Celebrate?

[Egg]

I recieved a text message from an old friend yesterday.  She mentioned this and that.  Amongst other things, she mentioned that it was her birthday thursday gone.  It was funny, she had only just remembered to reply to me, like I had forgotten her birthday.  Then I was faced again with the question,

What are my reasons for not celebrating or bothering to remember anyones birthday.

Even when I read that back I come across to myself as a potential cold, uncaring or perhaps lazy individual.

So I am going to go away and think this through properly but I would love to here your thoughts and feelings about how we celebrate our friends and or family, and why we clebrate at all.

Love to hear from you.


With regards,


Egg

[Lori Anne]

One of the things that gets me about birthdays and Christmas etc,  is the expectations to give,  whether you want to,  like to,  feel like doing so or not.

What I feel is that gift giving and celebrating friends and family ought to be done when the mood strikes us,  when our heart tells us we should,  rather than,  when the calendar says it is appropriate.

[lightsun]

Something else that gets me about celebration, is the notion of
gift giving. This adds to materialism. This adds to a lot of us
having a lot of "junk," they we don't need. What about instead
of material items, gifts of service & interpersonnel relations.
For us to have so much possessions, that we have to rent pods
to hold & store our possessions. Here is a question, do we own
our possessions, or do they own us? The more we have, the
more precious time is needed to care for our precious
possessions. This instead of fully living, breathing, discovering,
and exploring reality. Both inner and outer reality. Both beautiful,
and both precious, certainly more so than our possessive,
possessions. It wouldn't be so bad, if our material goods actually
made us happier and more fulfilled people.

[Lori Anne]

What about instead
of material items, gifts of service & interpersonnel relations.

Lovely idea.   Much more personal and from the heart. 

[lightsun]

“I think of materialism, and how materialism and a materialistic society helps to destroy the
resources and splendor of Mother Earth. This goes from having animal products of furs, bones,
and animal parts to trees & cutting down of the environment.

 It all ties together. Materialism to me is (1). Greed both the conscious and unconscious variety helps to destroy the planet for we take but do not give back to the cosmic web called life. (2) Apparently we need stimulation. This means new knowledge, new sports, new clothes, and new stimulation.

This entails getting new products, which entails taking it from the environment. It gives an initial "fix," but it is only temporary. Meanwhile, it is like a drug addiction. It has to be constantly replenished, re-stocked, to get re-stimulated. It also piles up. We have to then clean and care for our possessions, which ultimately, seemingly possess us.

What if we as a society, chose joint shared (1). New experiences versus new possessions, which would you, choose and which if any is really better?  What if we chose creating and getting in tune with our inner nature, our inner reality?” LightSun