{"id":4552,"date":"2018-12-27T10:47:47","date_gmt":"2018-12-27T00:47:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/veritysparks.com\/?p=4552"},"modified":"2018-12-27T11:00:27","modified_gmt":"2018-12-27T01:00:27","slug":"merry-jolly-happy-holly-good-wishes-to-all","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/veritysparks.com\/?p=4552","title":{"rendered":"MERRY JOLLY HAPPY HOLLY GOOD WISHES TO ALL"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/veritysparks.com\/?attachment_id=4554\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-4554\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-4554\" src=\"https:\/\/veritysparks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/12\/cocky.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"531\" srcset=\"https:\/\/veritysparks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/12\/cocky.jpg 800w, https:\/\/veritysparks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/12\/cocky-300x199.jpg 300w, https:\/\/veritysparks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/12\/cocky-768x510.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\" \/><\/a>Last year, I sent Christmas wishes with a cocky in a plum tree. I didn&#8217;t get around to anything original this year, and instead from a cache of rather musty-smelling art postcards from the 1960s, found sufficient madonnas and child for everyone. Even less original was my greeting, which was borrowed from a Canadian friend.<br \/>\nHe sent us a very funny home-made Christmas card which wished us a holly, jolly time of turning, reflection and indulgence.\u00a0 Thank you, Dave &#8211; and as Christmas was the day before last, I acknowledge that my good wishes are not only borrowed, they&#8217;re <em>late<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>As usual, the end of the year has caught me by surprise &#8211; how can this be? &#8211; and of course, it&#8217;s not surprising at all because the sun keeps rising and setting, day after day.<br \/>\nWhich is a good thing.<br \/>\nAnd now that the jolly holly is over, there&#8217;s that lovely holiday time in between for lazing and reading. Lots of reading. Over the past week it&#8217;s been completely random &#8211; <em>That&#8217;s Funny, You Don&#8217;t Look Buddhist<\/em> by my favourite Buddhist Jewish grandmother, Sylvia Boorstein, a 1930&#8217;s romance that belonged to my grandmother, and vegetarian cook books. So much for my plan to read more strategically, more thoughtfully, and from my list of important new authors.<br \/>\nFireworks and end-of-year sales and resolutions aside, Happy New Year. Continuing the lack-of-originality theme, from a Buddhist loving-kindness meditation that I like, I quote:<\/p>\n<p>May all beings be well and happy<br \/>\nMay they be safe from harm<br \/>\nMay they be held in compassion<br \/>\nMay their suffering be eased<br \/>\nMay they be at peace.<\/p>\n<p>And that means <em>you<\/em>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Last year, I sent Christmas wishes with a cocky in a plum tree. I didn&#8217;t get around to anything original this year, and instead from a cache of rather musty-smelling art postcards from the 1960s, found sufficient madonnas and child &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/veritysparks.com\/?p=4552\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4552","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/veritysparks.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4552","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/veritysparks.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/veritysparks.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/veritysparks.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/veritysparks.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4552"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/veritysparks.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4552\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4557,"href":"https:\/\/veritysparks.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4552\/revisions\/4557"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/veritysparks.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4552"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/veritysparks.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4552"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/veritysparks.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4552"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}