I'm hosting Christmas dinner this year for my new extended family. And as I woke up this morning I thought of planning to say the dinner grace. However, the twelve adults and three children coming are all different faiths -- from New Age to Born-again Christian to Agnostic/Atheist -- so probably a moment of silence will work better. But this is the grace I would say. I offer it to this solstice moment of turning, to germinate and grow in our hearts as the light increases.

Dear Lord, Great Spirit, thank you for our lives. And thank you for the bounty of this beautiful Earth that provides our meals. Bless and protect all those who are cold, sick, hungry, lonely, grieving, angry or in pain. Ease their burdens and lighten their loads. Keep fear and judgement from our hearts, and help us cultivate humility, gratitude, and wonder instead. And please keep us healthy so that we can grow in compassion and courage, to serve others and you. Aho, amen.

2005 has been a good year. My travels haven't taken me far, but I've enjoyed trips to Death Valley, Sedona, Big Sur, Mexico, British Columbia and Yosemite, as well as various short road trips closer to home. Mostly however, the journey has been an inner one. Dru and I have been together now for over a year and our relationship continues to deepen and grow. I'm blessed by his presence in my life.

Work in the architecture firm continues, I'm lucky to have survived the economic downturn thus far when so many are struggling. This website was also re-designed this year and it's been fun to work with the new system. I hope you enjoy what you see.

I'm also happy to report that various people were inspired enough by my plea for Pakistan earthquake relief that $2,640 was donated to Doctors Without Borders (Medecins Sans Frontieres), which is enough to pay for an emergency health kit to care for 4,800 displaced people for three months. Together we *can* make a difference!

For 2006 I hope to write more, including astrological pieces and personal stories. I'm also looking forward to our astrological apprenticeship retreat in the highlands of central Mexico with Steven in March. It's promising to be a lovely new flower and of course an opportunity for the "tribe" to get away and experience each other in a new environment. Plus every time I travel in Mexico my Spanish improves! A good thing in this modern age.

The Napa retreat is on schedule for September 2006, and later in the year Dru and I are hoping to take a longer trip to somewhere new and different. I'm also hoping to contribute more of my time and energy in 2006 to helping those in need and making the planet a better place to live.

A holiday message arrived this morning from a man I deeply respect, Rabbi Michael Lerner of Tikkun and the Network of Spiritual Progressives. I thought I would share with you this piece:

There is a beautiful spiritual message underlying Christmas that has universal appeal: the hope that gets reborn in moments of despair, the light that gets re-lit in the darkest moments of the year, is beautifully symbolized by the story of a child born of a teenage homeless mother who had to give birth in a manger because no one would give her shelter, and escaping the cruelty of Roman imperial rule and its local surrogate Herod who already knew that such a child would grow up to challenge the entire imperialist system. To celebrate that vulnerable child as a symbol of hope that eventually the weak would triumph over the rule of the arrogant and powerful is a spiritual celebration with strong analogies to our Jewish Chanukah celebration which also celebrates the victory of the weak over the powerful. And many other spiritual traditions around the world have similar celebrations at this time of year.

The loss of this message, and its subversion into a frenetic orgy of consumption, rightly disturbs many Christians and other people of faith. Yet this transformation is not a result of Jews or Muslims wanting to protect their children from being forced to sing Christmas carols in public school. It derives, instead, from the power of the capitalist marketplace, operating through television, movies and marketers, to drum into everyone's mind the notion that the only way to be a decent human being during this season is to buy and buy more. Thus the altruistic instinct to give, which could take the form of giving of our time, our skills, and our loving energies to people we care about, gets subverted into a competitive frenzy of consumption.

Not surprisingly, the "Christian Right" is unwilling to challenge the capitalist marketplace, because uncritical support for corporate power is precisely what they offered to become part of the conservative coalition. Thus their loyalty to conservative materialist economics has trumped their commitment to serving God.

Unfortunately huge numbers of people feel inadequate during the holidays because they dont have enough money to buy the kinds of gifts that their friends and children are being taught (by the media) to be proof of "really caring". So many people will feel disappointed as they stand with the Christmas tree or Chanukah menorah and find that the gifts they received didn't measure up to their marketplace-induced fantasies.

Meanwhile, the spiritual message of the holidays is largely lost. No wonder people feel distraught. The solution is not to blame each other -- it's to recognize instead that the emptiness, or feeling of loneliness and "lack", has been forced upon them by market values that they need to become aware of and then reject.

It's time for true Christian leaders to conduct a powerful spiritual critique of selfishness and materialism, stand up on behalf of their own highest spiritual vision, and challenge the *real* Christmas thieves! Only then will Christmas be reclaimed.

Thank you all for being in my life. I hope your celebrations are safe and warm, and that together with Spirit we can get closer to a world of peace, justice and love.

All my heart,