The Fourth Night of Chanukah

It is now a few minutes after midnight and I felt like writing down a few thoughts and ideas before I retire for the evening. Tonight is the fourth night of Chanukah and after I lit the candles, I sat there for a moment and watched the newly lit candles begin to burn. There is something very special about watching a newly lit candle burn. A flame has the power to destroy if left to burn at its own devices, but a flame that is controlled and guided by a steady wick has the power to heal and to transform. Chanukah is a time of the year in which we increase in holiness with the burning of an additional candle for eight consecutive nights. On a personal level, each candle represents not only another step in holiness, but another level of healing and transformation that I am achieving.

The four candles represent for me the four differnet countries in which I lived so far during my 37 years in this incarnation of me. Each place that I have lived has been both magical and painful in its own unique and special way. I wish there was a way to experience life's magic without also experiencing its pain, but this was not the contract I signed before my soul descended into my current body. Yes, I do believe that we know the path ahead of us while we are being nurtured and are developing in the womb, but we forget the directions on exactly how to navigate this road the moment before we enter into this world. Chanukah is a time to remember at least for a little while the direction we each need to take in our own way to find our way back home, and the candles that burn from the menorah are the lights we use to guide us along the way. Each night the way is illuminated a little bit more to make the going more about seeing than about guessing which way to take.

This way home for me has always been connected to love and finding the right woman to share the way with. Each country in which I have lived has brought its own tales of what this journey of finding my way home through love has been like. I have recently discovered that the map I have been using all of these years has unfortunately been leading me even further away from the spiritual home I so long to find again. This is the part of the journey in which I am really praying for God to allow my own menorah burning in my heart to provide enough light to guide me on my way safely for the rest of my life so that love can flow smoothly and not get caught in a traffic jam that will delay the commute home even longer.

My Chanukah began a few days early this year when my Higher Power allowed me to see how my relationships from the past have greatly affected my attempts at finding true and everlasting love in the present so that my future could shine with the eternal light of the menorah's glow. It was a very powerful and a very sad moment when I saw how my mother's misdirected attempts at guidance and love have created in me a nagging need to be safely held in a woman's arms. I had no way of understanding as a small child that my mother had her own issues to work through and that she fell into a depression filled with rage and resentment when she was unable to make peace with the pain that created a huge vaccum in her scarred heart. I fell victim to her abusive tirades and felt the need to protect myself in anyway that I could.

The Chanukah candles burning brightly in the adjacent room have shown me that for true love to ever come knocking on my door, I must learn to first truly love myself. I have internalized years of emotional abuse and neglect but the day has arrived for me to begin a new chapter in my search for love and that search begins with me first learning to nurture and love myself. I no longer want to hurt the ones that I love because my emotional pain is burning stronger inside my soul than my personal menorah. My prayer for today is that the soft light burning this Chanukah extinguishes the hurt that I have done onto myself and onto others through making my life a living amends of learning how to truly love again.