There’s so much pain around this year. So many people sick. So many people dying. So many people exhausted to the bone from trying to care for the sick and dying. Families who can’t be together for the holidays. So much fear. Fear about the virus. Fear about whether our country can withstand the assault on it’s democracy from the people who have one month left in power, but even when the month is up will continue to be disruptive.

Dan’s mother who just turned 94 has panic attacks on a regular basis now, sure she is dying. She’s not. She’s in good health, though the attacks cause her blood pressure to temporarily skyrocket. Fear. So much fear. She has been saying since I met her that she is ready to go. She’s not. She can say the words, she can’t internalize them and realize what they mean. I feel for her, I really do. Dan seems to be able to calm her. I have not tried, because I have had my own set of issues which occupy me full time. Sadly I have not had the energy to give her. But when I see her in the next few days, I will try.

So much fear about what 45 will do in the next month, until he is out of the White House. Maybe escorted out. Who knows? I have an inherent distrust of his ability to draw a line that he will not cross. I used to say about my ex that there was no line he wouldn’t cross, and it terrified me. As it turned out, all his bravado and bullying drove him crazy, as I see it doing to the president. The president, however, has actual power and I fear he won’t use it wisely. I just pray he doesn’t take the country down with him.

I pray we all make it safely through of COVID. I pray we are all safe from the effects of an dying economy, unless you are part of the small percentage of people who can afford to manipulate the stock market. How is it at over 30,000 points while people are being laid off in huge numbers, losing their ability to pay rents and mortgages, to feed their families, to clothe them, to put something special under the Christmas tree for their children? I have been angry at our Congress because they couldn’t pass a bill to help people suffering in this extraordinary time. They couldn’t pass it until it might interfere with their holiday. Selfish bastards. But they passed it, finally. I wonder how many people it was, is, too late for.

So this morning, I started reading the news on my phone. Apple News. As I do most mornings. But this morning, all I read was the details on the now passed stimulus package. Yes, McConnell and Pelosi, you can go home to your insulated lives after so many people’s lives are changed forever. I am so grateful to be retired, and have a steady, for sure (right now at least) income. I worry endlessly about my son, who has a good job, but doesn’t imagine that could change overnight. And I won’t tell him, I won’t be debbiedowner to him, I won’t bring him down off the high he has from being able to take care of his family. Of the success he has created for himself. And that was all I read, that one article. EVERYTHING else seemed to be prophesying fearful renditions of what could happen.

I will stay in the present for now, for my son, for all my family and friends. A couple of nights ago I was watching a Christmas movie, just to see something hopeful, not fraught with cursing, violence, sex. Just a good old fashioned Christmas movie. I began missing everyone so much. I didn’t put up a tree this year, because my house is so full of gongs and singing bowls and drums, and because it’s in a box up on a shelf I can’t reach without a ladder and I am not ready to be climbing even a step ladder. Even though Dan will get it down for me, I still have no place to put it. The downside of downsizing. So there is nothing Christmasy about my house. I decided then and there that I would make cookies, and I did. One kind on Saturday, one on Sunday and two yesterday. It felt like Christmas to have platters of cookies in my kitchen. It lifted my spirits so much. I have made plates of them for my friends, and Dan’s mom. And I will probably freeze the rest of them. They keep well in the freezer.

Yesterday, I invited a friend came over to sit on my deck in the chilly weather we are having, because we don’t want to be inside. We talked about all of this, expressed our fears, our hopes that the crazy state of our world will be righted in the next year. She’s an optimist, like me. Or at least wants to be, but isn’t sure she can see her way clear to be optimistic about anything. My words to her yesterday were those of Marianne Williamson in an interview with Oprah, “The universe is self-organizing and self-correcting. If you see something that you know is wrong, you can be sure the universe is on it, already at work correcting it.” And so I believe. It’s not a bolt of lightning with which the universe works. It’s directing people’s energy in ways that allow us to see and work to correct it with our individual power and energy. Hearts can change. Life can change. But first we have to believe that what we say and what we do ripples out far from us, and we have no way of knowing what some of the ultimate effects are. Which is one reason to always be kind, right?

I believe that the universe is speaking to us as this year closes. Last Monday on the new moon we had the new moon which is really a total lunar eclipse, and a total solar eclipse, and a powerful meteor shower. This Monday we had the winter solstice, and the great conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn, which many called the Christmas Star. It is the dawning of another Age of Aquarius.

Last night I ate my dinner, dressed warm, and got in my car. I was driving toward the beach, and thought I would stop at the first place from which I could see this “Star”. I ended up at the beach, about a mile and a half away. I parked the car, and crossed the street to walk along the beach and ended up behind what is called the Casino. It is not a casino really, it’s a dance hall. It’s called Casino because the real Spanish meaning is “small house”. It’s not really small, but the name fits, and has stuck since forever. We hold our beach sound healings just off the walkway around it, in the sand. I walked up to the rail, and I could see the Star. Both planets pretty visible to the naked eye. A couple people there had telescopes. I walked over to them and just asked, “You guys must know. Is that it?” “Yes” was the answer. “The larger star is Jupiter, the smaller one to the lower right is Saturn.” So I stood there for about 20 minutes, and sat at the permanent cement picnic tables there when my back demanded I sit. It was pretty amazing. It was the ONLY star in the sky. How could that not be a sign for us all to let go of our fear and trust that the universe is “on it”???

I took a couple pictures, intending to edit them so the star was brightly visible when I got home. It was a beautiful evening. The sun was still setting over the St.. Pete beaches, barrier islands. The sky was still pink and orange in the distance. The night sky above was dark indigo, lit by the moon and this star. When I got home I edited them, happy that I was able to get more clarity out of them, and sent them to one of my best friends whose birthday it was. She, in CT, couldn’t see the conjunction because of cloud cover. She was grateful for the pics, I was grateful I got to see it.

All these events in the last week are brimming with hope. Real hope for a better world. The vaccine is here, and by the summer most everyone who wants one will get it, and this COVID fear will be over. Oh, to be able to hug my son, my family, my friends, to be able to go out to eat, to go to the Fresh Market on Tuesdays here in my little town. 45 will be gone, and whatever trouble he tries to cause will be diminished. There is so much fear around those two things, but last night I knew in my heart that the Universe is “On It”, and that it’s incredible ability to self-organize and self-correct, and to bring us hope for a new year was clearly visible.

A couple of events, personal to me, have also occurred. My gong has started humming when no one is around it. This has happened a few times. Just walking to my kitchen or standing in my bathroom, suddenly it starts humming, quiet and low. I have no explanation so I chose to believe it wanted to be played. I gave Dan a new wind gong for Christmas. We fooled around with it Sunday for some time, and he took it home that night. It is 28”, smaller than either of ours. We both expected it might be a little crashy, we were unsure of it. But as we played it, it quickly taught us differently. The sounds, the resonance of this gong are incredible and beautiful. But I digress. He took it home, hung it on his gong stand and began playing his big 40” gong and the much smaller wind gong. Pretty soon he couldn’t differentiate the sounds. And then….he was playing the big gong, but could only hear the small one. He put his hand on the big one, that he’d been playing which has a very powerful resonance, and there was no vibration. But the wind gong was vibrating like crazy, despite the fact that he’d only been playing the big one. He did it in reverse. Played the wind gong only, and the sound and vibrations were only felt in the large gong, the small one was mute as he put his head toward the center of it, and then touched it to see if it was vibrating. But no, only the big gong was vibrating.

We spent about an hour on the phone trying to figure that out. My best bet is the Native American belief that everything has a spirit. Rocks, metals, anything that exists on this earth. And everything is vibration, everything. So perhaps the gongs spirits, both his and mine, were talking to us, communicating. Maybe as the vibrations went out into infinity, they completed the circle and that’s how they came back. Playing each other’s music. I know it’s woo-woo. But perhaps it’s true. Dan is the last person to buy into the woo-woo portion of the gongs vibrations. He dislikes the term “sound healing” because of his disbelief that the vibrations heal anything. But he could not deny this, it happened to him, not me. His comment was, “It’s amazing how whatever happened, made everything better.”

Yeah, BETTER. Of course it did, because I don’t think the universe does anything but try to lift us, even when it’s not evident at the moment. But for Dan to verbalize that was such a leap for him, but it was undeniable. It made me so happy for him, to crack open that door. He plays the gongs much more than I, because he loves them as an instrument. My love is the instruments, but also the effect it has had on me over the years.

Not for a minute do I believe that I have the answers to how the universe works, and why our gongs are communicating to us. I think my gong, with it’s muted soft vibration when I was no where near it was, as I said previously, because it wanted to be played. And I did. I definitely did!

Energy is converging to lift us finally, out of this darkness of 2020. I can even walk again. Not far, but I walked the 1000 feet from my car last night, and stood staring at the night sky for a good long time. Farthest I have walked in 9 months and longest I have stood without pain. Can’t tell you my joy in that small thing.

I hope we all can find joy in the small things this Christmas. And accept the majesty the universe has been displaying to us in the past week. It’s so much more than it appears on the surface. I wish love and light to everyone this Christmas. Believe in the promise of the Christmas Star.