Not Another Holiday Blog

Not Another Holiday Blog

So we're into the Winter Holidays, and you're probably expecting some words of inspiration to lead you into the New Year. I'll get them out of the way right off then:

Warm cookies and milk are good for you. So are naps. There is no "try", only do or do not. Hold hands with people you care about as often as you can because actions speak louder than words. Music and smiles break the language barrier.

Those were my inspirational thoughts for the Holiday Season, other than to say Happy Holidays to all of you- even to those who choose to not celebrate anything. It is possible to be happy every day, and during the Holidays, even if you don't make festivities out of the Holidays. Not everyone who chooses to not celebrate is a grinch or a humbug.

On that note, I wish to remind everyone that this can be a great time to teach our children to graciously accept diversity, and even to look forward to experiencing it. What's more, if we don't make a point of teaching this, then we are by default teaching it's exact opposite, which is something akin to the fear and hatred of that which we don't understand, which led to the Salem Witch Trials and the Holocaust.

It's a great time to teach sharing too, and I'm all for that. Let's just make all the sharing as multi-cultural as possible.

If you are raising your kids to be of one particular religion, you may want to have them give a few gifts to a charity or shelter of another religion, and actually see how they celebrate their Winter Holiday. You may want to read some books about other Winter Holidays with your children.

We don't live in a world of only one religion or one race or one heritage. America can call itself a melting pot for a good reason. On the other hand, as big as America is, it is just a piece of the reflection of a big world.

Remember the story about the 5 blind men who all touched a small part of an elephant, and not one of them realized that it was an elephant? Each of the five men had their own idea of what they were touching, and none of them thought it was an elephant.

When we look at America, I have the feeling that we are the 5 blind men and each of us is projecting onto this great country exactly what our life experiences cause us to see or to want to see.

Arguing for the moment that I'm right, another way of saying it is that we're all seeing, at most, only a fragment of the true America, or none of it at all, in favor of our own version of reality.

If I am wrong, then every American is on the same page about everything all the time, and I know that isn't so, because I don't even agree with my parents about what constitutes a real American job, and a lot of people have differing ideas about what constitutes a real Man and a real American family, and even those definitions are in constant flux.

So wisdom pours in when we open our hearts. I'd say our minds, but minds are difficult to impossible to change.

The brain is a muscle made up of masses of grey matter that is fed by an active life-style, and the taking of an active role in one's own education. The brain begins to die, when we allow ourselves to over-indulge in a sedentary life-style, so use it or lose it.

I'm sure that I'm not the first to tell you that exercise oxygenates the blood flowing to the brain and helps to unlock the potential there. I'm sure that I won't be the last to tell you that we learn when we're ready to learn and that we each have a different learning style.

I learned fearfully little from the text books that we were required to read in grade school and high school. My learning style has always been kinesthetic. I was never cut out to sit behind a desk or file papers or memorize dates of important historical events or the names of the people who were there.

I touch muscles and understand instinctively why they're tight or too lax, and how to make them feel better. I don't always know what the muscles are called, because again that would have involved memorizing from a book in class. The question is: Do you want me to tell you what the name of the muscle is, or do you want me to make it feel better?

When we're walking in the world, the basis of that same question is appropriate in all situations.

Of the chef that is making your tamales: Do you want him to know the exact names in English for every step of the process in the kitchen, or do you just want a tasty, and wholesome tamale?

That chef has a history and a heritage. You probably don't want to hear all about it, just after you've ordered your tamale, but if the chef's background and heritage had been very different from what it is, you would be getting something very different from a tamale on your plate.

So here in the end, I think that you can extrapolate and formulate words of wisdom from my tamale story that will be much more succinct than any that I could combine to the same effect, so I will leave that to your own creative and eloquent skills. Just save me a tamale.

Yours in Service:

Sue Hirsch, Owner of Perfect Day Massage in Petaluma, CA
www.Perfectdaymassage.com
707-762-3578