Tonight we look at our soul's capacity to rename and redefine.  In Genesis, God gives Adam the gift of naming so all things can be useful to him. For us the gift is renaming and redefining. We no longer live in the Garden of Constants, we live in the Garden of Change. As we evolve what is useful to us evolves.

The Holy Nights give us this open threshold, this open soul, where our inner evolution appears to our inner eye/I. We see things in new ways, ways that ask us for new names and new purposes.

This can be disturbing.  We seem to be just learning the names and uses of so much in the world of space and time, in our sense of ourselves. This is why we must experience our souls as inner poets.  Poets live in the mystery of evolving language and suffer their art gracefully.

Nurture the inner poet. Cultivate the art of evolving language - your own language, not anyone else's names or definitions.  Your own Garden of Inner Becoming.

Tonight you can simply read some poetry. This is always a good thing to do during the Holy Nights.

Or you can warm your soul in the spiritual sun that shines for these few nights and do some creative and poetic reflection.  Of course, I have a suggestion.

In the year past, find a moment that had meaning and purpose for you.  Now write a short poem about this moment that celebrates the experience. (No attempts at perfection as perfection does not allow for evolution.)  Reflect on your celebratory poem and its moment for a few minutes.  Maybe get up and walk a bit. Or stretch.

Now come back to the memory of the moment and write a grieving poem about it. What do you mourn, what was lost?  This is a poem of poetic courage.  You are renaming and redefining.  No room for sentiment or attachment here. You are not contradicting yourself, you are containing contradictions which the Inner Poet loves to do for you.

 

Or do the reverse, begin with the inner poem of grief  and follow with the inner poem of celebration.

 

Grow your capacity for inner poetry in renaming and redefining.

If you are comfortable, I invite you to share your poetic Holy Nights work in the comments on the Inner Christmas 2010 blog. Your comments do not need to be in English.