Christmas is seeing the world for the first time, the wide open wonder eye of a child. Awakening wonder is Christmas. Awaken the Force within (just saw the last two Star War movies). Don’t let the dark world close off the joy of awakening. Don’t let the routine of the world put you back to sleep. Christmas is our great Secular/religious ritual that celebrates the birth of light in the nigh of the conditioned mind. Christmas is the lighting of the Spark of Consciousness that sends the forces of night running.

We miss all that in the hype, so don’t let yourself return to the night when Christmas ends. Christmas is all about opening each moment as a gift. You don’t know what you are going to get, but it’s all good. The worse gift is the best gift.

I got a can opener, a manual one because I’m always complaining about the electronic can openers because they keep failing. What a great gift. Now I have something to open every moment with that doesn’t depend on electrical power. My own hands are the power. The power has been taken back from the artificial power of our civilization, and now my body has it. When I need to do something, my body knows what to do. When I write, my fingers know what to do.

And then, when I see what my fingers are writing, I am struck by wonder. I see my writing for the first time. It’s Christmas. But when the mind does the writing, it’s always what I already know. I’m seeing if as something I’ve seen before and I’m bored.

So find an oasis (an art, hobby, sport, etc.) from the conditioned world where you can let your body speak, so your mind can be surprised by the wondrous things that you do. The world is a Cosmic Christmas Tree laden with gifts for you.

Doing this talk, writing this talk is itself my message. I was reluctant to give the talk. “OH, what’s the use. I don’t feel up to it. I have nothing to say.” But I just walked right through that and stirred my martini, not knowing what I was going to say. All I could do was ground myself in the present moment which was “The Day After Christmas.” That’s where I am. And I turned on the iPad and began to talk. And now I write.

Ground yourself in your present moment because that is all you’ve really got that’s real. When you ground yourself in the real. you will be real. There is absolutely nothing wrong with your present moment, therefore, there is nothing wrong with you. You are this present moment. It’s a gift, a Christmas Gift. Don’t judge it. Don’t have expectations. Don’t compare this gift with other gifts because this is IT!

Find the Joy within by surrendering the dismal mind, by surrendering the Day After Christmas Mind. Don’t let the joy of wonder burn out like an old Christmas light. Don’t let the world suck you back into its dark morass. Now that the exterior Christmas has passed, the social ritual, you can get to the real Christmas within. Find the light plug to that Christmas Tree. You connect that light plug when you give up expectations and hope for Christmas to come. Christmas, the real Christmas never goes anywhere. This is it!

All the movies and TV shows and social rituals are about turning on the lights within.

Surely you want to know what this great Christmas message is. It could change your life. Or it could not. But you won’t know unless you open the box. Life is potential, but you have to open the box with an innocent mind, the mind of a child. We are so afraid of our own potential. We keep ourselves boxed up, wrapped in pretty paper, to be sure, but wrapped up. You have to allow yourself to be vulnerable to open the box. Why…there might be a Christ Child in there. The child of wonder, the child of light.