Happy Holidays, Merry Christmas, Happy New Year, BlessedSolstice, and all the many other splendid salutations out there! I thought itwould be nice to share a seasonal gift with you: a bevy of beautiful images ofthe holiday window displays in NYC:
Such intricate works are rarely seen except at the poshstores like these in NYC along 5th, Park and Madison Ave, where allmanner of designers and artists are hired to elevate their window images (andgive reason for the extravagant expense of items inside). Displays like thesepropel window dressing to a high form of installation art, obviously takingmonths to plan and prepare their execution. Seeing them takes me back to mychildhood and happy memories.
My family loved to visit “The House on the Rock”, a touristattraction in Wisconsin. In addition to the original house designed by FrankLloyd Wright, are warehouses full of wonders, including a large assortment ofantique mechanical jewelry store displays. We would spend hours pushing thebuttons to activate and admire the little animated displays.
Taking photographs of my travels to share with family andfriends also reminds me of cherished childhood times. I was definitelyinfluenced by my mother, an avid documenter of family gatherings on her Super 8motion camera. I loved watching the captured images flicker on the dining roomwall to the hum of the projector’s motor and our laughter. I also lookedforward to the slideshow presentations of exotic scuba diving vacations allover the world from my mother’s first cousin Russell. He’d set up a bigprojection screen at my grandparents’ farm. They were not events to be missedand I soaked up both the photos and his stories of those foreign worlds withwonder. I thank my mother and Russell for sharing their gifts and inspiring mealong my path.
Joseph Campbell, the renowned mythologist and author,outlined the importance of sharing gifts as a common thread in all cultures anda key part of the Hero’s Journey. We all have personal Hero’s Journey’s toundergo, and as we move through life and overcome our various challenges, thereare lessons learned and gifts received. Whether we choose to keep thosetreasures private or share it with others is up to us. We must weigh the priceof sharing gifts; sometimes the gift or lesson isn’t well received by societyor comes at great sacrifice. We can only discover by offering up the treasure,and seeing what happens next.
While the capitalistic machinery and businesses across theworld need us to fuel the economy by shopping and spending, I hope that we allfind time to share some more personal gifts with each other too – gifts thatdon’t come with a price tag or end up filling the trash cans with waste after theflurry of unwrapping is over, but gifts from our own personal journeys – thatjust may inspire others in ways we can never really know.
Blissings and love to all!
Jason
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