The first of December always feels like a soft reset. It is not as loud as January, but still a doorway. This year, that doorway opened into our third real family meeting.
The Household as a Small Universe
Five of us around the table, sometimes six when Peter circles back into the household. And as usual, I noticed how the room shifts not by what we say, but by the tone each of us brings into it.
A household is a projection screen. Five people shine their inner weather onto the same canvas. What we call family life is simply the overlapping shadows.
That is why I began practicing the seven breath technique with Nadia in the mornings and evenings. One minute of silence, breath by breath, and awareness drawn inward to the space behind the eyebrows. Different cultures name it differently: pineal gland, inner eye, third eye, chi, life force. The vocabulary changes, but the idea stays the same.
How you look at the world shapes the world you think you are seeing.
And if you believe that the world is shaped by billions of minds at once, then starting at home makes sense. Five projectors. One shared screen.
How a Family Learns to Speak
Our meetings now include a new ritual. Rhetoric in its oldest meaning. The art of forming thought in speech. The art of listening for intention.
We run quick fire debates. Opening statement, argument, rebuttal, closing. Nothing elaborate. Just the practice of thinking out loud while others think back.
Two controversial statements sparked energy this week:
- Bullying can be good.
- Spanking can be good for children.
Not because the topics are pleasant, but because they force us to separate meaning from semantics and intention from behavior. Dirrick defended bullying (for the sake of the debate). Nadia attacked it. By the end she changed her mind because she believed he made fair points well.
But intention is the whole point.
A bully never intends to help. A coach sometimes looks rough on the outside but the heart behind it is pointed in a different direction. These small distinctions matter. They are how a family learns to think together. They are how five projectors begin to align.
Next time the meeting president will also serve as debate leader. Structure and empathy grow through repetition.
What Magic Reveals
Three things I watched this weekend ended up sitting in the same corner of my mind, even though they came from completely different shelves.
- Harry Potter (the very first one: The Philosopher’s Stone)
- Bugonia.
- The Age of Disclosure.
At first glance you could not place them further apart. Children’s fantasy, conspiracy thriller, military UFO testimony. Different planets. Different moods.
Underneath is the same question.
How do we decide what is real.
Harry Potter and the hidden face
Voldemort emerging from the back of a man’s head is older than the franchise. It is myth. The inner twin. The genius. The shadow self. It stirred a memory from my own symbolic period where I saw subtle faces forming where they should not be. Not demons. More like archetypes pressing through.
Stories reveal us. Especially the stories we avoid for twenty years.
Bugonia: deadly truth from the wrong direction
The twist in Bugonia lingers.
(SPOILER ALERT) The conspiracy theorists were…
… right about the what but wrong about the why. The alien emperor was real. Their interpretation of her intent was disastrous. You can be right about the fact and wrong about the meaning. Humanity does this often. And the last image of bees and bears and dogs continuing without us loops back to the old Greek myth. Bees arising from carcasses. Life from silence. Mind from matter.
The Age of Disclosure
This documentary lands differently because the voices are not forum posters. They are trained observers stating things in plain language. Yes, we have seen vehicles. Yes, their physics are not ours. Yes, we are trying to reverse engineer them. Yes, space-time can be folded.
It is not dramatic. It is almost bureaucratic. That is why it feels real.
Nadia, Mother Nature, and the Enemy
But the moment that stayed with me the most was quieter. Nadia listening to Enemy by Imagine Dragons, staring at this beautiful morning sky.
So I asked her:
Who do you think is the enemy of Mother Nature?
Her immediate answer was: Bad nature.
A simple line from a seven year old and the whole human paradox sits inside it. We love the planet. We harm the planet. And we are the planet. Nature does not have enemies. Nature has consequences. I told her that Mother Nature will be fine. It is us who must become more conscious.
Sometimes wisdom arrives without metaphysics. Sometimes a child answers the question adults overcomplicate.
The Thread That Ties It All Together
This entry could have been three separate essays. It probably should have been.
But December began with convergence. Family rhetoric. The seven breaths. Childhood magic. Greek myths. Aliens. Disclosure. Empathy. Projection.
All of them move around a single center. How do we navigate reality when reality is shaped by perception, narrative, and intention.
Whether it is a family meeting, a debate about spanking, a wizard with a hidden face, or a documentary with calm officers discussing impossible craft, it all circles back to the same practice. Learn to see clearly. Learn to think together. Learn to breathe before responding. The first of December opened the door.
Now we walk through it, one breath at a time.
What's on your mind?