Today is a day of celebration for many Christians in the Western World – Christmas Day culminates weeks of planning, giving gifts, fasting – into a festive day of celebrating light coming into the world. The Council of Tours in 567 AD proclaimed the twelve days from Christmas to Epiphany as a sacred and festive time, contrasted with the preparation of Advent.

This is a time seen as a thin veil perhaps between the spiritual and earthly planes, and a time to divine inner wisdom and listening as we look forward to the year ahead. Within the darkness of winter, a bit of light is emerging if only we care to find it. Energetically, we are wrapping up the year and looking ahead to what will serve us and humanity best. This experience of Christmastide is to examine the depths of our own soul.

Today is about Light in its many forms. My favorite is the beginning of the Book of John, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. ² He was in the beginning with God. ³ All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made. ⁴ In him was life,^[a] and the life was the light of men. ⁵ The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.” (ESV version). I also enjoy the beautiful version of this passage in The Message translation.

Every night during the 12 Holy Nights I am journaling. My questions for tonight to myself are:

How am I (are we) a light to others?

How am I (are we) a light in the darkness?

How will I (will we) hang onto light in a tenacious way through the ups and downs of the year? This, to me, is the intertwining of a more anthroposophical look into the Holy Nights on this day as we look at this Holy Night representing the month of January and with that the planetary influences we see in January.

How do I (will we) become self confident, practical in our goals for the year and sustain meeting these goals in a patient way?

On this note of goals, I chose a word for 2023, “BOLD”. Then I took this word and thought of ways I would like to live my life more boldly than before. This came down to areas of personal health, family and relationships, faith, work and finances, our farm. This made it easier to see a vision in each area and how to break down these ideals into smaller and not overwhelming goals.

You might ask why there isn’t a homeschool goal listed? This is simply because homeschooling is to me an extension of the health of our family and the health of our relationships. So homeschooling is in those categories.

The last thing about this day is that perhaps this is a day of community, family, joy, relaxation, laughter – how will this play out in the year? How can we include more of these qualities in our year to come?

Thinking and pondering with you,

Carrie