Las Posadas

Tonight is the start of Las Posadas, a nine-day Mexican celebration that begins on December 16 each year. Posadas is Spanish for "lodging", and the nine days represent the nine months of Mary's pregnancy. In Mexico, people gather tonight and carry candles and clay figures of Mary and Joseph from house to house, reenacting Mary and Joseph’s search for a room at an inn. They are turned away again and again with a rude “No!” Finally, one house allows them to enter, and everyone celebrates with food and a piñata. The procession is repeated each night through Christmas Eve, ending with a party at a different house.

Tonight is also the start of the Christmas Novena in Italy. A Novena is a Catholic ritual, a prayer repeated daily for nine days. It can take place at any time of the year, but one of the most observed is the Christmas Novena, recited or sung during the nine days leading up to Christmas day. Las Posadas comes from that same tradition.

Agenda:

1. Read a novena

2. Read "Present Moment Awareness"

3. Set out our crèche

4. Plan a piñata party!

1. Read a novena:

One year I was searching through traditional and alternate novenas and found this Creation Novena at the Indian Catholic Matters site, my favorite of all:

Day 1: A Prayer for All Creation

Creator God, as we prepare for the coming of Your Son, we give thanks for the gift of creation. We give thanks for its beauty and the joy the beauty brings us. We give thanks for light that shines in the darkness, for the stars and the sun, for the air we breathe and the plants and animals that you have created, for earth and water, and for the daily sustenance we draw from them. Inspire us to see You, Creator, through all that You have created—all that you look upon as very good. Help us to care for creation as You instructed us. Help us be stewards of its abundant life. We ask this through Christ, our Lord. Amen.

2. Read "Present Moment Awareness":

I'm reading this book by Shannon Duncan (2001) that takes awareness one step at a time: First, body and senses; then beliefs and limitations; then emotions; and finally, reactivity. It seems like a straightforward plan!

I'm finishing the third section: Emotional Presence, about how to stay present to strong emotions so they can become less overpowering and we can choose our responses rather than reacting. This section includes the best description I've heard of what goes on when I am triggered:  I tense up - because I'm trying to avoid the feeling - but I only manage to amplify it, as the pressure builds up behind the dam I'm creating with my body, and it inevitably overwhelms me and bursts out.

She goes on to talk about Inner Space and inner peace, which is always available to me, and I can get there with a simple shift in perspective, from player to spectator. Try to see the bigger picture: What am I feeling? Where am I feeling it? Notice the tightness and the impulse to cry out "Its not fair!" Notice when I feel impatient or annoyed, and the impulse to hurry someone. 

Surrender to the natural progression of the emotions, all internally, without outward reaction - like a river I'm watching flow through me rather than trying to dam it up with body tension.

I can practice making this shift throughout the day so it becomes automatic, and I can use it when I get triggered. When I make this shift and let the emotion flow through me without reacting, I will see new choices to make.

3. Set out our crèche:

Posada 2024

Traditionally, it was St. Francis of Assisi who made the first crèche, in honor of animals who shared the stable with the baby Jesus. 

We made Mary and Joseph with fabric and glue when my kids were very young. The donkey and bird are polymer clay, and the manger is balsa wood. This year we added a plastic toy pig, cow, goose, duck, and giraffe.

4. Plan a Piñata party:

This is the fourth year we will have a piñata party with our grandsons, and they love this tradition. Today we will decorate the dry piñata shell that we made last week.

The ancient Aztecs had something like a piñata: When they celebrated the birth of their god Huitzilopochtli (weetz-ill-oh-PACHT-lee), near winter solstice, they covered a clay pot with feathers, dangled it over a statue of the god, then hit and broke it. This ceremony probably symbolized the rebirth of the sun and the defeat of winter.

That first year we kept it very simple: We decorated the ball with tempera paint sticks; I made the hole and added the string harness when he wasn't looking, and filled it with lollipops. 

His mom came at lunch time and we tied our piñata to the pop-up canopy in our backyard, and gave him a stick. 

Our party this year is scheduled for Friday or possibly next week, it the weather is really wet.