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Then What to Their Wondering Eyes Should Appear
This magickal Yuletide rendition of one of the most famous Christmas poems has become a favorite of mine. When it was originally shared with me in 2018 by a sweet friend, I did post it here on my blog. Today, I share it again with all of my friends, new and old, to ignite an extra bit of enchantment to stir in your heart as we edge to the end of 2020. The poem speaks to the spirit of the season and reminds us of its true nature and reason. It’s thought to be written by C.C. Williford.
Since Christmas Eve holds a most wondrous place in my heart and happens to be Joy’s birthday – my rabbit companion now a star in the bright sky – I felt to share it today, accompanied by a visual delight of our seasonal lights and simple, nature-inspired decorations here in our cozy mountain home on the forest. I’m also adding photos of the office and creative space I share with Astrid – however these lights are what enchant our room year-round. Hehe! Astrid and I love having wonder as our daily partner.
Wonder is a dear friend who has been with me through thick and thin. I never ever take for granted an encounter or experience no matter how often it happens. Every time the snow falls is the first time. Every time a squirrel runs by is a tender moment. Every time I see a tree, plant, landscape, way the light hits is always a sacred encounter. Every time I come across another being is a remembrance igniting a new depth of love. May wonder wander through life with you, enchanting each moment with possibility.
TWAS THE NIGHT BEFORE YULETIDE
Twas the night before Yuletide and all through the glen
Not a creature was stirring, not a fox, not a hen.
A mantle of snow shone brightly that night
As it lay on the ground, reflecting moonlight.
The faeries were nestled all snug in their trees,
Unmindful of flurries and a chilly north breeze.
The elves and the gnomes were down in their burrows,
Sleeping like babes in their soft earthen furrows.
When low! The earth moved with a thunderous quake,
Causing chairs to fall over and dishes to break.
The Little Folk scrambled to get on their feet
Then raced to the river where they usually meet.
“What happened?” they wondered, they questioned, they probed,
As they shivered in night clothes, some bare-armed, some robed.
“What caused the earth’s shudder? What caused her to shiver?”
They all spoke at once as they stood by the river.
Then what to their wondering eyes should appear
But a shining gold light in the shape of a sphere.
It blinked and it twinkled, it winked like an eye,
Then it flew straight up and was lost in the sky.
Before they could murmur, before they could bustle,
There emerged from the crowd, with a swish and a rustle,
A stately old crone with her hand on a cane,
Resplendent in green with a flowing white mane.
As she passed by them the old crone’s perfume,
Smelling of meadows and flowers abloom,
Made each of the fey folk think of the spring
When the earth wakes from slumber and the birds start to sing.
“My name is Gaia,” the old crone proclaimed
in a voice that at once was both wild and tamed,
“I’ve come to remind you, for you seem to forget,
that Yule is the time of re-birth, and yet…”
“I see no hearth fires, hear no music, no bells,
The air isn’t filled with rich fragrant smells
Of baking and roasting, and simmering stews,
Of cider that’s mulled or other hot brews.”
“There aren’t any children at play in the snow,
Or houses lit up by candles’ glow.
Have you forgotten, my children, the fun
Of celebrating the rebirth of the sun?”
She looked at the fey folk, her eyes going round,
As they shuffled their feet and stared at the ground.
Then she smiled the smile that brings light to the day,
“Come, my children,” she said, “Let’s play.”
They gathered the mistletoe, gathered the holly,
Threw off the drab and drew on the jolly.
They lit a big bonfire, and they danced and they sang.
They brought out the bells and clapped when they rang.
They strung lights on the trees, and bows, oh so merry,
In colors of cranberry, bayberry, cherry.
They built giant snowmen and adorned them with hats,
Then surrounded them with snow birds, and snow cats and bats.
Then just before dawn, at the end of their fest,
Before they went homeward to seek out their rest,
The fey folk they gathered ‘round their favorite oak tree
And welcomed the sun ‘neath the tree’s finery.
They were just reaching home when it suddenly came,
The gold light returned like an arrow-shot flame.
It lit on the tree top where they could see from afar
The golden-like sphere turned into a star.
The old crone just smiled at the beautiful sight,
“Happy Yuletide, my children,” she whispered. “Good night.”
Monday Musings ~ The Writer’s Corner: Twas the Night Before Yuletide
My dear friend Mark of Ravenwood Inspired, who also happens to be the wizard behind making me two new fantastically magickal Faery wands (one of which just arrived recently in time for the Solstice), sent me this version, below, of one of the most famous Christmas poems. I have to say, however, that I really love this one a lot more and I think you’ll understand why.
I thought it would be perfect for today’s Monday Musings. It also reminds me of my Russian Tortoise, Gaia, and celebrates this sweet Eve that is also Joy’s birthday (my sweet angel rabbit who returned to the stars).
If you haven’t heard or read it, I hope you enjoy this enchanting Yuletide rendition that speaks of the spirit of the season and reminds us of its true reason. The poem is thought to be written by C.C. Williford.
We’ll be back to regular Monday Musings next week, which will feature more poetry and other works by a sweet author friend of mine. Stay tuned!
Until then, I hope you enjoy a beautiful holiday evening, however you choose to celebrate this time of year.
I’m about to jump into my snuggly bunny onesie, enjoy Christmas lights by the fire, prep a yummy meal and dessert, and get ready for the continuation of the new Watership Down miniseries and present opening.
Wishing you a beautiful Christmas Eve.
TWAS THE NIGHT BEFORE YULETIDE
Twas the night before Yuletide and all through the glen
Not a creature was stirring, not a fox, not a hen.
A mantle of snow shone brightly that night
As it lay on the ground, reflecting moonlight.
The faeries were nestled all snug in their trees,
Unmindful of flurries and a chilly north breeze.
The elves and the gnomes were down in their burrows,
Sleeping like babes in their soft earthen furrows.
When low! The earth moved with a thunderous quake,
Causing chairs to fall over and dishes to break.
The Little Folk scrambled to get on their feet
Then raced to the river where they usually meet.
“What happened?” they wondered, they questioned, they probed,
As they shivered in night clothes, some bare-armed, some robed.
“What caused the earth’s shudder? What caused her to shiver?”
They all spoke at once as they stood by the river.
Then what to their wondering eyes should appear
But a shining gold light in the shape of a sphere.
It blinked and it twinkled, it winked like an eye,
Then it flew straight up and was lost in the sky.
Before they could murmur, before they could bustle,
There emerged from the crowd, with a swish and a rustle,
A stately old crone with her hand on a cane,
Resplendent in green with a flowing white mane.
As she passed by them the old crone’s perfume,
Smelling of meadows and flowers abloom,
Made each of the fey folk think of the spring
When the earth wakes from slumber and the birds start to sing.
“My name is Gaia,” the old crone proclaimed
in a voice that at once was both wild and tamed,
“I’ve come to remind you, for you seem to forget,
that Yule is the time of re-birth, and yet…”
“I see no hearth fires, hear no music, no bells,
The air isn’t filled with rich fragrant smells
Of baking and roasting, and simmering stews,
Of cider that’s mulled or other hot brews.”
“There aren’t any children at play in the snow,
Or houses lit up by candles’ glow.
Have you forgotten, my children, the fun
Of celebrating the rebirth of the sun?”
She looked at the fey folk, her eyes going round,
As they shuffled their feet and stared at the ground.
Then she smiled the smile that brings light to the day,
“Come, my children,” she said, “Let’s play.”
They gathered the mistletoe, gathered the holly,
Threw off the drab and drew on the jolly.
They lit a big bonfire, and they danced and they sang.
They brought out the bells and clapped when they rang.
They strung lights on the trees, and bows, oh so merry,
In colors of cranberry, bayberry, cherry.
They built giant snowmen and adorned them with hats,
Then surrounded them with snow birds, and snow cats and bats.
Then just before dawn, at the end of their fest,
Before they went homeward to seek out their rest,
The fey folk they gathered ‘round their favorite oak tree
And welcomed the sun ‘neath the tree’s finery.
They were just reaching home when it suddenly came,
The gold light returned like an arrow-shot flame.
It lit on the tree top where they could see from afar
The golden-like sphere turned into a star.
The old crone just smiled at the beautiful sight,
“Happy Yuletide, my children,” she whispered. “Good night.”
Joy to the World
We are having a lovely, although very whirlwindish vacation back in Southern California, which I’ll share more of the fun and magick of when I return home and have the time to get the photos I’ve been collecting of our memories here together. But for now, on this special day I just wanted to share something dear to my heart and some Christmas Eve wishes from my and Joy’s hearts to yours.
Today happens to not only be Christmas Eve, but is also the birthday of my sweet rabbit, Joy, who would have been 13 this year.
She reminds me of many things and has been so profoundly around the last week or so with messages and showing up for me and others I know in known or unknown ways.
Today is a reminder of celebrating the inner child and possibilities available to us when we vulnerably share our hearts and embody the integrity of our essence. Joy taught me this and so much more as my companion, guide, and teacher in life. She also taught me to listen within and to trust the messages in and all around me, and that balance was key to living a life of harmony and grace.
There have been some very auspicious events around Joy the last two days and one of which was a sweet message I received this morning that I just had to share because it touched my heart so and again pointed to Joy’s profound reach and messages she is wanting to impart. I won’t share the person who sent it, but here is the message that meant a lot to me:
“To dear Tania, Happy Christmas Eve to you and all your loved ones. You have been and are an inspiration in my life and will now be an inspiration to all others in my life because you have caused a massive ripple. Your way of living has helped bring back the hope in my life which lost me for a while. Yesterday I watched a film which I had thought about watching for a while, but didn’t until yesterday. I watched it because the name of the film was Joy. I followed the magic which the universe in all it’s magical ways was trying to show me. The film is about a lady who despite having everything thrown against her made her dream come true. So now I will follow my dream and be strong. So thank you to you and all your beautiful friends and loved ones with all of my heart. In this moment, I am happy and that is what counts. This moment. I hope to always see your magical pictures you post. Blessings to you. Peace to you, love and Prosperity to you.”
This was my response:
“I can’t express to you enough how reading this message this morning touched me so. Wow! What a beautiful share from you. It made me so happy to hear that you are feeling a sense of renewal and inspired zest for life. This is incredible and if I had any tiny bit of a part in that, I am grateful for that ability to have connected in a meaningful way that makes a difference. Also, you may not be aware, but today, Xmas eve, would have been my rabbit Joy’s birthday…so your message was truly profound, as the film you saw had her name and she’s been so strongly around and sending me messages…now this…It shows how she is also still working her magick as the powerful one that she is, touching others as she always has…and speaks to our connection.”
You may remember I had a dream about Joy the night before the Christmas celebration with my family and then I saw in large letters the lit up word “JOY” on the window across the street of my parent’s house, as a neighbor’s decorative display.
And something else I’ll share more about when I’m home that happened yesterday too. Plus, another friend sharing how much Joy, along with my other loves were around her and felt so much, Laura also sharing how she and my other two bunnies had a hand in some gifts for me, and gifts from two other friends yesterday that she and my bunny loves were a part of.
Then this.
I hear you Joy and I hope that your message and presence will continue to shine a light of love into everyone’s hearts as you have mine for eternity.
May you all know and embody “joy” and wonder today and all the days of your life and may peace be your constant companion.
Christmas Eve with Tiny & Tiny Tim
I just wanted to share a quick little bit of “Joy” on this special day, which coincides with Christmas Eve.
Today is my gracefully aging bunny, Joy’s, birthday.
It is also the first Christmas Eve and Christmas that Cosmo is sharing with us.
Both of these are a huge cause for celebration here.
We have nicknames for both of them.
Joy’s nickname is “Tiny” and Cosmo’s nickname is “Tiny Tim”.
The nicknames just happen. We don’t think them up.
But Cosmo’s is so perfect being that he is a sweet and pure little soul with special needs that happen to be a hind leg disability. And yet he is the most loving little soul and full of light and strength of spirit.
Tiny Tim, as you know is a character from A Christmas Carol, which of course is the story of Scrooge. He is a little sickly boy who walks with a crutch and yet his spirit is always positive and filled with love.
And Joy, aka Tiny, well is just a little round fluffy ball of pure “joy” and is a also a figure of strength, wisdom, and childlike innocence all wrapped in one.
They are both perfect reflections of the spirit of the season for me – always reminding me the love, joy, wonder, and innocence in my heart are the guiding forces that will light my way.
I’m so grateful to be able to share this special time with them and to give both of these once “shelter-abandoned” bunnies a warm, love filled life.
I wish I could do that for all left alone in shelters and one day perhaps will.
So it will be a day of decadent celebrating and love abound for these little ones and for us, as I’ll be in the kitchen cooking up a Faery feast for our quiet Christmas Eve and giving the little ones some extra goodies of their favs.
Our feast will be shared virtually with my Faery sis, Laura, who provided some of the ideas I’ll be making today and that she is too! We’ll likely share our holiday vegan feasts after the feasting!
I’m being a bit ambitious with my meal plan agenda, so I better hop to it!!
Happy Birthday Joy! Happy First Christmas Cosmo!
The two of you embody all that is important to me and I thank you for surrounding my life with love. I promise to always do the same for you.
You both embody the magick of this Eve and the essence of enchantment and purity within the snowflakes that grace Winter.
As I connect with my own inner child, I’m reminded to dream and believe, to see through eyes and heart of wonder, to share my love with everyone in peace and harmony, to create from my heart, and to recognize and share the beauty in and around us.
Christmas Eve was a night of song that wrapped itself about you like a shawl. But it warmed more than your body. It warmed your heart… filled it, too, with melody that would last forever. ~Bess Steeter Aldrich
May the loving melody of today resound eternally in your heart.
May you always believe, have the courage to dream, and may the Christmas Eve magick and child-like wonder be with you all year round.
Triple Rabbits, Birthday Blessings to Joy, Christmas Eve Magick & Alchemy
Last weekend while walking the San Joaquin Wildlife Sanctuary, three rabbits ran across the path directly ahead of me. Two of them were little cottontail rabbits and the third was a much larger rabbit, in comparison, pictured here in the images I captured.
The first two scurried a long more quickly, although hesitated in the bushes for me to have an eye-to-eye, but the third, larger rabbit, lingered to connect more intentfully.
There was something about seeing three and how two were smaller, but seemed equal in energy, and the third was the largest and seemed to embody not only a bigger energy, but one that brought all of their energy together and held its space with very present wholeness.
I love the energy of three and its integrative, creative power.
Three also symbolizes growth, magick, intuition, expression, versatility, pure joy of creativity, celebration, Goddess energy connected and reflective of the Empress in the Tarot, overcoming duality, manifestation, complete cycles, and flow.
Synchronously, I have been graced with three rabbits in this lifetime, I wear the Triple Rabbit Symbol as a sacred tattoo on my right arm, I am a number three by birth in numerology, and I am often talking/teaching about triangle energy and its potent symbolism in terms of how to create alchemy and transmutation when working with light and dark/shadow.
The Triple Rabbits (or sometimes known as the Triple Hares) are so powerful and represent the Trinity.
The three Rabbits I have had in this life include Twinkie – the first, whom I only had for a few months when I was about 12 years old.
He is the only male animal companion I’ve personally ever had, as even my parakeets were all female.
Then there was of course Nestor, and now Joy.
Interestingly, at my parents house while visiting them last week, my brother and I were looking through old photos and I found the only ones I have of Twinkie (pictured here).
It brought back bittersweet memories of him and I realized the powerful symbolism in the colors of the rabbits that have been in my life.
Twinkie, as you can see in the photos, was pure white (again that white symbolism showing up and how perfect that my white rabbit was a male, as white symbolizes the male/yang energy): Soaring Through a New Shade of White
Nestor was all shades of light and very dark gray.
And Joy is an integration of both white and gray. 🙂
Which brings me to the magick of today.
Not only is today, or rather this evening, one of my most cherished, enchanting nights of the year, but this day also holds a very special and precious place in my heart because it shares a celebration of the birth of my dear soul companion, Joy Julianna.
Today is sweet Joy’s birthday. She celebrates 11 years (another alchemical and potent number symbolism) of this Earthly life’s cycle, although she is an ancient soul.
Joy carries with her the energy of purity, joyous love, gentle power, tenderness, serene wisdom, and childlike laughter and wonder.
She is also a beautiful integration of energies, which she embodies so gracefully.
Joy is a powerful soul that constantly gives of herself to the higher collective good, works with the magickal realms, has a 6th sense like nobody’s business, is a channel between Earth and Cosmos, and shares her love and support with me without limit.
She is my daily companion who sprinkles the enchantment and power she embodies into everything we create together, which is everything in my life.
And, she is a literal and symbolic representation of this integration life for me, and reflects the processes that I have been journeying to embody.
All of my companions have been this for me, and continue to, even from beyond the Earth plane.
But today I honor Joy.
She is Christmas Eve.
She embodies the magick.
She is pure alchemy incarnate.
And every day I love her more.
According to an ancient Sardinian legend, the bodies of those who are born on Christmas Eve will never dissolve into dust but are preserved until the end of time. ~Grazia Deledda
I have always had a soft spot for the Christmas season…the colorful twinkling lights, decorations, smells, trees, magickal animals, elves, Santa, snow, cozy fires, glowing candles, bright stars and starry nights, and LOVE abound! It’s one of those times that reminds us of connecting with our inner child, to dream and believe, to see through eyes and hearts of wonder, share our love with everyone in peace and harmony, and recognize the beauty in and around us.
Christmas Eve was a night of song that wrapped itself about you like a shawl. But it warmed more than your body. It warmed your heart… filled it, too, with melody that would last forever. ~Bess Steeter Aldrich
May the loving melody of today resound eternally in your heart.
May you always believe, have the courage to dream, and may the Christmas Eve magick and child-like wonder be with you all year round.
And may you have Alchemy in 2015!
Tania Marie 