1. Living in an Upside-Down World
You know you’re living in an upside-down world when even Christmas—that celebration of light in a dark season—is demonized as somehow “racist” or “colonial.” Right out of the gate, I’m going to say this: Of all the religious stories that have been told, regardless of whether or not you believe it’s literal history, the Christian story is the most beautiful. What could be more beautiful than a story that has humanity’s hope of peace and goodwill brought into the world in the person of a child, an infant? Just as with peace itself, a baby must be cared for and nurtured by others if it is to grow to its full potential. What idea could be more powerful and positive to cultivate at this or any season of the year? I had this epiphany the other night while listening to Eva Cassidy’s gorgeous rendition of “Oh, Come All Ye Faithful,” [1] and “Silent Night.” [2] Cassidy had the great gift of infusing every song with her whole soul, as if every line, every word was essential to the human spirit. As indeed it is—as the infamous Scrooge George Bernard Shaw so truly said, “Without art, the crudeness of reality would make the world unbearable.”
But there are those for whom the fanatical pursuit of ideology trumps all other values in their tortured quest for self-righteous justification. In my view, ideology—not faith—is the great enemy of peace among humans. I suppose that—in the spirit of Christmas—we should have pity for such poor souls. Like The Grinch Who Stole Christmas, they must be in a truly sad emotional state if they’re willing to attempt the cancellation of a celebration that has brought joy to countless generations of parents and children. As I wrote about our upside-down state of affairs in my new poetry sequence Pole Shift:
Ugly is beautiful. Darkness light.
The weak powerful. The demented,
sane. The majority nothing,
minority everything. A shout,
a righteous scream better
than a tender whisper. [3]
That sequence of 12 poems came to me in a blinding flash over a two-day period in October, prompted by the question: Could it be that the geomagnetic pole shift and other cosmological events are having a subtle effect on human consciousness? Is that what’s partly at the root of what Clayton Morris of Redacted News aptly calls our “insane clown world” right now? (Aside from the obvious historical and political forces.) Scientists have reported that “long-term records from London and Paris (kept since 1580) show that the north magnetic pole moves erratically around the rotational north pole over periods of a few hundred years or longer … Around the mid-1990s, the pole suddenly sped up its movements from just over 9 miles (15 kilometres) a year to 34 miles (55 kilometres) annually.” [4] The Earth’s magnetic field “has flipped in polarity repeatedly throughout Earth’s history. Each time it flips—up to 100 times in the past 20 million years… it leaves fossilized magnetization in rocks on Earth. The last (complete) reversal occurred between 772,000 and 774,000 years ago.”[5] A partial magnetic pole reversal occurred about 41,000 years ago—coincident with the appearance of famous cave paintings such as Lascaux—leading scientists to speculate that with the temporary thinning of atmosphere caused by the pole shift, the sun may have become harsher, driving humans into caves for shelter:
“With the help of new, precise carbon dating obtained from ancient tree fossils … researchers correlated shifts in climate patterns, large mammal extinctions and even changes in human behaviour just before and during the Laschamps excursion, a brief reversal of the magnetic poles that lasted less than a thousand years… There may also have been increasing use of caves between about 42,000 and 40,000 years ago, possibly as shelter from the more intense sun, the researchers report… Red ochre is thought to have been used as a sunscreen.” [6]
Add to that some of the downright weird cosmological events that have occurred during the past few months, including the Amateratsu Particle [7] and the bizarre black hole that opened on the surface of the sun, unleashing powerful solar winds toward Earth and damaging some radio transmitters. [8] The Amateratsu Particle was first discovered in 1991 and dubbed the “Oh-My-God Particle,” a cosmic ray that struck the Earth’s atmosphere “at very near the speed of light and apparently traveling from the direction of the Perseus constellation in the Northern Hemisphere.” Scientists understand this cosmic ray very poorly and can only speculate as to its origin: “Even a supernova wouldn’t be able to do this. One possible source is an expanding shock wave from a cosmic-scale explosion—say, a black hole ripping apart a star and producing a massive jet of plasma…” (The reappearance of this particle ray in 2023 was dubbed the Amateratsu Particle, after the Japanese sun goddess. [9]) We must give thanks again to our amazing Earth, whose protective atmosphere safely absorbs and disperses such potentially deadly cosmic rays, just as the baby Jesus was protected in “swaddling bands.”
It’s as if the universe is speaking to us in light, sending us enlightenment when we need it most. But again, thanks to the planetary atmosphere, its effects are subtle. It may be that only those whose spirits are open to spiritual and emotional growth experience the benefits. The past four years of global repression in its many forms has divided humanity into what Wolf describes as two parallel realities. I perceive these in this way: 1) The one relentlessly enforced by government and mainstream media, with its emphasis on control and conformity to authority; and, 2) The dawning awareness of the total corruption of all our institutions and the need for a new start that has nothing to do with the plans of predatory global elites. For the latter demographic, it’s Dorothy’s realization in The Wizard of Oz: “We’re not in Kansas anymore.” The curtain has been pulled back on the great wizard, exposing him as an overblown fraud. At least, for those with the eyes to see it.
This brings us to the age-old idea of a contest between the forces of light and dark, good and evil. We seem to be living in a time when, to quote Naomi Wolf from her new book, Facing the Beast: Courage, Faith and Resistance in a New Dark Age:
“I feel as if in the last few years, the physical world has almost melted away, and that the institutions we thought were permanent have visibly collapsed; and now what has emerged into obvious, palpable form are primarily positive and negative energies.” [10]
Many are seeing this time period as a contest between palpable forces of good vs. evil, an apocalypse. For some this implies a literal battle between angels and demons behind the scenes, provoking humans into the ultimate battle. Others of a more Jungian inclination are inclined to see it as a struggle between “the higher angels of our nature” and the lower, base instincts in the reptilian brain purposely activated by globalist power brokers. Does it really matter which explanation you prefer? Either way, we’re clearly in a time of massive social, political and economic upheaval. In the digital age, we’ve been manipulated into an either/or mentality—the logic of ones and zeroes, reducing reality to simplistic binary choices.
In reality, nothing is ever so simple. While it may be a useful principle in drama, in real life shades of grey are more the norm. Jung taught us that it’s dangerous to externalize the principle of evil, assigning it to some entity outside ourselves. That can too easily be an excuse for absolving ourselves of our own capacity for evil. Jung urged us to work toward integration of our own psychic shadow, to own it rather than projecting it onto someone else. If we all took responsibility for this psychic integration, the world might indeed have a chance at peace and goodwill toward all. Not that I’m naïve enough to believe that will ever happen, but as poet Robert Browning said: “A man’s reach must exceed his grasp or what’s a heaven for?” It’s in the striving toward the light, toward our higher energies, that we begin to reach our full potential as humans. Or as a Zen Buddhist might put it, it’s the journey—not the destination—that matters.
In my essay “Apocalypso,” published in Words from the Dead, I note that our generation is not unique in feeling itself to be on the very lip of apocalypse:
“For something that is supposed to bring the world to an end with crushing finality, Apocalypse has a long history. Isaac Asimov wrote of an Assyrian clay tablet dating to approximately 2800 BC containing the words: “Our earth is degenerate in these latter days. There are signs that the world is speedily coming to an end. Bribery and corruption are common.” Pervasive corruption in a society is a recurrent feature of societies in the final stages of collapse, as historian Arnold Toynbee observed in A Study of History.” [11]
Am I saying we should ignore what the great mythic tales such as the Book of Revelation say because they can’t possibly be literal? That because many generations have felt themselves to be facing an apocalypse we should ignore such warnings? Not at all. While prophecies can be interpreted in a multitude of ways depending on the perspective of the interpreter, I argue for seeking their spiritual wealth, not their literal application. Contrary to the modern connotation of a myth as a falsehood, humanity’s rich lore of mythology is a storehouse of spiritual treasures. In every myth is a core universal truth told as a story. This is how J. Edward Chamberlin puts it:
“Other people’s stories are as varied as the landscapes and languages of the world; and the storytelling traditions to which they belong tell the different truths of religion and science, of history and the arts. They tell people where they came from, and why they are here; how to live, and sometimes how to die. They come in many different forms, from creation stories to constitutions, from southern epics and northern sagas to Native American tales and African praise songs, and from nursery rhymes and national anthems to myths and mathematics. And they are all ceremonies of belief as much as they are chronicles of events, even the stories that claim to be absolutely true.” [12]
Thus, it doesn’t really matter that Jesus couldn’t possibly have been born on December 25th, that he was more likely born in the fall, when shepherds were still staying out at night with their flocks. It doesn’t really matter that December 25th was chosen much later, a grafting onto the Christian tradition of the pagan Roman solstice festival of Saturnalia. What matters are the spiritual riches of the Christ story.
2. What’s So Funny About Peace, Love and Understanding?
Returning to the premise of this essay, that Christmas at its core is a message of peace and goodwill to the world, I’m reminded of the song written by Nick Lowe, also recorded by Elvis Costello: “What’s So Funny About Peace, Love and Understanding?” [13] Lowe explained what motivated him to write the song:
“I wrote the song in 1973, and the hippie thing was going out, and everyone was starting to take harder drugs and rediscover drink. Alcohol was coming back, and everyone sort of slipped out of the hippie dream and into a more cynical and more unpleasant frame of mind. And this song was supposed to be an old hippie, laughed at by the new thinking, saying to these new smarty-pants types, ‘Look, you think you got it all going on. You can laugh at me, but all I’m saying is, ‘What’s so funny about peace, love, and understanding?’ ... It was originally supposed to be a joke song, but something told me there was a little grain of wisdom in this thing, and not to mess it up.” —Nick Lowe [14]
As Naomi Wolf astutely explains in her latest Substack, “Not Offended by Christmas,” we’re now suffering the end stages of a concerted campaign to subvert Western cultural values. She recalls how, even as a Jewish girl growing up in the ’60s, she loved the Christmas season—the way “suddenly all erupted in a three-dimensional froth of sparkle and shine, joyous images, and radiant color.” [15] She didn’t have to be Christian to revel in the sense of wonder, joy and celebration the season evoked. “The shop windows revelled in sparkly spray-paint that proclaimed “Merry Christmas!” Or the mottos spelled out: “PEACE ON EARTH.” The intersections themselves revealed white tinsel decor of cross-like four-pointed stars… on street after street after street hung star after star after star.” She recalls the cheery spirit evoked by Christmas movies and pop songs—no matter how corny or commercial they may have been, they all dipped into this well of peace and joy.
Then, as if a switch had been flipped, popular culture took a turn toward the dark side, introducing the “Bad Santa” theme, for example in the film of that title with Billy Bob Thornton. This was just one of “a range of new Christmas movies that depicted cherished Christmas symbolism as tawdry, drunk or sexually licentious,” notes Wolf. She does a good job of “follow the money,” showing how prestigious universities such as Cornell have been exposed for taking millions in funding from Chinese sources. Universities have been the epicentre of the new “woke” morality (or amorality). Ms. Wolf aptly suggests they have succumbed to a program of Chinese Communist Party cultural subversion but are either too stupid or too corrupt to realize the part they’re playing in the undoing of our common traditions. “Of course, you know where this is going, because Marxists do not like families, just as they don’t like religion,” she writes. Starting in 2012, “schools in England now banned parents from attending their own children’s Nativity plays,” more recently using the pretext of Covid.
“This notion—that one’s sense of self is so fragile that others’ cultural or religious expression alone can damage it—is the neo-Marxist theoretical basis for the wholesale targeting of Western culture… This premise will leave our culture a parking lot with a quarantine camp attached...” —Naomi Wolf
And don’t forget the decades of advance preparation for this dismal cultural evisceration that began with the theories of the French postmodernists and deconstructionists. As Camille Paglia has said, this pernicious philosophy infected universities everywhere in the West and subtly undermined the culture with a deep strain of nihilism. Paglia has also aptly observed that this philosophy—with its insistence that all meaning is culturally constructed and therefore there are no universal touchstones in human culture—“destroyed students’ ability to think.” Contrast that with the classical tradition founded upon Plato and Socrates that trained students in critical thinking and the urge to seek universal truths of benefit to all.
Historically we’re witnessing the confluence of forces Arnold Toynbee wrote about in his magisterial A Study of History: 1) the barbarians within, undermining the culture; and, 2) the barbarians without, sending regular waves of attack at a weakened opponent. We in the West tend to forget that the CCP undoubtedly employs the principles of warfare found in Sun Tzu’s classic book of military strategy The Art of War: Open battle is the very last resort, employed only rarely. Instead, do everything you can to first weaken your opponent. Then, when they’re on their knees, move in for the kill. We are in this precarious state now. Toynbee called this phase of a civilization “an act of suicide.” Thus, for each of us, standing for our cultural values with pride, unapologetically, is one more bulwark against the barbarian tide. And at this time when war hawks are beating the drums for an escalation of killing in the Middle East, what could be more positive than a message of hope and peace in the world?
Further to Naomi Wolf’s observation in Facing the Beast about positive and negative energies, when we as a culture participate in spreading the Christmas spirit of peace and goodwill, we are generating a positive energy field. What could be wrong with that?
3. Cherishing Christmas Past
I will always cherish my memories of a Canadian Christmas growing up in the ’60s. In those days families could still have a decent home, a car, and meet all the basic needs on a single income. We were what you might call working class, with my father a civil servant in the Forest Service. But my mother had a deep strain of Scottish frugality, made necessary by having to make a little go a long way in the early years of their marriage. We were given strict limits on how much we could spend on gifts, and encouraged to make our own. My sister and I often made our own greeting cards, and were praised for them as far more meaningful than store-bought cards. So Christmas was frugal yet we never felt in the least deprived, even as I reached my teens and some of my friends were getting snowmobiles or motorcycles as gifts. Mom did the full meal deal for Christmas dinner, and the delectable smell of turkey roasting in the oven permeated the house. I salivate even as I write this line! Turkey stuffing was a delicacy, as was cranberry sauce—especially homemade. Apple pie and Scottish shortbread were on the mouthwatering dessert menu—homemade, of course.
When I was still a preteen, my father and I used to observe the annual ritual of the Christmas Tree Hunt. An avid outdoorsman, he had taught me how to survive in the wild and I recall us doing a winter camping trip together one year. Working for the Forest Service, he had access to excellent outdoor gear, which in those days included the now-rare but then-famous Chestnut Canoe snowshoes. I feel lucky to still own a pair today and would put them up against any modern version. We were living in northern British Columbia, surrounded by wild forest in all directions. Dad would fire up the Forest Service truck, lock the four-wheel-drive hubs, and off we’d go down a deeply rutted logging road in search of the perfect Christmas tree. The chosen tree had to be shaken free of its heavy coating of snow, springing erect like a man freed of a great burden. It wasn’t enough to just grab a tree from the side of the road. It had to be a challenge—we had to hike on snowshoes into the forest to find just the right specimen.
Hot apple cider and shortbread would greet us upon our return. We then began decorating the tree with my Mom and sister. Part of the magic of Christmas is that even though you’ve used the exact same decorations year after year, they somehow never lose their appeal. Like Jesus himself, they seem perpetually reborn. The sparkly bead garlands, delicate glass bells, angels hovering in the branches, string of coloured lights (glass in those days), the star of Bethlehem at the very top of the tree—each one a caress to the eye. To this day, I suffer great pangs of sadness when the time comes in early January to finally take down the tree.
Did I care, as a child, what all of this was supposed to mean? Not really. I only knew it created a vibration of joy and colour in our home. It was an amnesty from mundane daily reality, a Jubilee season that said, “All is forgiven—eat, drink, enjoy!” My parents as Christians probably took it more seriously, and my mother to her dying day was comforted by her faith in Jesus as her saviour. In fact, her faith eased her into her passing in the most graceful manner I have ever seen, even though I don’t share her faith. Although I had long disparaged Christianity, having suffered some of its abuses from over-zealous preachers trying to force conversion on me as a child, Mom’s death gave me a newfound respect for its undeniable power in a person’s life. I’d been slowly coming to the realization that the atheistic materialism my generation had so blithely adopted was ultimately an empty philosophy. Sitting by Mom’s bedside in those few final hours, I had to ask myself how I’ll meet my own death without faith.
I’m no longer an atheist, nor am I a Christian. But I do believe that the Earth—and the universe itself—is imbued with spirit. Every living thing is a part of that spirit, however we wish to conceive it. It seems to be a spirit of intelligence, possibly even benevolence. This is a truth far beyond our understanding as humans, and I see all religions as an attempt to grapple with this idea. So rather than succumbing to binary reasoning, I prefer to see religions as a single gem of many facets, each one reflecting a different aspect of God. I stop at the concept of a discrete, personalized deity because that raises too many uncomfortable questions. But in the end, we all must bow to a power greater than ourselves, a power that permeates this universe. That gets us beyond making ourselves gods, humbles us to the majesty of forces that operate according to their own will and purposes. When we’re in harmony with these forces of Nature we thrive. Our best use as humans is to be what a Siksika Blackfeet councillor once called “a hollow bone the universe sings through.” As I wrote in Words From the Dead:
“Unless it directly impacts our survival, do we really need all mysteries solved? … It’s arguable that this sense of mystery is allied to our capacity for awe—surely a key component of faith. As Socrates is reputed to have said, “Wonder is the beginning of wisdom.” …When it comes to faith, then, perhaps what matters is the act of faith, not its doctrinal content.” [16]
[3] Sean Arthur Joyce, Pole Shift, limited edition chapbook, Chameleon Fire Editions, 2023.
[4] Elizabeth Howell, “Is Earth’s Magnetic Field Flipping Soon?” Space.com, last updated July 6, 2022: https://www.space.com/43173-earth-magnetic-field-flips-when.html
[5] Jonathan O’Callaghan, “Earth’s magnetic poles could start to flip. What happens then?” HORIZON: The EU Research & Innovation Magazine , December 7, 2018: https://ec.europa.eu/research-and-innovation/en/horizon-magazine/earthsmagnetic-poles-could-start-flip-what-happens-then
[6] Carolyn Gramling, “A magnetic field reversal 42,000 years ago may have contributed to mass extinctions,” Science News, February 18, 2021: https://www.sciencenews.org/article/earth-magnetic-field-reversal-mass-extinctionsenvironment-crisis
[7] Jennifer Ouellette, “Meet “Amaterasu”: Astronomers detect highest energy cosmic ray since 1991,” Ars Technica, November 23, 2023: https://arstechnica.com/science/2023/11/meet-amaterasu-astronomers-detect-highest-energy-cosmic-ray-since-1991/
[8] Michelle Starr, “Gaping Hole in The Sun Bigger Than 60 Earths Just Blasted Solar Wind Right at Us,” Science Alert, December 6, 2023: https://www.sciencealert.com/gaping-hole-in-the-sun-bigger-than-60-earths-just-blasted-solar-wind-right-at-us
[9] According to Wikipedia, “‘Amaterasu’ is thought to derive from the verb amateuru “to illuminate / shine in the sky” (ama “sky, heaven” + teru “to shine”) combined with the honorific auxiliary verb-su…” The mythic text of the Nihon Shoki tells the story: “The resplendent lustre of this child shone throughout all the six quarters. Therefore the two Deities rejoiced, saying:—‘We have had many children, but none of them have been equal to this wondrous infant. She ought not to be kept long in this land, but we ought of our own accord to send her at once to Heaven, and entrust to her the affairs of Heaven.’”
[10] Naomi Wolf, Facing the Beast: Courage, Faith and Resistance in a New Dark Age, Chelsea Green Publishing, White River Junction, Vermont/London UK, 2023, p. 178.
[11] Sean Arthur Joyce, Words From the Dead: Relevant Readings in the Covid Age, Ekstasis Editions, Victoria BC, 2022, p. 208.
[12] J. Edward Chamberlin, If This is Your Land, Where Are Your Stories?, Vintage Canada 2003-2004, pp. 1, 2.
[14] Songfacts: https://www.songfacts.com/facts/elvis-costello/whats-so-funny-bout-peace-love-and-understanding
[15] Naomi Wolf, “Not Offended by Christmas: How The War Against Mangers and Menorahs Began,” Substack, December 20, 2023:
[16] Sean Arthur Joyce, Words From the Dead: Relevant Readings in the Covid Age, ibid., p. 219.
In recent days I have repeatedly responded to "Happy Holidays" with "Merry Christmas" and it feels a little bit defiant of woke and corporate culture to do so. Jesus was born in September and Christianity co-opted the winter solstice holiday from pagans, choosing the date of Sol Invictus when the days are measurably starting to get longer (December 25) for Jesus' birth. That fact does not diminish the holiday at all in my eyes. Giving gifts and contemplating joy and grace from God and visiting family to eat good food at a time of cold days and long dark nights seems like a good package of traditions to me. Does Santa distract young and old alike from Christianity's less materialistic but more important messages? Yes - but it's still a wonderful holiday. I love the music too and will be reposting Eva Cassidy's Silent Night. As for pole shifts, I've written about them repeatedly. They happen every 12-13,000 years and will probably be God's method of making Revelation's "new heaven" and "new earth." The Bible mentions pole shifts many times if you know what to look for, things like every mountain and island being moved out of their places....
Wonderful, insightful perspective of Christmas as it relates to today's world. Thank you.