By Louie Ferrera

It’s December 26, Christmas is finally over. All of the major holidays begin and end on their designated day. Thanksgiving, New Years, Halloween…etc they’re all one and done. Sure, there is a lead up to each of these days, but the actual celebrations last just the one day. On Thanksgiving, families gather, you have a feast, you drink, you watch football, you go to bed stuffed from overeating. The next day it’s all over. A turkey carcass in the fridge and empty wine bottles on the counter are the only evidence that a holiday had occurred. Kids trick or treat on October 31. The calendar is flipped and suddenly it’s November. All that remains are a few smashed pumpkins and those ridiculous inflatable ghosts and ghouls on people’s front lawns. By November 2, most of those are gone too. Nothing happens on July 3 or July 5. January 2 is just the second day of the year. Hanukah lasts eight days…but it’s supposed to. When the last candle has burned down, the menorah and dreidel are packed away until next December.

But Christmas, oh Christmas has a season. Many retail outlets, especially the “big box” stores, begin putting out Christmas merchandise and decorations in September. We were subjected to Walmart Christmas ads during the World Series at the end of October. The more than two month barrage of advertising and marketing is absolutely relentless and nearly impossible to avoid. It’s a slow creep until Christmas iconography looms over everything. Like Big Brother, Santa’s image is everywhere. After all, he saw you when you were sleeping and he knew when you were awake long before Google and Facebook did. And Christmas music? Now that’s a real mixed bag. Is there anything more joyful than Sleigh Ride by The Ronnettes? Anything more insipid than Last Christmas by Wham? Christmas itself is a mixed bag where joy and melancholy walk hand in hand. No song expresses this sentiment better than Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas.

Most of this madness has less to do with the actual joys of Christmas and everything to do with the bottom line. One can hardly blame the ever vanishing mom and pop stores for wanting to cash in on Christmas. But the massive corporations? Don’t they make enough money the other 364 days of the year? It’s corporate greed, plain and simple.

The entire holiday season just goes on too damn long. I see cars driving around with fir trees tied to their roofs on Thanksgiving Day. When I walk around my neighborhood in mid January at night many houses are still ablaze with Christmas decorations. And don’t get me started on those outlandish, over the top front lawn displays, each house trying to one up the other. Whatever happened to a simple wreath and a string of lights? The excess makes me want to go into exile for two months. I once saw a lit Christmas tree in someone’s front window on February 2. I wonder what the groundhog would think if he emerged from his burrow and saw that?

Ok, if you’ve read this far I know what some of you are thinking, enough with the ranting. Names like Scrooge and Grinch have crossed your lips. I know I’m not alone though. More than a few of you must share my sentiments. Christmas can be a really sweet time of year but I want to celebrate it in my own time and on my own terms, not when Target or Disney tell me that I should. No wonder people often feel depressed this time of year.

Of course, there’s another side to all of this. Christmas as a kid is simply magical. Many of my fondest childhood memories are centered around the holidays. But as I grew up and Santa morphed into my mom and dad, Christmas lost most of its luster. I continued to celebrate Christmas but it’s not the same as an adult. All of that changed once I became a parent. When our kids were old enough to understand, I began to see Christmas through their eyes. The birth of our two children coincided with my switch from a fourth grade to a first grade teacher. Besides my own kids, I now had twenty others with that Christmas glow on their faces. I once had a student of mine ask, “Are Santa’s reindeer real?” I think you know how I answered that one. Not only were his reindeer real, but so was Santa and his elves and his workshop at the North Pole. Seeing the joy and wonder that my kids were experiencing reminded me that Christmas was about more than spending money and gift giving. Of course we give gifts to the kids and ourselves but our most treasured holiday traditions have nothing to do with shopping and spending money.

Every year we’d join our community for the tree lighting in the town square. Santa would ride in on the back of a fire truck. Our kids were usually first in line to greet him. We’d skate around the enormous Christmas tree at center ice inside Snoopy’s Home Ice. Together with our kids we’d glide across the ice, the arena bathed in the red, green, silver and gold lights of Christmas. It was cold and wintry and absolutely enchanting. We’d always take a family photo in front of the tree. One year we made ornaments from used wine corks. The stack of our favorite Christmas books would be read and reread. Of course on Christmas Eve we’d leave a plate of cookies and a glass of milk by the fireplace for Santa. The reindeer would get a carrot.

But alas, our kids are about to turn twenty. Like in Polar Express, they can no longer hear that sleigh bell ring. Carol and I are now Santa. Christmas has come full circle. The wheel continues to turn.

Meanwhile, in a few days our tree will come down. I’ll drag it into our backyard, remove the branches and store the trunk inside our shed. Next Christmas Eve, I’ll saw that trunk into small sections. With The Polar Express on the tv, each of us will feed our section into the fireplace. The logs will crackle in the fire, casting a glow on our smiling faces. It’s for this kind of sweet family tradition that Christmas is worth celebrating.

By Louie Ferrera

I stood beneath our oak tree and looked up through its nearly bare branches, the sky was milk white and formless. There was just enough breeze to dislodge a few leaves, one or two or five at a time. Some floated straight down, landing on the lawn or me. Others flew sideways or bumped against branches on their earthward journey. Each leaf moved through the air with the helter skelter flight pattern of a butterfly. I couldn’t tear myself away and became mesmerized by this sky ballet. Like snowflakes no two leaves are alike, each one is unique and beautiful in its own right, their colors and sizes of infinite variations. I was filled with grace and fully immersed in the fleeting beauty of this moment. Every leaf on this tree will eventually make the same journey. All of its branches will soon be bare and await the green buds of spring. The wheel continues to turn.

A miniature miracle like this occurs every day, anywhere you choose to look. The only requirement is to open your eyes and open your heart to the wonder that surrounds us all.

By Louie Ferrera

I walk out onto our back deck this morning just before dawn. Brilliant Venus is visible high in the indigo sky. As Earth spins towards the sun a thin band of orange and pink begins to appear in the east. Monet brush strokes paint the sky in pastel hues. It’s quiet, but quiet is a relative term. The drip and splash of our deck fountains breaks the silence. Much like the roar of the ocean, the wind through the trees or the gurgling of a mountain stream over stones, the sounds of the fountains enhance the silence. In the background however, I can hear the distant roar of the 101 freeway. It’s several miles away as the crow flies but in the stillness of this pre-dawn hour sound carries far. Living here in town, I know all too well that real quiet is hard to come by.

Luckily, I don’t have to travel very far in order to find true silence, as in the total absence of any sounds at all, as in pin drop silent. Carol and I just bought a camper van and decided to take it out on a test run. Normally we would never consider camping this late in fall but with our new home on wheels, a warm, dry space with electricity and a comfy bed is just steps away. Rain? Freezing temperatures? We don’t care!

We decided to head for Sugarloaf Ridge. Sugarloaf is an expansive state park in the mountains above the Sonoma Valley. It’s just 45 minutes from our front door but a world away. The campground is nestled in a narrow valley with gentle Sonoma Creek flowing along its edge. The park is so close to thousands of people yet when I’m here it feels like wilderness. Except for a few park buildings, there are few signs of civilization. And the quiet today, even during late afternoon, is nearly absolute.

There are many hikes to choose from here. Our hike took us a thousand feet above the valley floor. We walked through forest, up switchbacks and along a ridge top where the only sounds were our footsteps and the wind in my ears. Even the herd of deer that we surprised ran away with seemingly not a sound. We returned to camp at sunset and that’s when the real quiet began. Down here there was no wind, the creek made no sound, as the full force of winter rains had yet to give it voice. Being in the midst of such profound silence was like being embraced by a living, breathing entity. It took a little getting used to. Even during the quietest moments at home there’s always some kind of human made background noise. People  always seem intent on creating a din. 

Up here at Sugarloaf it’s absolutely still. This type of quiet is ideal for thinking, breathing and just being. Throughout the course of everyday life we are literally assaulted with sound. It takes determination and real effort to find true quiet but once I do, it helps me to realize the extent of the cacophony in our world and gives me a deeper appreciation for quiet when I’m in it. Spending time among the silence here at Sugarloaf Ridge allows me to access the silence within myself. For this brief time, I’m able to slough off the chitter chatter of the world, breathe and be fully present. I can literally feel the calm flow into me. My body and mind both get a much needed rest, in essence I’m “fueling up” on silence. I keep it in reserve and tap into it when the world gets to be too  much.

By Louie Ferrera

It’s a rain dance out there today, a veritable, seasonal soiree. Drip, drop, splish, splash, pitter, patter, an onomatopoetic smorgasbord of sounds. Cars whizz by on the freeway, their tires hiss like bacon on a hot griddle. Ducks are delighted. Frogs flip and flop happily across the wonderfully wet grass. The pavement has been transformed into a mosaic of puddles and rivulets where staccato raindrops create fleeting points of diamond light. Oak leaves take flight, sailing through the air like hundreds of amber and brown butterflies. Some of them end up plastered to the street like puzzle pieces waiting to be put together. The trees with leaves still left on them are heavy with moisture, their branches bow in supplication as if to give thanks for this nourishing rain. 

With my boots on I slip and slide across the lawn like an olympic figure skater. The judges all give me 10’s. And the mud! The sweet smell of freshly made mud is like nothing else on Earth. It’s the smell of life. No water, no life. No mud either. A few worms are wriggling on the sidewalk, having been temporarily washed from their flooded dens. Exposed, some will be meals for the hungry robins. Such is the life of an earthworm in a rain storm.

Gratitude and joy overflow from me as I watch this movie unfold. I feel like Gene Kelly right now. All I need is a lamp post and an umbrella and I can do a little “singing in the rain” of my own. What am I waiting for?

By Louie Ferrera

Last Monday was an absolutely stellar fall day so I decided to take a hike at Annadel State Park in Santa Rosa. Annadel is one of the crown jewels of Sonoma County parks. It has diverse ecosystems, many hiking and biking trails, a large lake, creeks and abundant bird life. I’d been out there for a couple of hours when the trail I was on began to snake through a heavily forested section. The trees were predominantly madrone and bay laurel, except for one lone oak. Not all oaks around here are deciduous but this one, a black oak, is. It’s long pointed leaves were in various stages of fall colors,  but it wasn’t the leaves that stopped me in my tracks. 

About four feet off the ground, the main trunk of this tree branched out into a perfect “V”.  I noticed that the underside of the left fork and the left side of the main trunk were covered in a thick carpet of emerald green moss. The moss was stunningly backlit by the few shafts of late afternoon sun that managed to find their way through the dense canopy. The angle and position of the sun at that moment created the perfect conditions for what essentially was an Impressionist painting come to life. It was almost as if Edward Hopper or Van Gogh himself preceded me down the trail. The early Impressionists were just that, masters of painting light. So it was with Ansel Adams. He once famously said that he didn’t really photograph things, he photographed light. The star of Ansel’s masterpiece Moonrise, Hernandez, New Mexico isn’t so much the ripe full moon that looms over this tiny town, but rather the light that the moon gives off. But back to the tree.

The Impressionist glow given off by this backlit, moss covered tree had me mesmerized. The effect of this phenomenon was absolutely hypnotic. Time seemed to be standing still. I had near tunnel vision and found myself in a meditative state of bliss while taking in this scene. The colors of the leaves, the glowing moss, the absolute stillness of the forest that surrounded me all combined to create a truly profound and very Zen moment. My hearing isn’t what it used to be but I could actually hear the sound that a single oak leaf made as it landed in the dry leaves that carpet the understory. It was that quiet and I was that tuned in.  A rarely seen red breasted sapsucker and a pair of ruby crowned kinglets flitted about the trees. They were my only companions. I’m not sure how long I stood there but after a while the sun dipped just a bit lower and the glow quickly faded. I took that as my cue to continue on down the trail.

If a tree glows in the forest and no one is there to see it, does it still glow?

Namaste.