Most of the information my spirit guides serve up on a daily basis comes in the form of keywords. When I read for other people, it's a different process and much easier to separate the voices and retrieve elaborate detail -- when the messages are for me, they are often enigmatic -- as if I am meant to contemplate, work through the puzzling layers, unravel the threads…

I'm often fortunate to hear a shining sentence, such as "Joy only happens in the present." But even these are more like poetry or lyrics than statements of pure direction.

During this Holiday Season, for the past several weeks, each time I've asked for divine guidance -- "What should I be focusing on right now?" -- I hear the same word over and over:

"Presents!"

My guides have a childlike energy, and their vocabulary is often limited, fixated, like toddlers more excited by simply being able to say a word than concerned with conveying meaning. In the South, we rarely say "gift" in everyday dialog, unless we're quoting or paraphrasing a specific named concept such as "gift card" or "gift-giving." We give birthday presents, Christmas presents…

One of the first levels of interpreting intuitive information requires a question of whether the message is literal or symbolic. When in doubt, I lean toward metaphor -- the Story of the symbol -- although I'm shocked by the number of times the literal details prove to be true.

Presents?

Surely not…

I continued to roll the word around in my conscious attention -- clairaudience means I hear the words; I rarely see them spelled out clairvoyantly.

Presents or Presence?

Here's where the poetry of clairaudience comes into play -- Am I hearing the word presents or presence? Which has significance and resonance with the concept of Christmas? The answer this time for me is delightfully Both.

I look for threads of connection between both words/meanings -- here are some of those threads:

"Joy only happens in the present." A shining sentence that my guides have been fond of using for the last five years or so. Joy's being another operant seasonal keyword.
The Present -- The Power of Now. Time. Regardless of religion, faith, or dogma, it's inescapably true that the very concept of Time in the modern world is defined by the birth of Jesus.
Presence is a gift in and of itself. Anyone you exchange gifts with this year is inevitably present in your life, on many levels. I think of one of my mother's dear friends who passed away last month from cancer; his daughters are painfully aware of the gift of presence this Christmas...
Your presence -- as in your energy -- the self that you bring to gatherings of family and friends -- is the greatest blessing of all. A bright and joyful presence is a choice you may wrap yourself in, regardless of any material or physical detail.

I also can't ignore the literal and the virtual meanings for me personally -- my web presence. My blogs literally extend my life and the sphere of my human experience. As a present to myself this Holiday, I've taken time off from writing and posting articles to lose myself in code -- a creative, addictive activity that I can't indulge as often as I'd like to.

And most of all, I'm thankful and infinitely blessed by your presence in my world -- a humbling experience that I barely have words for.

Merry Christmas with love