The Loop Newspaper - Tehachapi's Online Community News & Entertainment Guide

The world changes. The person in the mirror certainly changes. Our tastes change, as do our life circumstances and how we deal with them.

But Christmas and the Holiday Season stay very consistent, and we're not willing to let anything change how they fill up our hearts.

In a world where there seems to be fewer opportunities to feel this good on a soul level, the festive end of our year provides many chances to feel more love in our heart and a profound connection to something greater than our whole: the best of humanity is more within reach, and we gladly reach for it in ways big and small.

I already felt a tingly lightness and even "joy," at Walmart of all places, a few days after Thanksgiving. Nothing specific, but the place already looked festive and people were being nicer to one another for no reason at all.

Which is what we love about the season - the cheeriness of strangers with no agenda other than it feels good to give and receive brotherly and sisterly love.

It's the reason we take the most days off of work than at any other time of year: the capitalist drive for dollars doesn't quite mesh with a spirit of giving, so we dive into it, knowing the crazy "normalcy" of January will come soon enough. We certainly don't want to shut down the essentials, but if we're able to relax that monetary pursuit just a little and participate in more heart-based activities, we'll gladly become a little more human around our fellow beings.

It's a kind of magic in the air that has us putting on more layers and preferring more bells in our music... more spices like nutmeg or pumpkin in our drinks and pies, and of course we have more thoughts of our loved ones as we browse the toy aisles and jewelry counters.

We also can't help thinking about folks struggling with housing issues, let alone being challenged to purchase bicycles for the kiddies. Fentanyl addiction, sickness and mental health problems seem to be expanding as the population does, and we try to do our part to help, both for loved ones and strangers as best we can through holiday donations and various acts of kindness.

We must also take care of ourselves so we can be of assistance to others. Depleting yourself helps no one, so we need to do a personal inventory to make sure we're serving our own mental health. Being kinder to others also serves our best interests.

It all comes back to the heart. We have a choice to either board it up with "Keep Away" signs, or open it up and see what miracles might occur that we would have otherwise missed. I've never heard of a miracle happening without the presence of love, which can't be generated in some factory. It comes from us, but we must choose it, even without knowing what the outcome will be. It sounds a little risky, but with a little practice we can get really good at it.

The holidays provide an excellent platform for all of this.

And some of us will even continue it. The secret? Turn the TV off and keep your heart "on." Let the holidays suggest a way to live all year round. Happy Holidays and Merry Christmas!