We went to a festival at the Rose Garden Early Childhood Center last week. It was a celebration of the warmth of community and a reminder of the light that lives in our souls as we enter the season of darkness. The theme is expressed simply in the words of this song: “the sunlight fast is dwindling; my little lamp needs kindling”.
At the festival, there was a puppet play in a classroom, a walk around the building while holding lanterns, singing and a snack in the garden with a fire and tiny lights sparkling all around. It was the first lantern walk celebration since 2020 when covid changed how we gather.
Given the population was young children (toddlers and preschoolers) and their families, the event was short and sweet – about one hour long. Most of it was outdoors and we were not standing still a lot. The children were mesmerized from beginning to end.
As the days grow shorter and the temperatures colder, our gatherings will move indoors, where we will sit together for longer periods of time. Having re-emerged from a period of isolation, we are gathering again, knowing we may pay a price for it. Why do we take the risk of gathering?
Now that the fear of sickness does not loom as large as it did a few years ago, being amongst others has moved to the forefront of our planning. This holiday season, we will gather more than last year which was more than the year before when we remained within our isolation bubble.
We gather to kindle our inner light. Coming together renews our connections to shared memories and creates new ones. The connections are social, so interpersonal and biological as in between cells in our brains or intrapersonal. These connections create a web of shared humanity.
Without connecting, we may lose track of who we are and of our people. A friend used to say that she would look in her phone book when she was feeling lonely, to remember she has friends. Today in our phones, we have not only our contacts, but photos. Both remind us of why we gather. We gather to connect and remember.
Shared experiences have both an objective reality as in time, place, and events as well as a subjective one – or how we felt at the time and the sensory information that left an impression.
We are all very much alike and absolutely unique. Gatherings awaken us to this reality. Photos point to the objective reality and story-telling highlights the subjective one. When we come together, we celebrate both.
In September, we visited my husband’s family in Germany. My German comprehension is limited, and I am inclined to focus on not only on spoken language when in conversation. but I notice body language, facial expressions, and the energetic impressions I am receiving. What is revealed goes beyond words.
Although I may not comprehend everything, I am listening intently, taking in a lot of information. When we listen with our whole selves, our listening holds the speaker; it encourages speaking. It is a social act, an act of receiving, easier done in person than on a computer.
Story-telling is an age-old way of giving and receiving in a gathering. The circle of listeners encourages the storytelling, creating a form of outer ear that focuses and magnifies hearing. There is an interplay between the speaker and listeners.
We also gather so we can touch and be touched. We embrace when we meet and depart. A hand touches an arm to emphasize a point. Our mouths touch the same food, our lungs and skin the same air, our eyes the same sights, our ears the same sound vibrations and our noses the same smells. These shared sensory experiences are stored differently depending on existing brain patterns from past memories.
When a story makes us laugh, we exhale together. When we feel the emotion behind the words, we are touched. We relate to the story and connect with the teller.
We remember love in the past and feel it in the present, often keeping alive memories of people who are deceased. If we hadn’t travelled to Germany and gotten together with my husband’s old friends, how would we know that one friend remembered our son collected stamps and gave us a boxful that he had stashed away over the last decade?
How would we renew connections, practice listening, touching, and being touched? It is social contact that enlivens our souls and stimulates the desire to gather again. We are social beings who care about each other and want to express it.
At the end of a gathering, we collect contact information, consider ways to connect and the hope of coming together again before long. After gathering, we are satisfied and in the afterglow of gathering, we know we are not alone. Social isolation can lead to loneliness and loneliness is detrimental to our health.
With the inconveniences of gathering (especially when it involves air travel), it is important to remember why we do it. We travel so we may gather. And we gather to celebrate life!
We come together to renew connections, create new ones, and to be touched by both the sensory world and the human heart. We remember there is more to life than what we can imagine on our own. Our world expands.
We gather because it is good for us – body and soul. We gather to remember that love is more powerful than fear.
