewail the existential facts of the matter but to aid those who come into this world to keep the memory of that light alive and kindled within them. 
http://gnosis.org/ecclesia/homily_Christmas.htm

In the Biblical story, the Christ child is born in a cave or stable used to shelter animals and is laid in a manger— a humble birth for the proclaimed King of kings. We also share that humble existence in this world. We also experience the sacrifice of the glorious light of the aeons and see our light power as a tiny spark of its original flame. The holy birth of Christmas represents the birth of the Christ-Sun within us, an awakening of our consciousness to who we are and the light from whence we came, an awakening from the sleep of forgetfulness.

The manger where the holy babe is laid is a place for keeping grain and fodder. Grain is a symbol of the seed of life that endures through the winter, a symbol also for the birth of the solar God in the Eleusinian mysteries. As the shaft of wheat was presented the Mystae would exclaim, “Brimo has given birth to Brimos!” That shaft of wheat might be represented as well in the host of the Eucharist, “the Heavenly Bread, the Life of the whole world, which is in all places and endureth all things.” The city where the holy child is born is called Bethlehem which means “House of Bread.”

The life represented in the bread and grain was a very important part of the Christmas celebrations of times past. The last sheaf of grain from the harvest represented the life spirit of the entire field. In earlier times the folk custom was to carefully save the last sheaf, both the grain and the straw. The grain was ground and made into Christmas cake, sweet porridge or pudding. The straw was woven into the figure of a tree, a man, a bird or a goat.

The straw goat, which some families still include in their Christmas celebrations, represents the seed of life that endures through the winter and signifies the holy light that still shines through the cold and dark of winter to appear to us on this Holy Night of Christmas Eve. There is a small rent in the veil before the Treasury of the Light. A magical light shines down into the heart of dark winter wherever there are gathered those who have prepared a vessel for it on earth. That vessel is the pure heart, a heart of compassion and forgiveness, a heart made ready after the pattern of our Holy Mother of Compassion and Mercy. Such a heart gives birth to the light of Christ. It shall always remain a virgin birth; for her love remains forever itself, pure, undefiled, unsullied and unadulterated, regardless of its myriad forms of expression on earth. Her love eternally sanctifies itself and all it touches. It is the mystic rose of her love in our hearts that is the immaculate vessel that gives birth to the Christ child within us. As expressed most beautifully in a poem by Gertrude Farwell.

“Soft candle stars the gloom
About a single rose:
Flower and bough of pine perfume
The twilight hour; in flame that throws
A nimbus round the evergreen.
Whilst fragrance breathes the Living Name
Of Love Incarnate yet unseen,
Rising from petal, pine and thorn.
Mary the pure is kneeling fair,
Of Gabriel’s “Ave!” now aware,
Wondering if aright she’s heard
“Blessed art thou”—unsought acclaim,
Immaculate vessel that the Word
Made flesh may shine on Christmas morn.”

-- Rev. Steven Marshall