I had a wonderful midwinter celebration with the lovely ladies of Dance of Life.
I don't have any pictures of it as I thought that taking pictures in between all the time would distract me from the celebration itself, which was very intuitive, breathtaking and intense. I discovered a lot about myself and I laughed and cried and danced. It was beautiful.
Dance of Life did actually organise my first celebration and even though this was vastly different, they really have a knack for making me feel comfortable in a room full of strangers; which is quite an achievement. I usually feel very uneasy at parties and tend to avoid them because of that.
I'm not a fan of Christmas because I think its original purpose has been forgotten in the vast amounts of food ugly decorations and the hypocritical peace proclamations (why proclaim peace for a few days while you don't live it the rest of the year?) and I also don't like it for the fact that I'm not a christian and won't ever be. I know that most of the Christmas traditions derive from Yule/midwinter, which is a Pagan festivity that I do celebrate, but I don't like the Christian messages attached to it. Each to his own, I guess. However, Yule is all about the returning of the light and finding lights in the darkness, so that's what I want to talk about today!
Maybe it's that I'm now more aware of it this year compared to other years as I am more aware of the meaning of Yule and living it more, but it surprises me how many 'light' centered events and festivals there are in my surroundings; such as the Amsterdam Light Festival, New Years Eve with the fireworks and the China Light Festival in Utrecht. It makes me very happy to see this and I want to attend them all!
On Christmas Eve I had nothing to do so I went to the China Light Festival with my boyfriend. The China Light Festival takes place in the Botanical Gardens in Utrecht and consists of hundreds of light sculptures in various shapes and sizes - very beautiful! These are some of the pictures I took:
Afterwards, we went to visit the Utrecht city center to have dinner. It was almost surreal - there was no one on the streets at all! The city was beautifully lit though - more lights in the darkness!
The Dom tower was especially beautiful.
After looking for a restaurant for a long time (everything was closed because of Christmas unfortunately) we finally found the perfect place. The vegetarian food they cooked me was delicious. When I go out I rarely eat really good vegetarian food (most food is just a meat dish with the meat left out) but this was amazing. It was a lovely end to a romantic night out.
Love,
Jopie
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