Christmas Wishes to you all ~

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Christmas is many things to many people.

For some, it’s parties and drinks and buying and giving presents, and time off work, and time at the beach or watching cricket or the Sydney to Hobart (if you’re in Australia!) or revelling in the snow and hot wines and hot dinners if you’re in the northern hemisphere.

It’s Christmas carols, and Christmas trees, and tinsel and turkey, and family.

For others, it’s a deeply religious and spiritual time – a celebration of the birth of an Ascended Master, of a Christ, of someone who showed us just what was possible.

For me, it’s all of the above.

I wouldn’t call myself a Christian, and yet I celebrate the arbitrary date of a very special birth – a hallowed birth. And I understand the need for myth and ritual. It’s crucial to our understanding of who we are…

I don’t ascribe to the current fashion of taking the Christ out of Christmas by saying “Happy Holidays.”  This diminishes and trivialises the sacred nature of the occasion.

I respect the HIndu holy time of Diwali, and Islam’s Ramadan – and other religious celebrations.

Through this blog I have made many friends all over the world. I feel very fortunate to know you all – and to call you a friend. Each one of you has enriched my life, and will continue to do so.

I wish you all the very best for this Christmas time – and look forward to sharing stories and feelings and provocative opinions (!) with you this coming year.

And I hope 2017 brings all you wish for…

Bill

ken-walking-with-santa

36 thoughts on “Christmas Wishes to you all ~”

    • Hi Ingrid – all the best to you to for Christmas. Think of us here in Mudgee, with 38-40C temps! Snow now seems so alien!! Look forward to hopefully meeting you this next year! With love, Bill

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  3. Bill, You have attracted a special group of people! May you and Jen have a Happy Holy Holiday !!! And Merry Christmas to all Kathryn (and Mike Schlesinger)

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    • Dear Kathey – thanks for these generous sentiments, and please pass on our best to Michael. Hope you both, along with your family, have a truly wonderful Christmas. With love, Bill

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  4. And a very happy Christmas to you and Jen and your family Bill. Wishing you love and laughter for next year and I look forward to hopefully seeing the PGS film.
    Many thanks for continuing the blog.
    Much love
    Deb

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    • Dear Deb – thanks for thanking me for continuing this blog. Very sweet of you. And for your season’s well wishes. Thank you too for continuing a presence here – it’s always lovely to hear from you! Hope you have a wonderful Christmas – Bill

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  5. Merry Christmas Bill and Jennifer!!! I have read a few of your most recent trip postings but want to read them all. I lived in Germany for 5 years and Christmas was such a wonderful time to be there! Much love and all good things in 2017!!! Laurie

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    • Hey Laurie – it must be good to be back in India, at Parmarth. That visa thing was crazy! The German tour was amazing – I hope you enjoy the posts when you get to them. Even though you probably don’t celebrate Christmas there, I can still wish you all the best things for Christmas, given that you’re from the US! Hope to see you this coming year… with love, Bill

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  6. Bill,
    Merry Christmas and a Happy, Healthy, Prosperous New Year! And if I may, Merry Christmas to my PGS brothers and sisters as well.
    May all our wishes come true in 2017!
    Arlène

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    • Hey Arlene – thank you for well wishes for the season, and hope you too have a great Christmas, and a cracker of 2017. Hope we get to meet up again sometime this coming year. In the meantime, take care and have fun! With love, Bill

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  7. Thanks for all your blog posts. I read your book last year and have thoroughly enjoyed learning about your travels. I’m an ordained minister, but have been out of the ministry for 10 years. I identify with your thoughts about religion, intuition, and approach to life. I also agree with your thoughts about Christmas and so appreciate your sharing them. Hope to walk the Camino some day. People like you inspire me. The best of the season to you and your lovely wife! Keep writing!!

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    • Hi – I don’t know your name but very much appreciate your comments here, and pleased to hear that my crazy blog posts have connected with you in some way! Saying “I hope to walk the Camino some day” is the first step to walking the Camino, in my experience, so keep the thought in your heart, and it will grow – surely. In the meantime I wish you a wonderful Christmas, and again, thank you for taking the trouble to post here… Bill

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  9. Here’s wishing you and Jen a very Merry Christmas, Mate, and to all the wonderful people around the world whose lives you have impacted through this blog and your travels. You are truly one in a million and as good of a Christmas as Santa could ever wish for.

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    • Steve, mate, you floor me with your kindness and generosity of spirit. Thank you. But then again, anyone who has creatures of all kinds respond to you the way they do has to have something magical about them! Hopefully this coming year my PGS film will impact on an even greater audience than this blog. That would be a good thing. To make people aware of a greater world around them that’s trying always to help and guide them to their highest good. In the meantime I hope this next year is a good one for you – better than this last year hey? – and that all things currently worrisome resolve beautifully. Your mate, Bill

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  10. I love what you said in this post. Merry Christmas to you, too, Bill, both Michael and I are so very happy to have you and Jennifer in our lives (Merry Christmas to Jennifer as well!). We look forward to seeing you in 2017. I love the photo that accompanies this Christmas 2016 post. ❤

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    • Raphaelle – so lovely of you to comment here, and thanks for your very kind and generous words. Similarly, Jennifer and I feel privileged to have you as friends. Please tell Michael too that my shoulder is pretty much fixed – despite the doctors saying it would take 6-8 months! Please thank him! And have a wonderful Christmas with your very own Reindeer!! 🙂 With love, Bill

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  11. Terrific post Bill. Thank you.
    I wish you & Jen and all those who follow your blog all the joys of this festive season. And a 2017 filled with fabulous adventures.
    See you soon, Love Janet

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    • Thanks Janet! Hope you have a wonderful Christmas, and yes, here’s to this next year being full of wonder and awe! Looking forward to seeing you soon! With love, Bill

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  12. To Bill, Jen and all our PGS family –
    May the blessings of Christmas be with you all and may 2017 bring you all everything that is wonderful.
    Jenny xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

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    • Hi Julian – I hope you’re having a wonderful Christmas Day. Here’s some info on Ascended Masters – (I know this is going to get you riled up!)

      The term “Ascended Master” was first used by Baird T. Spalding in 1924 in his series of books, “The Life and Teachings of the Masters of the Far East” (DeVorss and Co.). Godfre Ray King further popularized this concept of spiritual masters who had once lived on the earth in his book Unveiled Mysteries [2] (1934) by Guy Ballard (1878-1939). Ballard was the founder of the first “Ascended Master Teaching” in modern times, known as The “I AM” Activity (in full: The “I AM” Religious Activity of the Saint Germain Foundation )

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ascended_master

      And here…
      http://www.ascension-research.org/am-index.html

      And here is a list of other Ascended Masters…
      http://www.ascension-research.org/am-names.html

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        • Julian – just read some of the literature. Allow yourself to consider other points of view. You know the meaning of the word “Christ.” It is not particular to the man named Jesus. Do you believe that the Hindus, the Buddhists, the Islamists, the Toaists – do you think they all worship a different God to the one you worship?

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          • There is only one God, and all genuine Worship is directed towards Him, but this does not mean that all points of view, all relativism, all syncretisms, all modernly-created artificial religiosity, all philosophies, all ideologies are equal before Him — as for the Christ, He is the Living Revelation, the Logos, and the Son of the Father.

            He is God — and ANY suggestion otherwise, such as seeking to diminish Him by calling him a “prophet” as the Muslims do, a “wise man” as many do, or some sort of “ascended master” are intrinsically incompatible with EVERY principle of any genuinely Christian Faith, and implicitly insulting of Christianity itself.

            Besides — whatever the qualities and defects of theosophy since its invention in the 19th Century, it’s about as foreign to genuine Spirituality as the works of Voltaire are.

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          • Julian – I sense you are angry. Why? You seem to want to defend, as though your position, your beliefs, are under threat. Anger stems from fear. What are you afraid of? Fear is the antithesis of love, which is surely what your God embodies?

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  14. Better late than never … hope you right now, Bill and Jennifer, are having a wonderful Christmas day with your lovely family – whilst the American contingent of this ever-expanding PGS family is sleeping, getting ready for their day of joy and celebration. Lucky for me I straddle 3 continents so have been on the phone to both Denmark and America and have had a wonderful time with my immediate family here in Sydney the last couple of days – may you all have as wonderful a time, wherever you are, however the weather treats you and whatever the menu is for your feast 🙂

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    • Hey Britta – I hope you’ve had a wonderful Christmas. Jen and I had a great day. Very low key, very relaxed with family. Too much to eat – WAY too much – I don’t think I can eat for a week now! But it was a lovely slow and relaxed day. You are such a worldly lady with friends and family all over the world… I see there’s bad snow in parts of the US at the moment too – lucky we dodged that. Looking forward to seeing you again and catching up on all that’s happened since we last met. Mid January? In the meantime, I hope this coming year is a cracker for you – and big hugs from Jen and me! With love, Bill (And yes, Angie’s bought that swinging Santa for Ken. Isn’t it cool?)

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      • Food!!! Spent a few hours at a vantage point looking out over the Heads to see the start of the Hobart this afternoon… eating the last leftovers of potato salad (Danish style … only way to go!) and ham and I too don’t want to think of, no less eat anything for a while!! Yes, would be lovely to meet up in January, for me particularly, since I’ll be in Hobart for some time in February volunteering as a steward on the James Craig … fun and games at the Wooden Boat Show! I’ll leave it to the LBC social secretaries to come up with a date 🙂

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        • Isn’t Christmas in Sydney amazing Britta? Aren’t we lucky? So different of course to Europe, which has its own special magic. But here in Australia at Christmas, it’s quite unique.

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