The Meaning behind Christmas, Part 1
Part 1:
The reason we celebrate Christmas when we do instead of in the late summer when scriptures tell us the actual birth of Jesus occurred is due to pagan celebrations revolving around the winter solstice. The most notable are the Roman holidays of Saturnalia and Dies Natalis Solis Invicti, the festival of Saturn the Roman god of agriculture, and the Birthday of Sol Invictus the Sun-god.
Saturnalia lasted from Dec 17th to Dec 23rd and Dies Natalis Solis Invicti occurred on Dec 25th.
Festivities included feasts, the exchanging of gifts and (as will be a recurring theme in this series) the decoration of evergreen trees with ornamentation and candles.
In a 2009 speech, Pope Benedict XVI acknowledged that “Christmas acquired its definitive form in the fourth century when it replaced the Roman Feast of the Sol Iinvictus.” (http://bit.ly/U1Sz6q)
Awesome pic
(Source: jocelynbeexo, via clapyourhandssaykirsten)
(Source: prudexwhore)
we stopped checking for monsters under the bed when we realized they were inside us
We all live in our separate houses, boarded up with steel and nails, floating around our stairs and landings like ghosts, all mysteries to each other. Our houses are our safe places, the caves that no one else can reach, that only we know the exact location of. We curl up into the corners of our rooms and showers when the life and the world threatens to knock on our doors, seeking entry. We put up the wall around our minds and we descend into ourselves, like Dante into the Inferno, sheltering ourselves against the unknown and the unwanted. For we do not want life and we do not want the world or happiness. It scares us, for our human instincts, those whispering demons that sprouted in the womb with us and spread out to our brains, tell us that we should be miserable. That is what makes us so great and so special, the fact that we are all so miserable most of the time, subconsciously cherishing our masochism, but consciously whining and complaining about how unhappy we are. Yet we do nothing about it, we simply rock back and forth, back and forth in our corners and let the scalding water beat against our backs as our eyes stay closed and dare not open for fear of seeing light.
But we must go out into the world and mingle with others like ourselves. We place our armours carefully, our bulletproof clothes and we bravely step outside and walk out the door. Our feet carry us to other buildings, other hiding places, and we roam the streets like hungry wolves waiting for something that we don’t quite know. And we wait until the moment we die and then perhaps, some of us realize what it is we truly are looking for, but most of us do not and we perish with sadness in our eyes, still unknowing why we have been so unhappy all of our lives.
And so we walk in the cities and sit in the planes and gesture to strangers and speak to our friends, but there is one thing we do not ever talk about, and that is the monsters. We all have them, deep within our bones and heart, our veins and marrow, they permeate our very souls and we know that they will never leave because like the demons that sprouted in the womb with us, these monsters developed once we were born. Their mother was light, no father to create them, but our bodies became their homes, and they took on the forms of children. They can be seen by anyone of us quite well in the sunlight, for they appear as our shadows, moving exactly like us and mimicking every action that we make. Though the monsters grow as we grow, their spirits never cease to be children, and if one looks very closely, one can see them dancing in the day.
But we humans, we have this trait that we are frightened of everything that we do not understand, and we did not understand why these monsters would want to thrive within us. They opened their hands and smiled at us and told us they would not hurt us, that they were simply here because we are human, not complete animals, humans, and that we are different and need them. But we shook our heads with horror because their hands had sharpened claws, and their teeth were covered with the blood of our brethren and we took steps back and ran. And these monsters, saddened, ran after us, trying to catch us and make us realize that we have no choice, we all have monsters. They tried to make us realize that the only way their claws would retract and their lust for blood would diminish was if we turned toward them and we welcomed them, discussed with them our fears and dreams and hopes and all that is important to man. But humans rarely face what frightens us so the monsters decided to infiltrate our bodies anyway, without a welcome and to stay there until we decided to talk to them. Of course, like us, they grow and they change, but unlike us, they become stronger the more they are ignored. The more we run away from them, the more they become saddened, angry, and lonely, the harder they try to get our attention and soon, they overpower us. It is not their faults, for they are simply monsters and from where they come from, they do not understand this concept of running, they only know of confrontation.
Human nature and monsters have not gotten along together since the beginning of humanity. The former believes, because it has originated from those pure animals that it is superior than the latter. Most humans agree with this and therefore when the demons whisper that these monsters are bad or that these ones are good, we believe them and we either run away harder and push them further down or we slow down to a walking pace and extend a hand to them. However, only the monsters truly know which one of them is good and which one is bad and they have realized that we have got it all backwards. Jealousy, we believe, is a sign that we truly love another human being, whereas the monster Jealousy knows that she is truly one of the worst monsters to be born. Lust, tortured and murdered and spit at for centuries, knows in her heart of hearts that she is one of the most cherished monsters and unfalteringly waits for us to change our minds about her. Yet there are other more powerful monsters such as Power, Pedophilia, Murder, and Cannibalism that we truly do fear for our demons have told us that they are the worst and that we must never look back or we will give in to our urges and we will truly be lost.
And yes, it is true that these monsters are truly powerful and that if we give into our urges, we are truly lost but our demons are not right all of the time. And we do not have the minds or the desire to contradict them so we blindly trust them and run and run and run until we cannot run anymore and the most powerful of monsters, Time, comes, hand in hand with Death, and takes us away. And when Death asks us if we have anything more to say, we sob and ask what we did wrong.
You did not face your monsters. There is no reason to run from them, for if you do, you will not live the life you want and you will always ask yourself why you are so unhappy. You will run to your corner and your house more and more until you will be afraid to walk from it because you will believe that your monster is outside your window looking at your, smiling with those blood-stained teeth, when in reality, it has been inside you all along, patiently waiting for you to speak to it. Do not ignore your monsters for they are not as frightening as you deem them to be. Hush those demons and stop running, turn around, and invite what is inside you to come out. Discuss with yourself why you are so afraid, discuss with yourself that you truly are strong. For your monsters do not want to tear you down and they do not understand why you scream at them so when all they are doing is waiting for you. Only you can tear yourself down and it is your fault if your monsters grow and you burst, for only you let them do that and only you ran and ignored them. If the monsters truly are a danger, then you must curb them, like a parent curbs a child and they will learn to listen to you. Until then, they will be pouting as they face the wall, concocting plans of revenge in their infantile minds.
Do not be afraid of those around you, for they have the same monsters that you do. We are all the same and we all have these creatures within us. Whether we only have Lust or whether we have Pedophilia, we all must face what we fear and decide whether we truly must fear it or whether we must accept it and be careful that our demons do not grow louder and louder and tell us that our monsters have overpowered us. They cannot and they will not unless we let them and unless we want them to. It is not our monsters that we must be afraid of, it is our human nature, that which we take for granted. We must not take anything for granted, we must always think through it and let it confront us, for then we will not ask us why we cannot step out once again from our houses. We will not ask Death why we are so unhappy and we will not whimper self-pityingly for decades, believing we are powerless. We are not. We are more powerful than our monsters and our demons and we are more powerful than we give ourselves credit for.
"(Source: madsteb)
SNORTING COKE AT THE SLIPPER CLUB
by Chuck KlostermanExcerpt from Killing Yourself to Live:
“I can’t be a cocaine person; the culture that comes with cocaine is simply too preposterous. Until I moved to New York, I had never even seen coke, and I figured if I’d made it 30 years without cocaine, I probably shouldn’t go looking for it. But then I went to a birthday party at this place called the Slipper Room. The Slipper Room is a bar for people who want to be faux-decadent and mock-ironic at the same time; for example, the Slipper Room has topless dancers performing onstage, but it’s not supposed to be sexual. It’s funny, you see, because these dancers are gothic suicide girls who are caricaturing the misogynistic depravity of strip joints like Scores and Deja Vu. Of course, the girls in the Slipper Room are doing precisely what normal strippers do at Scores and Deja Vu, and men still tend to stare at the girl’s tits while swallowing over-priced cocktails. I’m not sure where the irony is, except that the women at the Slipper Room dance to the Cult instead of Faster Pussycat. But ANYWAY, I went to a birthday party there, and a guy wearing sunglasses (indoors at 10:00 P.M.) asked me if I wanted to do some blow, and I said, “Of course.” Because I can never say no to drugs, even if I don’t know what they’ll do to me. So now I’m following this dude around the bar, trying to seem natural, trying to pretend like I understand how you’re supposed to snort cocaine in public. We go down to the basement, but all the bathrooms are occupied. We go back upstairs, and - somehow - we find a bathroom backstage; this is apparently where the goth-girl strippers change clothes. We walk into the room, and the first thing I see are two very angry women, both of whom are naked from the waist down. The shorter one screeches, “Get the fuck out, you fucking faggots.” This strikes me as a bad sign. But then the guy in the sunglasses simply says, “I have coke,” and everything changes. Suddenly, these bottomless women are our closest friends. And it dawns on me that I’m about to do cocaine - for the first time in my life - with two half-naked strippers. I am David Lee Roth, touring with Sabbath in 1978. I am Brett Easton Ellis, two weeks after American Psycho was unsuccessfully crucified by The Washington Post. I am Bruce Wayne, making curious social decisions inside Gotham City’s hottest discotheque. But I’m also completely terrified, because I might also be Len Bias. “I’m going to die exactly like Len Bias,” I thought. “I’m gonna snort this shit, and my heart is going to explode. I will be the exception that proves the rule. My mom is going to get a phone call tomorrow morning and some cop is going to tell her I overdosed on cocaine in a public bathroom. She is going to go to Mass every morning for the next year, and she will cry every single time. Moreover, I’ll never play a minute of power forward for the Celtics. This is so wrong.”
I then dipped my apartment key into a tiny plastic bag, withdrew a nice little nipple of white powder, and sucked it through my right nostril. Seconds later, I had two wholly new thoughts: (a) This is actually no big deal, and (b) I feel perfect.
There’s no question in my mind that the dangers of cocaine have been wildly exaggerated by the antidrug lobby. Oh, I’m sure it’s not good for you, but you can certainly enjoy it recreationally, assuming you have disposable income and you hate yourself. Unlike pot or mushrooms or liquid Vicodin, it doesn’t shift reality; it just makes reality louder, brighter, and more interested in the availability of fashionable footwear. It makes you feel like you’re walking down the street - minding your own business - and the smartest, most attractive person you’ve ever met suddenly jumps out from behind a bush and gives you a compliment. This sensation lasts between 16 and 21 minutes, after which you become singularly obsessed with finding more cocaine. That desire forces you to enter “cocaine culture” (at least for one night). Cocaine culture contains the worst of everything: the worst conversations, the worst friendships, and the worst kind of unspeakable joy. But the instant you’ve received a powdery compliment from this imaginary stranger, entering cocaine culture becomes the goal of your entire evening. People who want cocaine will lie about anything; people will surrender integrity they never had to begin with. To get free cocaine women will have sex with men they normally wouldn’t dance with. Cocaine makes you popular, but also less likeable; cocaine makes you feel guilty in advance. When you snort cocaine, you consciously allow yourself to become foolish in the hope of seeming cool, and that’s the worst choice any smart person can make. This is why I am not a Cocaine Person, and this is why I will (probably) never become a Cocaine Person.
That said, I am currently snorting cocaine in a Ford pickup at 5:45 P.M. with a man I met 20 minutes ago. And I am doing this because - somehow - it seems reasonable.”
*Image by Dave Mann
(Source: criminalwisdom)
Fill in the blanks
I
That is no country for old men. The young
In one another’s arms, birds in the trees
—Those dying generations—at their song,
The salmon-falls, the mackerel-crowded seas,
Fish, flesh, or fowl, commend all summer long
Whatever is begotten, born, and dies.
Caught in that sensual music all neglect
Monuments of unageing intellect.
II
An aged man is but a paltry thing,
A tattered coat upon a stick, unless
Soul clap its hands and sing, and louder sing
For every tatter in its mortal dress,
Nor is there singing school but studying
Monuments of its own magnificence;
And therefore I have sailed the seas and come
To the holy city of Byzantium.
III
O sages standing in God’s holy fire
As in the gold mosaic of a wall,
Come from the holy fire, perne in a gyre,
And be the singing-masters of my soul.
Consume my heart away; sick with desire
And fastened to a dying animal
It knows not what it is; and gather me
Into the artifice of eternity.
IV
Once out of nature I shall never take
My bodily form from any natural thing,
But such a form as Grecian goldsmiths make
Of hammered gold and gold enamelling
To keep a drowsy Emperor awake;
Or set upon a golden bough to sing
To lords and ladies of Byzantium
Of what is past, or passing, or to come.
Sailing To Byzantium
William Butler Yeats
Once on a piece of yellow paper with green lines
he wrote a poem
And he called it “Chops”
because that was the name of his dog
And that’s what it was all about
And his teacher gave him an A
and a gold star
And his mother hung it on the kitchen door and read it to his aunts
That was the year Faher Tracy took all the kids to the zoo
And let them sing on the bus
And his little sister was born
with tiny toenails and no hair
And his mother and father kissed alot
And the girl around the corner
sent him a Valentine with a row of X’s
and he had to ask his father what the X’s meant
And his father always tucked him in bed at night
And was always there to do it
Once on a piece of white paper with blue lines
he wrote a poem
And he called it “Autumn”
because that was the name of the season
And that’s what it was all about
And his teacher gave him an A
and asked him to write more clearly
And his mother never hung it on the kitchen door
because of its new paint
And the kids told him that Father Tracy smoked cigars
And left butts on the pews
And sometimes they would burn holes
That was the year his sister got glasses
with thick lenses and black frames
And the girl around the corner laughed
when he asked her to go see Santa Claus
And the kids told him why his mother and father kissed alot
And his father never tucked him in bed at night
And his father got mad when he cried for him to do it
Once on a piese of paper torn from his notebook
he wrote a poem
And he called it “Innocence: A Question”
because that was the question about his girl
And that’s what it was all about
And his professor gave him an A and a strange steady look
And his mother never hung it on the kitchen door
because he never showed it to her
That was the year Father Tracy died
And he forgot how the end of the Apostle’s Creed went
And he caught his sister making out on the back porch
And his mother and father never kissed
or even talked
And the girl around the corner wore too much make up
That made him cough when he kissed her
but he kissed her anyway
because that was the thing to do
And at three A.M. he tucked himself into bed
his father snoring loudly
That’s why on the back of a brown paper bag
he tried another poem
And he called it “Absolutely Nothing”
Because that’s what it was really all about
And he gave himself an A
and a slash on each damned wrist
And he hung it on the bathroom door
because this time
he didn’t think he could reach the kitchen.