The holiday season is a time where there is a lot of focus on the act of giving and receiving. Do you prefer to give? Can you receive graciously? Can you give with an open heart from a place of love without expectation? Can you receive the same way?

This is all a true reflection of your feelings of abundance and your ability to give and receive with joy and balance. Pay attention to your feelings during the amplification of giving and receiving over the holidays and it will help you gain clear insight into your overall thoughts about your own flow of abundance. This will allow you to easily see where you may need to adjust to be able to move into joyful giving, and receiving, all year long. ~Archangel Gabriel

By Jack Adam Weber L.Ac., Dipl. C.H.

Contributing Writer for Wake Up World

Most holidays in first world countries are about having fun, and most involve explosives. Maybe this is the extreme stimulation we need to feel excited. Our holidays largely lack spiritual context and meaning, save for expressing our love to one another and sharing good times. Religious holidays that literalize religious myths don’t fare much better in terms of helping us deal with reality.

We are missing the sacred in our celebrations, which would honor the things and experiences for which we are truly grateful, that truly fulfill us and give us life, as if we were truly grateful... which collectively we may really not be. Our Earth-honoring rituals have all but disappeared in the modern world and visits to the natural world for many are akin to going to Disneyland. How might we make a shift?

The freshness of the coming year is heralded well before its dawn.

Transitions are rarely cataclysmic, overnight changes like the celebration of a 31st night would have us believe. More often, there are gradual shifts towards a tipping point, followed by an adjustment period of recalibration to a newer way of being.

So for those of us who found 2014 to be an impactful year, the suggestion would be to take the last few days of this year to assimilate and consciously integrate your growth.  There would be habits and complaints to leave behind.  There would be dreams and fears that have now largely dissolved.  There would be relationships that have ended, or begun or changed in irrevocable ways.  There would be unexpressed grief, as also celebrations left incomplete.

Importantly, more loudly than ever before, this year you may have begun to notice the whisper of a voice that invites you to the possibility of a completely new way of being and living.

DARKNESS TO LIGHT   If you wish to change your status on the Earth, you will need to release the dark energy that inhibits you from accepting the blessings of free-flowing love. We highly suggest you spend much time reflecting on your own inner darkness rather than what others have done, for you have no control over their choices, only your own. This is the time to begin, for there is no other thing on Earth that is more important.

You are the creator of your reality. Yes, there are things that are beyond your control due to the mass consciousness of large groups. However, these issues cannot affect you on a deep level, if you choose to believe otherwise. Disease, depression, oppression are all belief codes you can hold dear to your heart or reject. Look inside deeply, observe your beliefs and choose whether to continue with those belief codes or to discard them and replace them with new codes.

You do have the power and ability to create a utopian society for yourself even amongst all the angst of the world. Seek like-minded individuals who are not in the doom and gloom of the unthinkable acts of those who have taken control of the masses. Talk to these like-minded individuals, learn what they have done and are currently doing to avoid being caught in the web of hysteria. Make friends with these people. Move to another location if you feel that where you are is not in your best interest. Pay attention to your passions. What do you truly desire? Once you find your passions, take steps to make them a part of your reality.