Snapping Out of the Holiday Gift Spell

My yearning for freedom and a love-based life landed me on an island in Greece where I now live, happy in a small rented house with a car in the drive that is old and dented and as trusty as a steed.
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What Liberty Taught Me About Freedom

Liberty of London is a sprawling Tudor building in the London district of Soho. Famous for its print fabrics since 1875, it is a wonderland of elegance, beauty and quality. For me, since my first trip to London at 17, a place of pure visual ecstasy.

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Years later, on one of our many redecorating projects, I would choose a Liberty print for our family room. And the shirt I bought those many years ago that broke my travel budget, I wore until it was literally in shreds.

So yesterday, on my way to a Christmas luncheon, I was to pass this monument to taste and refinement. It was enroute and I was early. I popped through the oak doors with bronze and bevelled glass and made my way to the stationery emporium. Such visual delights of colour, pattern and design from monogram cards, to fanciful birds, botanicals, pressed leather journals and whimsical pencils and erasers. With discipline, I carried through letting my eyes just scan the kaleidoscope of fancy; mindful of time and promising myself to come back.

The next room was where I became a bit concerned that I might be late for lunch. It was the silk scarf section and the array of Liberty scarves of such beauty; exquisite timeless bazaar prints in subtle hue or riotous colour. Overhead, the ceiling was draped with familiar and new prints in silken and festive ribbons. Black dressed staff kept busy refolding these sensual squares after people, like me, would reach for a favorite colour by its corner and drape it in imaginary ownership in front of the mirror. "This one! No, this one! No, this one!"

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I veered out into a tiny corner where enamelled bangles in Arte Nouveau Liberty print designs riveted my attention. Now, this I had to have -- so many to choose from. Each a separate delight. "Is it for a gift?" the lovely young woman asked as she helped me open the clasp to try it on. My words said, "Just looking." But my mind was saying "Mine, mine mine!" I left, momentarily satisfied, with a catalogue and beautiful Liberty print points card -- just in case I wanted £30 off my next purchase. I began scheming.

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It was on waking the next morning and dropping into a light meditation after reading a bit from Eckhart Tolle, "A New Earth," that I took a cool look at my hot passion. He was speaking of the ego identification with "things."

I was reminded about something very significant for our own happiness and I experienced a momentary shame and then the pure delight of freedom of spirit over the prison of the ego.

The shame arose when I considered how, in my frenzy of something new, I had momentarily lost sight of what was truly valuable.

I am here in London staying with my sons for a week prior to the Christmas holiday. Next week, my partner will join me and we will celebrate the holiday at the home of friends.

On my first night here my sons couldn't wait to give me a gift they had carried for months through moves from the U.S. to Canada finally immigrating to England where they are settled. The gift is of such richness and splendour I was overwhelmed. Not only is it a gift of thanks, acknowledging their gratitude of my support over the years but also they had sold precious possessions in order to purchase what they thought would please me most. I was and am amazed and grateful.

But here I was with catalogue in hand telling them of all the wonderful things I wanted. What spell of forgetfulness had come over me? What could I possibly desire more? Even for a moment.

In our consumerist culture it is only "more" that we desire. And all the glory of holiday decorations and merry music playing and people with branded bags bouncing through crowds ratchets up the frenzy of "more." It also sharpens the line between the haves and have nots and the crumpled form on the street that hasn't a bed or enough to eat.

This is not a guilt inspiring rant, but a sharing of an awakened recognition of what really makes us happy in the things we gather into our lives. It is love infused possessions -- not to be confused with lust for more. It is the realization of already having it all and then truly enjoying the precious heart-filled gifts we receive or give ourselves that fill us real and lasting pleasure.

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My yearning for freedom and a love-based life landed me on an island in Greece where I now live, happy in a small rented house with a car in the drive that is old and dented and as trusty as a steed. The most luxurious thing I have is something I can never possess and that is a view of the sea. I am blessed with a relationship that needs nothing but gives everything. I am reminded that the most rare and precious gift I could have this season is time with my sons as they grow into men. Chatting while doing dishes, strolling along the high road in their village, stopping for tea. Sharing time. Sharing space. Sharing being together.

It's not that material things are not worthy of desire or having, it is the recognition of the ego attachment to the next thing.

I was shocked at my own seduction, my desire for instant gratification, of wanting more, wanting to possess as if possession could really satisfy for any more than the moment before the next "passion."

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Will I go back? You bet, but with the same freedom I have when I look at the sea outside my window. My soul can be filled with the beauty and the color and the joy of all that my eyes can take in. But I do not have to own it.

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