Meilin Ehlke, delves into the spiritual significance of light during the holiday season. Emphasizing the transformative power of light, she explores how it sparks hope, fosters compassion, and encourages new perspectives. Through discussions on cultural heritage, music, and storytelling, the podcast illuminates the profound impact of light on connections, inner growth, and the essence of togetherness.
Through her insights, Ehlke underscores the critical role of music, storytelling, and the preservation of cultural heritage in creating meaningful holiday experiences. As we embrace the holiday season, let us remember the power of light to illuminate our paths towards unity and understanding, fostering connections that transcend time and space.
(00:01:37) Festive Christmas Markets and Culinary Delights
(00:06:24) Celebrating Unity Through Holiday Traditions
(00:14:13) Transformative Power of Christmas Lights
Moving to oneness. Nourishing curiosity. Embracing differences. Becoming one.
It's getting cooler, cooler outside as the days are getting shorter and shorter. And it gets darker and darker as winter is coming closer with strides. I think this year. Hello everyone, I'm Meilin Ehlke, your host of the Moving to Oneness podcast. And I welcome you to this cozy afternoon as it is getting darker and darker outside earlier. The lights are popping up in the gardens, you know, bringing some highlights, some hope. In our small village every day a few more light strands are hung up to announce that the brightness of the Christmas time is appearing.
00:01:37 - Meilin Ehlke
Sunday, we'll have ADVENT in the U.S. you have Thanksgiving. The Christmas markets are opening here in Germany and I live close to Nuremberg. I think it's one of the famous Christmas markets. Millions of people come the next four weeks from all around the globe to see the sparkle. The sparkle also in the ornaments that are lying around, the hand pulled candles, and the Lebkuchen. Right. In Nuremberg we're very famous for the Lebkuchen. What else? Oh, then there is the Nuremberger. That's like a bratwurst, a smaller one, and you eat several of those in a piece of bread or a 'Brötchen' in English, a bun. But you have softer buns in the US. In Germany they're on the outside, hard and 'knusprig'. Yeah. So these tastes. Oh, and then you have the wine or the fruit juices that are spiced. Yeah. 'Glühwein' that people drink with that.
So it is really a time where so many people at home bake cookies. And that tradition is very, very strong here, especially in the time, the four weeks before Christmas, the Advent season. And it doesn't matter if you're religious or not. It is just part of the culture now, as in many places around the world.
So you go for a nice walk or I go for a nice walk and just breathe in that freshness, this crispiness of air.
00:03:25 - Meilin Ehlke
Yeah, because you sit out inside a little bit longer, you start using candles or I do. Not just for the 'Adventskranz', the Advent wreath where we put candles in. I got some beautiful purple reddish ones and they change color. They're really beautifully made. That is fun for me to pick out the right candles and that they don't have artificial scents in it. I think maybe if you're interested in that, take a look around wherever you live, that you pick those.
00:04:00 - Meilin Ehlke
They may be a little bit more expensive, but it's better for our body, I believe. And maybe they're out of even bee wax. If you're Lucky if you can find those. Thank you, bees, for not just creating beautiful honey, but also for creating this wax that we can use and make magical atmosphere in our homes, in our workplace.
I remember my son is out of school now, but in kindergarten, right? They start telling the stories, the Christmas stories that are really based in old traditions. Here in Europe you find similar ones. It's all about turning on those lights, right? Those candles.
00:04:48 - Meilin Ehlke
Or nowadays, as I was beeping all these bulbs, but we don't have too many bulbs anymore. Now there's these tiny LED things on strings. That is now the fad, right? They don't need so much energy.
But this is this spark of hope, this spark of recognition. Why does that happen? If you think about it, why we're also fascinated by the light. And it really. Our hearts turn into joy. If you look around, not just on the Christmas markets, but even if you drive around.
00:05:24 - Meilin Ehlke
I drive to go shopping or getting groceries. I drive through the streets, through the old part of town where they all hung up, because my heart just expands or my whole body expands when I see them. So maybe because we're light beings, if you think about it, right? And we are always attracted to the light. So it's also, if you're attracted to a person that is living, her purpose has brightness in herself or in himself, you get drawn to it. Your head gets turned, you get curious. You want to know more about a person. If it's the right frequency, maybe it becomes your partner or a friend or your workplace. Because, you know, a whole room gets lit up by some people. And I bet you light up a space as well when you show up anywhere and people come and want to talk with you.
00:06:24 - Meilin Ehlke
So it's also a time for families that is approaching doing things together. And I think this year there will be a strong emphasis on being together, togetherness of listening to each other or listening to these songs, right? We have so many beautiful songs. We take time to listen to your music. Also traditional music. Here in Europe, you have many that play music instruments at home in different regions. The different ones, right? In the mountains, they have the ones that they pull, they lay them on the table.
00:07:02 - Meilin Ehlke
You have the horns there. In the north, you have others harmonium. I can't remember the one that you pull out and it creates a sound. Oh, I don't remember in English. The men of the sea use that. And they also sing beautiful songs of the changing weather, the wind, the cold wind. If you live at the ocean, right? They have many songs about the wind and how the wind communicates with the water. Yeah.
And don't underestimate the candles. They use a lot of oxygen if you have them in your home. Also when you're then in Christmas time, you maybe even have candles on your Christmas tree, if you have one. Or if you have other traditions, maybe you have a Chanukka and have eight candles, if I'm on it, right? Or you just have one candle here and there spread around the house to make it romantic or comfortable for coffee and tea time when you eat.
00:08:10 - Meilin Ehlke
Now, all those beautiful things you have made in your kitchen with love. There's also this beautiful tradition, right, that we hand our cookies to someone else or bring them along and we share the craft we have. I think that is so beautiful.
But going back to those lights, I do open your windows a lot, go outside. We're learning more and more how important it is to move or do some exercise when you open the door, just for a few moments, stretching to juxtapose the indoor air.
00:08:52 - Meilin Ehlke
Or you know, we have also the 'Rauhnächte' that are coming where you burn incense. Or there is an area here in Germany where they've had many miners living, because you have in the 'Erzgebirge" 'the Erz'. In English it's ore. Right. There have a unique traditions. And they have little triangles where they use incent cones, really. And you light those and they create this warmth and automatically turns. And they have. It's a beautiful structure made out of wood. And it turns then and creates almost like a carousel. You do the same with light.
00:09:40 - Meilin Ehlke
You have lights or little candles you put in. And the warmth of the candles moves the carousel. A beautifully made, very fine craftsmanship that comes out of the 'Erzgebirge'.
There was also. Or in any mountainous area, right? The shadow comes much earlier. Darkness, because the sun sets earlier, because you. Up higher, it sets behind the mountains. Some of my ancestors come from that region, the Erzgebirge.
00:10:16 - Meilin Ehlke
So I feel always very connected to that region. They have trees that turned into stone. Huge trees are found there. So much history of civilizations living there for such a long time. So many things we celebrate now do have a part, a trickle in our traditions that come from ancestors and maybe have changed and we can't even remember. But there's a string and maybe we can find or you can find that string or even think about your ancestors, where they have come from, where they have moved through, where they have traveled through and what stories you can remember.
00:11:07 - Meilin Ehlke
And maybe you're lucky and you have many, many, many stories from many, many generations prior. And it is nice, I think, a good idea now to accumulate them again and bring them into the world for the new generations.
Nowadays, so much has been lost, because we became all the same or wanted to become the same as with the languages we had not even 150 years ago. So many more dialects in Germany. I remember I read an article recently, there was a man traveling not even so far, maybe a distance of a fourth of Germany, maybe it is like a fourth of Georgia, some other states, let's say 250 kilometers, maybe about 200 miles. Let's just say that. And there were 180 ways how a word was pronounced. And I thought, oh, my God. How beautiful. And then there came a time everyone wanted to speak, maybe even had to. You know, sometimes the pressure is put on society, so people change and forget so many things we're supposed to have forgotten because we were directed into that.
00:12:24 - Meilin Ehlke
And now is the time to rediscover. And getting back now to those beautiful stories. 'Märchen' or Christmas stories. Yeah, even the Grimm, if I think about it, the Grimm brothers traveled through Germany to look for the legends and wrote them on paper and created books. They changed a few of those as well. But now there are also people writing the stories of the elves that have lived, especially with the Celts.
00:12:57 - Meilin Ehlke
We have huge regions where the Celts lived. You know, there's civilizations going back, if you think about the Venus that they found, what, 65,000 years ago. And we're finding luckily nowadays that there are more and more people living everywhere or have lived. Right.
And also, what is important for me, as we're talking about moving outside and walking, so many people moved and walked around this beautiful globe and came together. And also that, you know, has not been written about it. We're more segregated in our history books. But we're finding now information everywhere that is being uncovered, brought to view again because earth is being moved, soil, I should say. Yeah. We have modern technology, cameras, scriptures are found again. In a way, landscapes are opening themselves again so it can be found. Energy fields open up again so people can become aware of them. To find them. That was a way that many things were closed, and that's in many cultures.
00:14:13 - Meilin Ehlke
So wherever you live around the world, what is appearing in your culture? What history is being found in your landscape? I really would love hear that. So connect with me or anyone from the listenership. A good place to come is to the Facebook group Moving to oneness, where you can share. And I think that is so fascinating. So this hope, I think where we're talking about that the lights create the spark, the 'Lichtpunkt' in the distance you see a light and it creates hope, or we still use it in business terms too, but it brings change or it creates transformation.
00:14:58 - Meilin Ehlke
Light. And so that we know it's part of our body, it's part of our history, and also part of what we have lost, but not lost, that you cannot find it anymore. Because everyone who's interested now, and especially the young generation, is starting to look or things are opening up, they're becoming or coming back into view.
00:15:24 - Meilin Ehlke
And we're learning more about how we can utilize our light, how you can become more of a healer, right? That's energy, frequency. That is light. We're learning more about the light out of the cosmos. We're living in amazing times. So as the Christmas market, maybe where you live, there's some opening, or your lights in your town are being lit.
00:15:51 - Meilin Ehlke
Take a moment to contemplate. What does it really do with you when you see that light? How do you feel and why do you feel this way? Or if you watch your children or your partner or your parent, how they get excited when even a candle at home is lit? What does it do with you? It relaxes me. I can expand. I start to dream, and I would say dream. I become more compassionate and think more about others. I contemplate more right away.
But also the colors, they create this beautiful light play of light, creating new colors.
00:16:39 - Meilin Ehlke
That's what I find fascinating. You know, me and beauty and painting and vibrancy and the illumination of colors. It's highlighting new things, right? If the light changes, you are aware suddenly of other things. Because how the light falls on something creates new forms out of a certain form, because shadows are created or moving shadows. I think it is 'spannend' exciting, fun.
So think about those little sparks of light or the big fields of light, or the highlighting and how you react to it because you understand it. It's part of you. Uh, that's nice, right? It's part of you. That light, those light changes, that being light or lit, this ignition, this expansion of light, the new perspectives you have now, even on yourself, on others, ...(tones)... this playfulness, this playfulness. So as you become more compassionate, as now, the light changes and it gets cooler and in a way, frisky. And you take these warm clothes and warm yourself, or you drink a tea or something hot, something else. And you feel how your expand and feeling good. And as Thanksgiving is this week, too, a thankfulness of you, me, us, beginning to recognize more of what we are, what you are, what I am, and who we are, and how we function.
00:18:38 - Meilin Ehlke
Isn't that beautiful? So I wish you the best. Enjoy every single change of light, even during the day. We really can watch it, right? Because there's a slower tempo to it. And have fun making your home, your village more beautiful with your beautiful light. Bye, bye and bright light.
I'm Meilin, your host of the Moving to Oneness podcast.