What’s the Point of the Three Kings?
December 24, 2024
24 Comments
Those of us raised as Christians know this holiday is about a lot more than rushing about, partying and shopping, and many of us enjoy warm memories and nostalgic feelings this time of year. But why are the moments of love, joy and peace so difficult to find during the holiday season? Where do the feelings of exhaustion, anxiety, disappointment and depression come from? Why do we keep missing the point of Christmas? How can we recapture it?
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Reblogged this on lampmagician.
Many thanks!
❤my pleasure ??❤
Dear Jean, so much in this article speaks to me right now! Thank you for embodying the Wisewoman archetype yourself—as a guide, teacher, and guardian of the crossroads for many of us on deep journeys. I learned a lot from reading this, and it inspires and encourages me.?????
Dear Kirsten, I’m very honored that you see me this way, especially since I see you the same. Deep journeys can’t help but teach wisdom, and being derailed by suffering is often the only thing that can deliver us to Hecate’s crossroads. I never understood what was meant by the power of an original choice until I met her. Finding and taking her third way between the opposites in which I was unconsciously immersed was my saving initiation. I see your powerful pieces about your dreamwork as evidence that you’ve met her and made the same choice. I wish you many blessings of love, joy and peace on your continuing journey. Jeanie
Dear Jeanie, As I wake and write, I sense your wise words are a continuation from of my dream. For I’m sure the “Queen of the Night” herself paid me a visit last night, yet already the dream slips away. All I can remember is a feeling of being presented with three choices.
When I started my poetry blog nearly three years ago I chose Hecate as my Gravatar image. Standing between the light and darkness, she represented the end of my life before it was to begin again. This was how I viewed it then, and what a guide she’s been for me ever since!
She demands that I swim to her through the darkest oceans, to the very centre of my fears. Thank you so much Jeanie for illuminating my dream and journey with Hecate. You’re my inspiration and spurs! I’m still learning the lesson of patience. In sisterhood and in soul, Deborah.
Dear Deborah,
Your dream of three choices, your choice of Hecate to be your guide three years ago, the meeting of three roads….I see these all as meaningful suggestions that the ancient Law of Three is becoming an important factor in your conscious life. This has been happening to me too. I’ve skirted around it for years with my mandorla images, especially in my last book, but it is now becoming one of the most profound and valuable understandings of my life. It has many levels of meaning, but it’s enough to say here that this trinitarian way of perceiving life is the key to transcending duality and living consciously. It’s a foundational principle of my new book….More about that soon….
Patience! Trust! Self-acceptance and self-love! Releasing attachments. I’m still learning these lessons too, Deborah. I think we can forgive ourselves for being slow-learners when it comes to wholeness, consciousness, and enlightenment. Our bicameral brains, egos, natural apathy are all huge obstacles in everyone’s lives. All we can do is keep at it, every moment every step, every day. That’s really all there is to it. Changes occur and fears dissipate in their own time. All we can do is keep at it.
Yes! In sisterhood and in soul,
Jeanie
Thank you Jeanie for this lovely post. I also see you as Wisewoman-Counsellor as Kirsten says. We come across those crossroads so many times in our lives. Were we to pause awhile and consider and reflect what this may mean before we DO or act, we may find our own inner and authentic guidance which urges ‘this way, not that’. The key will present itself when we are open to receiving the ‘sacred feminine’ within – and knowing that while we are bearing the almost unbearable tension of the opposites, something new will emerge, guiding us further, deeper, wider. But having trust in the process is part of the process. Thank you again.
Thank you, Susan. I’m honored. And I see you and Deborah that way too! We crones have had many valuable experiences which taught difficult lessons. Because of them, the process grows clearer and trust becomes more firmly rooted in the psyche. These days it usually — but not always—comes fairly quickly and easily for me. Of course, my ego still has its pity parties and tantrums, but they pass quickly. Most of the time I’m in love with my life and deeply grateful for the lessons and opportunities I’ve had. I especially count the opportunity to share what I’ve learned on my blog and books, and the dear soulmates who’ve crossed my path because of them, as major blessings in my life. In sisterhood and soul, Jeanie
Ah, my Wise Woman friend, Jeanie. You’re pulled so much together here. The Croning is upon us as we stand on the threshold and at the crossroads. Hecate is the guide and we are her handmaidens. I’m studying Kali with my mythology class and she has many resonances with Hecate but the imagery used in India startles us with Death and Destruction, those unwanted aspects of many life decisions. And yet Kali is the Mother of all the Gods (Archetypes) and the Creatrix. Something has to die for the new to be birthed. (I think of Deborah’s manuscript as a startling example. Burn it? Oh no. Oh yes.)
As I read this and contemplate the coming 10th anniversary of my partner’s death, I feel how guided I was and we were by Inner Feminine Wisdom at those essential crossroads. Early on, I didn’t understand why I was so sure in the face of potential heart-break. By the time of his death, I was more familiar with the terrain of the Underworld and, with help from Marion Woodman, could align myself with Hecate’s perspective–sometimes, or when I wasn’t crashing and thrashing. The aspect of patience feels essential and we don’t hear about it much in this hurry-up world. I’ve been impatient about my work, waiting for the direction to rise from within. I’ve kept the faith and think the ideas are emerging now. It’s too early to know for sure, but may it be so.
Dear Elaine, and yet another Wise-Woman/Counselor who’s been to the Underworld and survived to tell the tale. 🙂 Several of us seem to have that in common. I suspect that’s what’s drawn us together in the first place: we see ourselves in each other and continue to learn from each other. It’s very comforting to know we’re all still learning and growing.
I have to smile at my naivety at the age of 27 when I had a spiritual awakening and assumed I must have arrived at my destination! Like a sort of “Presto! Chango! Once you didn’t see it, but now you do!” Nobody told me it would be a lifelong process and that many more crossroads awaited down the road. I probably wouldn’t have believed them if they had. The narrative at my church was about how salvation automatically followed on the heels of correct belief and then you were done. It took me years to discover for myself that spiritual growth must be accompanied by psychological growth (and vice versa), and that “salvation” was about a whole lot more than resting securely on my beliefs and getting a free pass through heaven’s gates when I die.
I’m glad to hear that ideas for a new direction in your work are emerging. I wish you the best as you pursue it. After my last book I assumed it was…well………my last book. Now here I am, seven years later, traveling a new, yet old familiar path—excited about what lies ahead, seeking and following creative inspiration once again, learning once again to trust it when it arrives, and encountering the inevitable crossroads, deaths, and rebirths…..once again. I wouldn’t have it any other way.