"Be sensible of your wants, that you may be
sensible of your treasures."
____ Thomas Traherne, "Centuries"
At this time of year, when the commerciality of Christmas swamps sacred and seasonal considerations, we ask and are asked: "What do you want this year?" True wants are not easily satisfied by prettily wrapped parcels; they are immensities of space within us that we often block up by needs and yearnings. To consider our real wants is often too frightening.l
Our wants are sharper than multibladed razors with super-wrist action, more pungent than the lemon and ylang-ylang highlights of Excess - "the perfume that women will seduce for" - more gripping than the latest blockbuster video with scintillating SFX. Our real wants eat holes in us: never resting, never loving , never greeting, never finding, never seeking, never ever being satisfied deep down.
Those ravenous wants define our treasures so truly. They create a Christmas list that no department store could supply: time to stop and enjoy, in a space of quietness and contentment, all the things we were put on earth do do; space to give and receive love reciprocally; grace to seek and find our spiritual joy; freedom from the tyranny of others' expectations and judgments; acceptance of ourselves as we truly are. But we can discover our true treasures and how near we actually stand to them. When we really listen to ourselves say, 'I haven't time to..... I never get to.....I'm sick of.....", we come within sight of our treasury - that wealth that goes on being unvisited year after miserable year.
The miracle of self-permission and allowance, the willingness to receive, the gift of truth -these are the keys to unlock the treasury that has been open to us this long time.
"Make a list of real wants in order to find your treasures. Make a present to yourself of one of these by turning one of the keys above."
[From: "The Celtic Spirit" by Caitlin Matthews]
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