December

 

The Twelve Days of Christmas 

- 20th Dec to 31 Dec 

Vassago: The Twelve Days of Christmas - Yule

5th December 

- Krampus Night 

Vassago: Krampus Night - 5th December

6th December 

- The Feast of St. Nicholas 

Vassago: The Feast of St. Nicholas 6th December

December 8 

- Feast Day of the Immaculate Conception

Vassago: December 8 - Feast Day of the Immaculate Conception

20 December 

- The First Day Of Christmas 

Vassago: The First Day Of Christmas - 20 December

December 20 

- Mothers Night

Vassago: December 20 - Mothers Night

Dec 21  

- Winter Solstice 

- The Wild Hunt 

Vassago: Winter Solstice - The Wild Hunt

24 December 

- The Fifth Day of Christmas 

Vassago: The Fifth Day of Christmas - 24 December

Christmas Eve

Vassago: Christmas Eve

December 25 

- Christmas Day

 - The Sixth Day of Christmas

Vassago: December 25 - Christmas Day - The Sixth Day of Christmas

December 26 

- Boxing Day

 - St Stephens Day

Vassago: December 26 - Boxing Day - St Stephens Day

Saint Stephen's Day

Vassago: Saint Stephen's Day

December 27 

- Feast Of St John

Vassago: December 27 - Feast Of St John

December 28 

- Childermas 

- the Feast of the Holy Innocents

Vassago: December 28 - Childermas - the Feast of the Holy Innocents

December 31st - Twelfth Night

Vassago: December 31st - Twelfth Night

  

the only things that are real 

are things which never change 

everything changes

 If you superimpose these two views, 

you get this result:

 Nothing is real

  The old saying goes, "Fake it till you make it." 

Because sometimes, pretending you have confidence helps you find the real thing. 

When it doesn't work, when life doesn't give us second chances or dress rehearsals, you can walk away or you can go all in. 

We tell ourselves we don't care.

 We can try to hide our doubts and fears. 

Or we can accept the unknown and dive in. 

The real thing is better anyway.

 Despite its complexity, the human brain can only focus on about one thing at a time.

 Monotasking reduces distraction, sharpens attention, and allows us to operate at peak performance. 

But a brain can adapt and thrive in just about anything. 

Even chaos. 

Scientists call the conscious thought needed to complete everyday tasks working memory. That memory is always there, always there, getting you through the chaos of life, one task at a time.

 In some ways, that's all life really is, all the things we do strung together. 

 this day, this night, this moment. 

This connection, this family, this friendship. 

And somewhere, in all of that, sleep and wake up. 

Sleep and wake up. 

Sleep. 

And wake up.

 Infections are like sleeping monsters. 

You can't see them. You can't feel them, but you must do everything in your power to contain them. 

Because when the monsters wake up, they are out of control.

 All that time you spent convincing yourself the sleeping monster wasn't real, it was gathering strength. The infection was spreading. 

The monster's awake now and there's nothing you can do about it.

 No passion is stronger in the breast of a man 

than the desire to make others believe as he believes

Nothing so cuts at the root of his happiness and fills him with rage 

as the sense that another rates low what he prizes high

 The essence of independence has been to think and act according to standards from within, not without: 

to follow one's own path, not that of the crowd

 

You can't know,

 you can only believe 

- or not

  

If you don't behave as you believe, 

you will end by believing as you behave

 This place is a dream. 

Only a sleeper considers it real. 

Then death comes like dawn, 

and you wake up laughing at what you thought was your grief

  

The reasonable man adapts himself to the world

 The unreasonable man persists in trying to adapt the world to himself.

 Therefore 

all progress depends on the unreasonable man

  

Happiness can be found, 

even in the darkest of times, 

if one only remembers to turn on the light

 A concept is a brick. 

It can be used to build a courthouse of reason. 

Or it can be thrown through the window

 

Life is really simple, 

but we insist on making it complicated

 It is not true that people stop pursuing dreams because they grow old, 

they grow old because they stop pursuing dreams

 The cosmos is within us. 

We are made of star-stuff.

 We are a way for the universe to know itself

  pain is the most important thing in the universes. 

Greater than survival, greater than love, greater even than the beauty it brings about. 

For without pain, there can be no pleasure. 

Without sadness, there can be no happiness. 

Without misery there can be no beauty. 

And without these, life is endless, hopeless, doomed and damned.

 

My house says to me, "Do not leave me, for here dwells your past."

And the road says to me, "Come and follow me, for I am your future."

And I say to both my house and the road, 

"I have no past, nor have I a future. 

If I stay here, there is a going in my staying;

 and if I go there is a staying in my going.

 Only love and death will change all things.

 He doesn't know that. He's an idiot. For all he knows, it could be the worst day of his life. 

You know how people say, 'Who knows? I could get hit by a bus tomorrow.' That seems pretty farfetched. 

Until you have a friend who got hit by a bus. 

The point is you never know what kind of day is coming. 

Whenever we think we know the future, even for a second, it changes. Sometimes the future changes quickly and completely. And we're left only with the choice of what to do next.

 We can choose to be afraid of it, to stand there, trembling, not moving, assuming the worst that can happen. 

Or we step forward, into the unknown, and assume it will be brilliant.

 

Do you know who you are? 

Do you know what's happened to you? 

Do you want to live this way? 

All it takes is one person, one moment to change your life forever. It can change your perspective, colour your thinking. One moment that forces you to re-evaluate everything you think you know. 

Do you know who you are? 

Do you know what's happened to you? 

Do you want to live this way? 

 There's a stage you go through during child birth and it's the toughest part. It's called the transition stage. 

You've been pushing so hard and so long that you're exhausted, spent and there's nothing to show for your effort. 

During this transition stage, it feels like you can't go on, but it's only because you're very nearly there. 

Transition is movement from one part of life to a whole new one. And it can feel like one long, scary, dark tunnel. 

But you have to come out the other side because what's been waiting there might be glorious.

 You know your tailbone? It used to be a tail.

That pink part in the corner of your eye? It used to be a third eyelid.

The appendix used to help us digest tough foods. Now, it does nothing.

The story of our evolution, is the story of what we leave behind, what we've discarded. Our bodies only hang on to the things we absolutely need. The things we have no longer use for, we give up. We let go.

Why does it feel so good to get rid of things? To unload? To let go?

 Maybe because when we see how little we need to make us survive, it makes us realize how powerful we actually are. To strip down to only what we really need. To hang on to only what we can't do without, what we need.

Not just to survive but to thrive.

 We cover up injuries with tape and gauze to protect the injury, to prevent infection, to prevent  further suffering. 

The hard part comes when you have to rip the bandage off, because that can hurt like hell. 

It hurts to tear that bandage off. We don't wanna see what's underneath. 

But maybe it's not the fear of the pain that holds us back. 

Maybe, we're really afraid to see if the wound underneath is still open, or if it might actually be healing.

  

 We can't boil every injury down to one single blow. 

What hurts us is cumulative. It happens over time. We absorb blow after blow, shock after shock, painful hit after hit. 

But even then, even if we know exactly how we got here, it doesn't mean we can fix it.

 You can't heal every wound and that's okay. 

 even if something seems like it cannot be fixed, it doesn't mean it's broken.

  That’s what they used to call it when your parents got divorced, even though getting divorced was the least broken they ever did. 

 I wondered if broken homes were where broken people lived.

to this day I still wonder. 

You can build a house out of anything, make it as strong as you want, but a home, a home is more fragile than that. A home is made of the people you fill it with and people can be broken,

what's broken can be mended, what's hurt can be healed, that no matter how dark it gets, the sun's gonna rise again.

 when you hear hoofbeats, think horses, not zebras.

It means that the most obvious answer is usually right.

 It helps us stick to the truth. 

. When I hear hoofbeats, horses. I always think horses. Even when I shouldn't.

Things are not always what they appear to be. 

They're often an indicator of something bigger going on, deep underneath.

 Symptoms. Red flags. Warning signs. Things we should pay attention to. Things we shouldn't ever ignore. Things that are bad. Things that could really hurt us. 

Things that it might be just too late to fix.

 Failure is an inevitability. 

Every scientist was told no, over and over. 

The ones we remember, the ones who changed our lives: the Curies, the Salks, the Barnards. They're the ones who wouldn't take no for an answer.

 Failure is inevitable. Unavoidable. But failure should never get the last word. 

You have to never take no for an answer and take what's coming to you. 

Never give in. Never give up. Stand up. 

Stand up and take it.

  

There are some disasters you just don't see coming, no matter how carefully you plan. 

A little surprise that changes everything. 

. In life, it's a catastrophe.

a complication, a disruption, a glitch, a nasty surprise. 

It calls for extreme measures. 

You have to react quickly, try to catch up, because it came out of nowhere.

 And it can take everything away.

 

The organs in the human body have entirely different functions. 

The cells which make up those organs act independently of each other. 

But in a healthy body, seemingly independent cells quietly depend on the functioning of the others. Because when one system stops working, the others can't function for long.

Just as organ systems are codependent for survival, so are human beings. Studies have shown that our happiness and health depends on our relationships not just functioning, but thriving.

 Sometimes the best we can do is bear each other's burdens and ease each other's pain. 

And hold each other's hands in the dark.

  There's an end to every storm. 

Once all the trees have been uprooted, once all the houses have been ripped apart, the wind will hush, the clouds will part, the rain will stop. 

The sky will clear in an instant 

and only then, in those quiet moments after the storm, do we learn who was strong enough to survive it.

 In 1967, an orthopedic surgeon crashed his plane in the middle of nowhere with his family on board. He was shocked by how unprepared the local doctors were to treat his injured family. They prioritized what they could see: lacerations, open fractures; and didn't look for hidden injuries like brain trauma or internal bleeding. 

It inspired him to invent the Advanced Trauma Life Support program. 

The ATLS is only the beginning. What happens after that, is all on you. 

To be good at assessing traumas, you have to be good at dissociating. You're not looking at a person on the table. You're looking at a protocol. 

Sometimes the hardest part of working a trauma is finding yourself on the other side. Letting yourself feel. 

Mourn the lives you've lost and celebrate the lives you've saved. 

Even if it's only your own.

 the fact that some geniuses were laughed at does not imply that all who are laughed at are geniuses. 

They laughed at Columbus, 

they laughed at Fulton, 

they laughed at the Wright brothers.

 But they also laughed at Bozo the Clown

 In 1952, Dr. F. John Lewis performed the first successful open-heart surgery using hypothermia.

 By inducing a hypothermic state, the surgical team created a window of several minutes to close a hole in the heart of a five-year-old girl. That one surgery changed the entire course of human history. But as they watched her tiny heart, desperate for it to beat again, it could have gone either way. All they could do was hope. 

When you encounter a new beginning, there's no announcement on a loudspeaker. 

Blink and you could miss it. 

Or worse, ignore it. 

New beginnings can be scary.

 But they can also be deeply fulfilling. 

So let go, and dive in.

 

In the end, 

all you can do is hope for the best 

and trust you're making the right call

In the End - Song by Linkin Park

 It starts with one

One thing, I don't know why
It doesn't even matter how hard you try
Keep that in mind, I designed this rhyme to explain in due time
All I know time is a valuable thing
Watch it fly by as the pendulum swings
Watch it count down to the end of the day, the clock ticks life away

It's so unreal, didn't look out below
Watch the time go right out the window
Tryna hold on, didn't even know
I wasted it all just to watch you go

I kept everything inside
And even though I tried, it all fell apart
What it meant to me will eventually be a memory of a time when

I tried so hard and got so far
But in the end, it doesn't even matter
I had to fall to lose it all
But in the end, it doesn't even matter

One thing, I don't know why
It doesn't even matter how hard you try
Keep that in mind, I designed this rhyme to remind myself how I tried so hard
In spite of the way you were mockin' me
Actin' like I was part of your property
Rememberin' all the times you fought with me

I'm surprised it got so far
Things aren't the way they were before
You wouldn't even recognize me anymore
Not that you knew me back then, but it all comes back to me in the end

You kept everything inside
And even though I tried, it all fell apart
What it meant to me will eventually be a memory of a time when

I tried so hard and got so far
But in the end, it doesn't even matter
I had to fall to lose it all
But in the end, it doesn't even matter

I've put my trust in you
Pushed as far as I can go
For all this, there's only one thing you should know
I've put my trust in you
Pushed as far as I can go
For all this, there's only one thing you should know

 In the end, all you can do is hope for the best and trust you're making the right call.

The hardest thing about waiting is knowing when to stop.

Instinct may tell you one thing, and experience tells you another.

 All you can do is pay attention.

And hope that when the time finally comes, you'll be ready.

 

What transforms this world is — knowledge. 

Nothing else can change anything in this world.

 Knowledge alone is capable of transforming the world, while at the same time leaving it exactly as it is. 

When you look at the world with knowledge, you realize that things are unchangeable

 and at the same time are constantly being transformed.

 

For most of history, doctors had no way to stop pain. 

During surgery, patients felt every cut and stitch until they inevitably passed out. All a surgeon could do to minimize pain was work faster. 

That all changed when the first surgery was performed using ether as anaesthetic. 

Now surgeons faced a new dilemma. If a patient can't feel pain, when do you stop? 

Anything can be a race against the clock if you let it. 

Waiting for a promotion, having a child, eating the last yogurt in your refrigerator. 

Sometimes, you really are running out of time.

 Most of the time, it's all in your head. 

And when you let go of all that fear, the possibilities are infinite.

 There comes a point when the novelty wears off and monotony sets in. 

You go to work, you perform the same procedures over and over, you get home late, eat leftovers straight out of the fridge, go to sleep. 

Then you wake up and do it all over again. 

The second you get lulled into the routine, that's when it happens. 

That's when you 

 changed your life. 

helped you see the kind of person you wanna be.

 When a patient consents to surgery, they're not just trusting their lives to a surgeon. They're trusting an entire team. 

An anesthesiologist must continually monitor sedation, respiratory and heart rate, blood pressure. A first assist suctions and retracts, helping with every suture and staple. A scrub tech organizes and hands over surgical tools, saving valuable seconds and blood spilled. And circulating nurses document the case, keeping track of who touches the patient, what's used and when. 

Every member of the team shares responsibility in the patient's survival. If someone's not there, you're in trouble. 

When something's been in your life for a long time, you can often forget it's there. 

Whether it's a person or a place, sometimes you can take it for granted. You never consider you won't walk in that door again or hear that voice. 

But yet it happens every day. People experience unexpected loss. 

And as impossible as it may seem, don't give up. 

You have to believe you'll find hope again.

 

Always forgive, but never forget,

 else you will be a prisoner of your own hatred,

 and doomed to repeat your mistakes forever

 

A person may appear a fool and yet not be one. 

He may only be guarding his wisdom carefully.

 

No man can reveal to you aught but that which already lies half asleep in the dawning of your knowledge.

The teacher who walks in the shadow of the temple, among his followers, gives not of his wisdom but rather of his faith and his lovingness.

If he is indeed wise he does not bid you enter the house of his wisdom, but rather leads you to the threshold of your own mind.

 

I do not pretend to be able to prove that there is no God. 

I equally cannot prove that Satan is a fiction. 

The Christian god may exist; 

so may the gods of Olympus, 

or of ancient Egypt, 

or of Babylon. 

But no one of these hypotheses is more probable than any other:

 they lie outside the region of even probable knowledge, 

and therefore there is no reason to consider any of them.

 

The hardest thing of all is to find a black cat in a dark room, 

especially if there is no cat

 

Anhedonia refers to the reduced ability to experience pleasure. 

It has had an important place in many aspects of psychopathology since it was first described in the previous century,

and is still a feature of several types of psychiatric disorders and maladaptive behaviors.

  

The waiting can kill you. 

You make a decision and then the world has to turn. The consequences unfold, out of your hands. 

There's only one thing that seems clear in those quiet moments while you wait: whatever you choose, was wrong. 

We just wanna survive the storm. We pray, please God, just get me to the other side. 

We never imagine what it will be like when we get there. 

What if, when the storm passes, nothing's left? 

I always said I could handle anything. I was wrong. I was wrong about a lot of things.

But I was right about one thing

: I was right about this.

 

What are you afraid of losing 

When nothing in the World 

Actually belongs to you

 

October is its sunset sky; 

November the later twilight

 

We suffer more 

in Imagination 

than we do 

in Reality 

 

November 

The noons are more laconic 

and the sunsets sterner  

 

We mourn the blossoms of May because they are to whither;

 but we know that May is one day to have its revenge upon November, by the revolution of that solemn circle which never stops 

— which teaches us in our height of hope, ever to be sober, and in our depth of desolation, never to despair

 

The thinnest yellow light of November 

is more warming and exhilarating 

than any wine they tell of 

The mite which November contributes 

becomes equal in value 

to the bounty of July

 

Peering from some high window, 

at the gold of November sunset 

and feeling that if day has to become night, 

this is a beautiful way

 

In November you begin to know how long the winter will be

November is auspicious in so many parts of the country: 

the rice harvest is already in, 

the weather starts to cool, 

and the festive glow which precedes Christmas 

has began to brighten the landscape

 

 

This is the month of nuts and nutty thoughts 

that November whose name sounds so bleak and cheerless 

perhaps its harvest of thought 

is worth more than all the other crops of the year

November Beaver Moon

 

Wednesday November 5: Beaver Moon - Supermoon

 

Wednesday November 5: Beaver Moon - Supermoon 

 November is chill, frosted mornings 

with a silver sun rising behind the trees,

 red cardinals at the feeders, 

and squirrels running scallops along the tops of the gray stone walls

 Fallen leaves 

lying on the grass in the November sun 

bring more happiness 

than the daffodils

November Rain - Song by Guns N' Roses

 

When I look into your eyes
I can see a love restrained
But darlin' when I hold you
Don't you know I feel the same?

Nothin' lasts forever
And we both know hearts can change
And it's hard to hold a candle
In the cold November rain

We've been through this such a long long time
Just tryin' to kill the pain, ooh yeah
Love is always coming, love is always going
No one's really sure who's lettin' go today
Walking away

If we could take the time to lay it on the line
I could rest my head just knowin' that you were mine
All mine
So if you want to love me then darlin' don't refrain
Or I'll just end up walkin' in the cold November rain

Do you need some time on your own?
Do you need some time all alone?
Ooh, everybody needs some time on their own
Ooh, don't you know you need some time all alone

I know it's hard to keep an open heart
When even friends seem out to harm you
But if you could heal a broken heart
Wouldn't time be out to charm you?
Oh, oh, oh

Sometimes I need some time on my own
Sometimes I need some time all alone
Ooh, everybody needs some time on their own
Ooh, don't you know you need some time all alone

And when your fears subside
And shadows still remain, oh yeah
I know that you can love me when there's no one left to blame
So never mind the darkness, we still can find a way
'Cause nothin' lasts forever, even cold November rain

Don't ya think that you need somebody?
Don't ya think that you need someone?
Everybody needs somebody
You're not the only one
You're not the only one