The Christmas Truce of 1914: A Heartening Story of Humanity in the Middle of War (by Maria Popova)

 A symbolic moment of peace, grace, and humility amidst one of humanity’s most violent and disgraceful events.

In December of 1914, a series of grassroots, unofficial ceasefires took hold of the Western Front in the heat of WWI. On Christmas, soldiers from an estimated 100,000 British and German troops began to exchange seasonal greetings and sing songs across the trenches, some even walked over to their opponents bearing gifts. The incident became one of the most heart-warming displays of humanity in the history of human conflict and was dubbed the Christmas Truce.

Depiction of the Christmas Truce of 1914 by artist A. C. Michael, originally published in the Illustrated London News on January 9, 1915, with the caption “British and German Soldiers Arm-in-Arm Exchanging Headgear: A Christmas Truce between Opposing Trenches.”

From the trenches, a 19-year-old British private by the name of Henry William Williams — a man of confounding contradictions himself, who would go on to become one of the most lyrical nature writers in the English language, an early admirer of Hitler, and an opponent of the Second World War — wrote to his mother on Boxing Day:

Dear Mother, I am writing from the trenches. It is 11 o’clock in the morning. Beside me is a coke fire, opposite me a ‘dug-out’ (wet) with straw in it. The ground is sloppy in the actual trench, but frozen elsewhere. In my mouth is a pipe presented by the Princess Mary. In the pipe is tobacco. Of course, you say. But wait. In the pipe is German tobacco. Haha, you say, from a prisoner or found in a captured trench. Oh dear, no! From a German soldier. Yes a live German soldier from his own trench. Yesterday the British & Germans met & shook hands in the Ground between the trenches, & exchanged souvenirs, & shook hands. Yes, all day Xmas day, & as I write. Marvellous, isn’t it?

This lovely short film captures the story and spirit of this symbolic moment of peace, grace, and humility amid one of history’s most violent and disgraceful failures of humanity.

Simple Gifts-6 Heartwarming Holiday Stories - December 25th, 1914 - YouTube

THE HOLY IN LOSS (by Toko-pa Turner)

 

At this time of year, there is a great deal of emphasis placed on birth and the coming of the light. But the Solstice is really Nature’s season of rebalancing between life and death, and new life is never possible without a darkening, a sloughing off.

 

What makes this season holy is the act of casting off that which, with little to no guarantee, will set us on a new course. Like winter, Nature’s death field closes in on us with its cold and dark promise to claim all that isn’t thriving. It isn’t unusual to resist this process. We may find ourselves trying to prop up the old way, lifeless as it may be, in an attempt to reanimate the ill-fitting, limp, and even destructive, because at least it was familiar. 

 

But as reluctant as we may be, the holy act of this season is trust. Even as the old things are being cast off, torn away, or leaving of their own accord. Even as disappointment, heartbreak, and fear are rearing up on all sides. Something better for our well-being is marshalling itself below the cold ground. And the sooner we can conclude our old attachments, the sooner the new way will be made visible.

 

One of the great inhibitors to movement in this life—> death—>life cycle is the belief that things didn’t work out because you did something wrong, or that you weren’t good enough. That the loss, whatever it may be, is reflective of your failure to be worthy in some way. And I think there is value in combing through our experiences to see if you’ve behaved in integrity. But at what point does this combing become perseverating? When are you twisting yourself into a pretzel to make something work when you could be giving it “a good death”? When are you mounting resistance to change when you should be respectfully concluding old attachments?

 

This is where the discerning acumen of the “inner yang” (in all genders) is extremely valuable. This is the part of us that can take a step back and differentiate between what is being projected onto us, and what we know to be our own truth. In a tsunami of emotions, it can be excruciatingly hard to know the difference between someone’s projection or judgement about us, and our own knowing. Introjection, is when we take that projection as our own. It might behave as an inner dialogue, “I’m doomed to fail,” or, “I am irresponsible,” or, “I’m difficult to be around.” When we allow this to keep us from life, we are, like characters in fairy tales, under the dark spells or enchantments of those in power over us. We ate that poisoned apple – and it put us into a deep sleep of inherited belief.

 

To break these spells, we must first become aware of them. In dreamwork, we can expose the narratives that are operating compulsively in our lives and begin to re-story ourselves out of the places we feel habitually trapped or stuck. But in order to move into our next life cycle, there is almost always a sacrifice to be made.

 

You may have heard me say before that sacrifice was originally meant, “to make sacred.” At this time of year, on the threshold of dark and light, we are being called to sacrifice those things that we may have loved dearly, but that are ready to leave, or be left by us. And we must do it without knowing what lies ahead. In that free-fall between things, a small, almost inaudible voice asks us to believe. 

 

As ruthlessly as death sweeps in to dismantle what’s familiar, life always follows. It brings vitality and growth to the fallow regions of our lives. Just like wild herbs appear in depleted soil to give it nutrients, it is the way of nature to remediate. Our job, like the soil, is to submit to this mysterious process. To trust that, even as the old form is decomposing, a new form is coalescing out of sight.

 

During these holy days, I invite you to consider where stagnancy and insufficiency may have set in to your life. What relationships, habits, identities, or projects, are taking more from you than they should be giving. Is it possible they are are trying to release you? Are they worth salvaging, or will the sacrifices they should be instead eroding your well-being? 

 

As you contemplate these questions, try to listen for something holy calling out from under your confusion. Can you give your trust to this still inaudible call?

 

With all my love for your courage,
Toko-pa  

 The Holy in Loss | Toko-pa's Official Website (toko-pa.com)

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How the acrobat and choreographer Yoann Bourgeois plays with gravity and time (a Psyche film)

 

‘There’s a moment when a child chooses a direction, as part of growing up, and that is a step that I never managed to take. Fortunately, I found the circus, which allowed me to remain undisciplined.’
– Yoann Bourgeois

There’s a curious contradiction in these words from the French acrobat, choreographer and director Yoann Bourgeois. Given his accomplishments and talents, what a lack of direction and discipline looks like for Bourgeois is rather unique. He’s expert in using trampolines in inventive, poetic, circus-inspired contemporary dance. He’s won numerous awards. He’s presented his work in prestigious venues. His performances have drawn comparisons to the slapstick skills of Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton.

Squaring his achievements and abilities with his own description of his work becomes easier when we look at some of the recurring themes of his choreographies. Striving, stumbling and falling feature prominently, often to simultaneously pathos-filled and comedic effect. At the same time, he’s fascinated by physical forces and how bodies interact with them, an interest he calls ‘research that doesn’t have an end in itself’. If there’s no definitive aim of this ongoing experimentation with movement, it manifests as something magnificent: human forms that seem momentarily freed from gravity, that fly, float and touch down in beguiling ways.

Whereas his primary productions are meant to be experienced in person, in situ, the short film Clair de lune by the French filmmaker Raphaël Wertheimer uses tools of cinema – camera angles that shift perspective, editing that accentuates the music’s contours, a stark black and white palette – to explore elements one of Bourgeois’s most celebrated choreographies, La mécanique de l’histoire (The Mechanics of History). Adapting that work into a one-man performance set to Claude Debussy’s beloved composition Clair de lune, Bourgeois draws out the theme of childhood and time. Describing his collaboration with the French pianist Alexandre Tharaud, whose rendition of Clair de lune graces the film, Bourgeois says, ‘To create – to be creative – is to draw a door on the wall, and then open the door. Clair de lune opens this door wide to transport us to a time where time doesn’t pass. That’s why we become children again when we listen to this music.’

Although the film Clair de lune is an abstracted interpretation of a childlike experience of time, Bourgeois’s idea here perhaps resolves some of the oppositional tension in his account of his work. In a sense, by becoming hugely adept at moving through space and interacting with objects, he has figured out how to retain a child’s engagement with the world, one in which stumbling and falling amount to learning, in which repetition is about exploration, and in which just about anything – including trying to get to the top of the stairs – can be a game.

Choreographer: Yoann Bourgeois

Director: Raphaël Wertheimer

Pianist: Alexandre Tharaud

Clair de lune | Psyche Films