Twelfth Night - The Magi

In our partially finished DIY barn home, my husband Ian and I just held the first annual Twelfth Night feast (a potluck) tonight (the eve of Epiphanytide). We played live music and did group social dances that could include children, made a rum cake for the grown ups and a children-friendly Twelfth Night cake, both lightly sweetened with maple syrup. Ian also has a lot of experience doing the Cabane à Sucre (heated maple syrup poured on snow), so we did that too!

It is very late, and I was planning on taking a bunch of photos to inspire embodiment rather than presenting some construct or other for this rumination, but by the time I thought of taking pictures, my 2-year-old was having a melt down and it was time to put him to bed. The dance was over by the time I would have been able to capture more video and photos and the families had all gone home. It really was an incredible night of feasting, merry-making and marking a the end of the Christmas season in a way that includes community.

​James Joyce, who lived much of his life in exile, wrote in his novel Finnegan's Wake,  a complex character named HCE, but the acronyms have gone on to mean different things. Joyce did write "catholic means: here comes everybody", and since I've learned that, I like to ponder that on the eve of Epiphanytide.

I wrote a simple little song for The Magi that I'm sharing in this rumination. A great inspiration for this song is a children's book called You Are Stardust (Elin Kelsey and Soyeon Kim), a scientific picture book that refreshingly keeps wonder intact.

I like the interplay between the stargazers, the Seers from the East, discovering they are made of stardust, as they gaze upon the Christ child. For some reason, I always like to bring the cosmos into play at this time of year and I think perhaps it is because the earthiness of the birth has happened and somehow this porthole that has always been, is opened between the heavens and the earth. I am "of the earth" and of the earth came from the heart of a star. I know they might not have been kings, but I love the image of big kingly men bowing down to a wee infant in the crèche.

Below is a photo of my twelfth night cake. My step daughter foraged the beautiful garnish, which would have had evergreen, but my five year old's shark ate the needles (or at least that's how he tells it).

A blessed Epiphanytide to you and... here comes everybody. Amen.

Star gazing brought us here
To this young master's door
To discover we are stardust
One in God forevermore
One in God forevermore

We are born from above
And are a not apart from love
We are born from above
And are not apart from love

We were kings before we entered
Now we bend our knee
But he raises us to standing
Brothers to the prince of peace
Sisters to the prince of peace