Holiday Hell

The following question was asked quite a few years ago but I still feel the truth of it year after year. I particularly like Mikal's description of the Twin towards the end:

Paradox wrote:by Paradox
This question is for Mikal but anybody else can answer who feels the urge. My problem is that even though I see through the programs and the madness that make up the dayshine world, I still feel overwhelmed and get extremely depressed this time of year. I've come to conclude that it's like a psychic bombardment of all the insane humans running around looking for more and more materialistic junk to fill their caves with, and none of it matters one bit in the end. That's okay, they can do what they want and even run over one another in the process. Maybe it'll thin the herd a bit. Not my problem.

My problem is getting through the holidays without climbing the clock tower and throwing flaming shit bombs down on all those happy holiday shoppers. I'm being facetious, but I also find it a terrible burden just to breathe from about November 1 through January 2. No peace to be found. Not even possible to meditate sometimes, the psychic bombardment is so fierce.

I want to know if others on this path are similarly affected by the yearly purge of all sanity, and if it's always been like this. Mikal, you're a lot older than most of us here, so I'm wanting to know how you view and experience this time of year. I'd also like to know any survival tips you may have to offer. It gets worse every year and I feel like I'm losing it, between the depression and the outrage I feel. Sure, most of it is my own, but at least some of it is coming from the phantom zombies. How can I make a side trip into vampyreland until the madness subsides?

Respectfully,
Paradox

by Immortalis Animus

My response here is primarily for Paradox, though it may hopefully have relevance to others who have responded as well. You asked if it has always been this way, and the answer is that it definitely has NOT. I am from a time (and place) where there really wasn't a holiday "season" per se. Most families who chose to celebrate xmas did it in a private and somewhat "cozy" manner. Because it is a winter holiday, it was a time when work was uncertain due to weather, and so families would come together in a single household as a means to share resources. The main celebration consisted of good food, conversations around the fire, and the trading of personal inventories (which was much more important before the days of social media and instant gratification).

In answer to your question about how to avoid the psychic bombardment, I would say that the first step is to be aware that the anger and frustration you are feeling are not your own. They are actually reflections of the phantom humans themselves. What were once traditions of joy have become patterns of competition and expectation. If Betty doesn't get exactly the right gift for Susan, worlds will end and kingdoms shall surely fall. But - what if she gets the RIGHT gift, only to find out that Joan has already gotten it, and for a better price, and wrapped it in more beautiful paper with a bigger bow? Surely THEN the entire world will end and hell on Earth will ensue, and fuck Joan all to hell anyway because she is always one for oneupsmanship, and now there is no god at all, and that bottle of vicodin is looking better and better, just take the whole damn bunch of 'em and be done with this insane life here on this fucked up planet where Joan ruined Christmas!

You may think I'm being extreme, but think again. This is the mentality many people face during the holidays - and you may rest assured that their combined angers and frustrations are not just harmless emotions. They can become stray flaming arrows that tend to hit anyone who is generally open or what some overpaid shrinks like to call "overly emotionally sensitive." So the choice becomes - whether to close oneself off to the madness altogether, join the madmen and madwomen in their revelry, or find a hole and pull it in after oneself.

Some will surely say that putting up walls or barriers is the way to go, but that generally does not end well for the same reason that wearing masks doesn't end well. Wear the mask long enough, it becomes your new face. Put up the barriers high enough to ward off the lunatics, and you ward off your gnosis as well. Those who argue for "filtering" the so-called "good" from the so-called "bad" are just deluding themselves. Why? Because energy is energy - no difference between good and bad at the subatomic level of spirit and particle physics.

What do I recommend? Difficult to put to words, but when you can find peace among the chaos is when you have tapped the hard-wiring between yourself and your twin. The seeker walks through the world and essentially is like a target (or at least a default catch-all) for the rampant energy that is constantly pouring off of the consensual world. The twin, on the other hand, walks through the world deflecting that energy because it is not just believed but is Known that "this too shall pass." Not just the holiday season, but ALL of it. The worlds are constantly recreating themselves. What is here today is literally gone tomorrow. Knowing this, the twin becomes a reflecting ball, a mirror that does not hold onto any image, but simply allows it to come and go in the breath of a moment.

Put simply, the best way to escape the madness is to change one's mindset (or assemblage point, if you prefer). Reflect rather than absorb.

Happy hollydaze,
M