Alban Arthuan (Christmas)

Christmas is near and I can't help myself but to embrace my inner Mr. Scrooge. At least that's what I get accused of every time I express the following sentiments to people I know in person. However, I find it a worthy endeavor to defend the truth behind the lie that Christmas has become. I've blogged about this before on the 3rd of December2010. In fact it was the second subject I ever blogged about and it was nearly exactly a year ago. I'm not going to read that entry until I'm done with this one because I feel like writing about this topic and I'm sure I'll just be repeating myself. So be it.

Christmas is about many things for many Americans but they all share one thing in common. Regardless of what the reason for celebrating Christmas is for you, it most certainly involves buying stupid shit that nobody needs or wants. Christmas involves many social gatherings that include a requirement to provide at least a gift or two, and this entire spiritless process is represented perfectly by a common Christmas party featuring a "Chinese Gift Exchange." This is a practice in which everybody brings an impersonal gift and all of the gifts end up in a pile. The party gets started by somebody picking a present and opening it followed by the next person either stealing the opened present or opening another one. This process continues until the last present is opened and somebody gets stuck with the most worthless piece of crap destined for either re-gifting in the future, or the landfill, and most perfectly made in China. These gifts are made in China by a people who, are for all intents and purposes, slaves to the United States.  They are forced by a Communist government to receive their paltry sustenance by means of sweat shop labor. Nobody wants to think about this particular aspect of Christmas, and when forced to think about it most commonly retaliate with the notion that the advocate for uncovering this uncomfortable fact is a Scrooge.

Okay, so just about everything we buy is unfortunately made possible by slave labor. All euphemisms for slave labor aside that is. Yet this fact does not preclude the ability to purchase say an antique, or to create a gift such as homemade bread, wine, beer, or some other craft that you have assembled. The possibilities to offer a gift that you have spent much thought and time on, and then made rather than purchased, are endless. So how many of you will be offering such a gift this year? If the point is to give a gift than shouldn't that gift be personalized and not the product of slave labor? But in our modern, developed, industrialized, and time shorted society, who has time to make all of these gifts? Nobody has the time to make fifty gifts that are all personalized and won't end up in a dump. This is why all of those millions of Chinese Elves are necessary. So there you have it. The North pole moved to China and Santa Clause is a bloated Communist Chinese Government forcing millions of Chinese elves to labor for the illusion that they will one day live luxuriously in a city. No doubt the Chinese government can point to entire empty cities that have been built and are complete with sky scrappers and suburban sprawl that nobody lives or works in. That's right, China has entire cities that have been built on government stimulus that are empty, even cities built in the desert of Mongolia. Maybe that's where the Chinese Elves will be moving to.  These cities are aptly named "ghost cities."  Maybe this is where the ghosts of Christmas pass have moved to.

Chinese Ghost City 

To me, Christmas represents just about everything that is wrong with the United States of America. Even the act of giving a gift cannot escape the rotten nature of Capitalism. The point of Christmas has been completely forgotten and ignored. For the majority of our species's celebration of this time of the year it has had nothing to do with Jesus or buying pointless shit. The real origin of Christmas is the celebration of the Sun's death and the promise of it's resurrection. The holiday is actually the celebration of the Winter Solstice which is also known as Alban Arthuan in some esoteric and occult circles. The Winter Solstice is the day in which the sun's descent into the southern horizon is at it's lowest point. This is the day where we have the longest night on Earth (in the northern hemisphere that is). The celebration is one of the promise that tomorrow the days will begin getting longer as the Sun is born anew. The sun will begin resurrecting to it's highest point in the Southern sky on the Summer Solstice. Christmas is really the celebration of the promise of life on Earth as made possible by our solar systems most brightest star, the Sun...or Son...who has been identified as Jesus by a large majority of the Earth's human population. Indeed, the sun is our savior because without it life on Earth would not be possible. The Sun freely gives it's energy to our Mother, the Earth, who becomes pregnant and then births all life and therefore consciousness. This life is a combination of the Sun's energy and the Earths womb. This is the real meaning of Christmas as has been handed down to us from our ancestors. Whether you want to take this in or not is entirely up to you.  This true meaning of Christmas is nicely symbolized by the act of placing a decorated tree in your house.  Think about what a tree represents, much less an evergreen, and see where that thought experiment lead's you.  I wonder what placing a tree in your house has to do with Jesus?  

It's not my intention to be a Scrooge, or to steal the joy of Christmas away from anybody. It's my intention to maybe illuminate the real meaning of this time of the year. Christmas has been usurped by the Mad Men of Madison Avenue. The same men who are responsible for turning us all into consumer automatons who take our marching orders from the commercials on television. We are not even aware of this process because it's designed to work unconsciously. Just go buy as much useless shit as you can on Black Friday for the cheapest price possible. It's no accident that people get maced and blood is spilled in a Wall-mart, on a day directly linked to Christmas, over some Chinese Gewgaw made with slave labor. I would be overjoyed for the real meaning of Christmas to once again take it's rightful place on the 21st of December. For my part, my family will be celebrating this hopeful day by assembling our friends for a day of companionship and human interaction. We will celebrate by crafting sauerkraut, enjoying good spirits, and releasing some sun energy by way of a fire outside beneath the illuminated sunlight reflected by the moon. Hopefully this will cultivate some real human companionship and thankfulness towards the magical natural processes that breath the promise of life into existence. I'm also considering this as the day that I begin my official initiation into the esoteric study of our natural world by way of association with the Druid tradition.

I'm aware that this sentiment will be lost on most who cross this particular essay. I understand that this makes me a Scrooge in the eyes of popular culture. Which is really not culture at all but more of a programed response to celebrate an unnatural process in worship of profit. That is to say that our "culture" is not really culture at all, but it's antithesis. That is unless you view our Capitalistic Consumerism through the lens of a microscope in view of a culturing process set in motion by truly Mad Men. A process that results in dehumanization, slave labor in pursuit of luxury, and the destruction of our planet by means of waste and pollution. Christmas has become the celebration of the designed destruction of our planet rather than of the promise of life on Earth. Maybe this Winter Solstice you can find it in your heart to give thanks to the true Son that gives us life energy. Maybe you can celebrate this knowledge with those who are close to your being without the requirement to support a dieing, poisonous, and corrupt way of life. Nothing requires us to buy the products of Slave labor in celebration of our planned obsolescence. Try giving the gift of love to whomever crosses your path during this Winter Solstice.

So from my heart to yours....have a Merry Alban Arthuan!!!