Lektion 1
The Reason We Celebrate
The course starts off with the fundamental reason for celebration viz. to share joy and happiness with others who are near and dear to us. As Mark Twain said, “To get the full value of joy you must have someone to divide it with.” This meditation experientially guides us through our natural propensity to share with others!
Lektion 2
The Spirit of Giving
This meditation explores how today’s celebrations are riddled with expectations, disappointment, anxiety, fatigue, quarrels, or isolation. This is not to be pessimistic but to rise above where we are to move toward what we really want i.e., to feel connected and belong.
The secret ingredient to this profound act of celebration is the spirit of giving. Instead of expecting to receive and be entertained, what if we decided to bring generosity as the underlying attitude for celebration? The generosity of understanding where others might be coming from, the generosity of ignoring sharp comments, the generosity of bringing humor to restore peace, generosity of effort to help. Would we be disappointed if we were only there to give?
The true act of giving is received in hearts and that is where it resides!
Lektion 3
Intentional Celebrations
Most of the time celebrations are dictated by calendars and social norms – we mistake celebrations for entertainment. In this meditation, we contemplate what intentional celebrations would look like. How would you want to feel before, during, and after the actual celebrations?
Knowing what we know about celebrating, what would we want to infuse in our celebrations - food, laughter, care, love, generosity, selflessness, humor? This meditation guides us through an experiential process of what this infusion would feel like!
Lektion 4
Making Memories
In this meditation, we dive into the role of memories that hold us together when we are apart from each other. Celebrations keep us connected long after the actual act. What we cherish are the memories, the laughter, the generosity, and above all the invisible thread of connection and belonging.
This meditation walks us through our cherished memories and encourages us to make more of the ones that we will cherish.
Lektion 5
Cherishing the Time!
We build on the previous exploration of making memories by cherishing the actual act of celebration. We cannot fake our memories so being present while celebrating is the only way to enjoy the current celebration and every subsequent memory of it! That is the reason we click photos and share them on social media: to look back years (or even decades later) and reminisce about those times.