This darkest part of the year evokes a feeling of magic and awe, terror and mystery.

It is a strange cocktail, which can provoke joy in some and misery in others.

The ghost story forms a part of popular entertainment at Christmastide. Perhaps there is a need in us to evoke something that cannot quite be grasped and that can only exist in the dark, fading all too quickly once in bright light. And yet, it is no less important for its insubstantiality. A mystery, by its nature, cannot be known. It can be summoned by a potboiler whodunnit but, once the mystery is solved, our hunger returns for more of the same and so we are compelled to repeat the process.

For some of us, it started young. We met it in our childhood stories and many of the greatest children’s writers evoked this feeling, and it has never really left us since then.

‘Then suddenly the Mole felt a great Awe fall upon him, an awe that turned his muscles to water, bowed his head, and rooted his feet to the ground. It was no panic terror—indeed he felt wonderfully at peace and happy—but it was an awe that smote and held him and, without seeing, he knew it could only mean that some august Presence was very, very near. With difficulty he turned to look for his friend and saw him at his side cowed, stricken, and trembling violently. And still there was utter silence in the populous bird-haunted branches around them; and still the light grew and grew.

Perhaps he would never have dared to raise his eyes, but that, though the piping was now hushed, the call and the summons seemed still dominant and imperious. He might not refuse, were Death himself waiting to strike him instantly, once he had looked with mortal eye on things rightly kept hidden. Trembling he obeyed, and raised his humble head; and then, in that utter clearness of the imminent dawn, while Nature, flushed with fullness of incredible colour, seemed to hold her breath for the event, he looked in the very eyes of the Friend and Helper; saw the backward sweep of the curved horns, gleaming in the growing daylight; saw the stern, hooked nose between the kindly eyes that were looking down on them humourously, while the bearded mouth broke into a half-smile at the corners; saw the rippling muscles on the arm that lay across the broad chest, the long supple hand still holding the pan-pipes only just fallen away from the parted lips; saw the splendid curves of the shaggy limbs disposed in majestic ease on the sward; saw, last of all, nestling between his very hooves, sleeping soundly in entire peace and contentment, the little, round, podgy, childish form of the baby otter. All this he saw, for one moment breathless and intense, vivid on the morning sky; and still, as he looked, he lived; and still, as he lived, he wondered.

"Rat!" he found breath to whisper, shaking. "Are you afraid?"

"Afraid?" murmured the Rat, his eyes shining with unutterable love. "Afraid! Of Him? O, never, never! And yet—and yet—O, Mole, I am afraid!"

Then the two animals, crouching to the earth, bowed their heads and did worship.’

(Chapter 7: The Piper at the Gates of Dawn - The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame)

It is a powerful thing, this mystery. Yet this chapter from one of the most famous classic childrens’ tales is often left out of editions of The Wind in the Willows. Perhaps it is thought to be too pagan and strange for good children to hear. The vision of the Great God Pan vanishes as the Sun appears, and Rat and Mole, having recovered Mr.Otter’s baby, now return to the world, but they are changed by this encounter.

 The 38th Koan in the Mumonkan (The Gateless Gate) finds Master Goso telling his monks about a water buffalo passing through (or by) a window. The horns, head, body and four legs can pass through but the end of the tail cannot pass through.

The general interpretation here is that all things can be described - such as horns, head, body and legs, but there is something that cannot be described. What is more, if one tries to do so, then that which the tail points to escapes. When that happens, the life disappears, and we have to look for such vitality again.

Only recently, we had the Buddha’s awakening under the Bodhi tree. The story continues with the newly awakened Buddha in a quandary. What he has seen cannot be put into words, so what is he to teach? Only when the Great God Brahma comes down to earth and exhorts him to teach, not what he saw, for that is not possible, but the way to the same insight, can the Buddha rise up to begin his teaching life.

Although we cannot describe or grasp it without chasing it away, we can learn to be in its presence. But this is not easy! The desire to grasp it is often overwhelming, since to grasp is to understand, to put it into a little box which makes it safe for ‘I’ to be in its presence.

In the Vimalakirti Sutra, a Mahayana scripture, the protagonist, Vimalakirti, describes the supernormal powers of the Bodhisattvas. One of the powers is the perfection of Patient Endurance. Vimalakirti specifically describes this ability to withstand the presence of impenetrable mystery.

It is not that words destroy mystery, for mystery is too powerful for that, but rather that it becomes obscured. What is more, the revelation of mystery means the destruction of little ‘I’.

Many years ago, I attended an interfaith event. We attended various workshops, as one does at these things. In one, the Methodist minister asked each one of us to describe how we experience the ‘holy’ in our daily lives.

There was a young man there. He told us the following: “Sometimes I sense an extraordinary love for all humanity and all things. It is the most terrifying thing because it is a fire that comes in and I know that if I let it come in fully, I will be burned away because I cannot bear it”. He became quite emotional at this point and, even as he described his experience, I felt the hairs on the back of my neck and arms stand up on end and my own heart beat faster. Just his description seemed to evoke this uncanny and awe-full power into the room.

One cannot walk towards it. Hence, Rat and Mole instinctively bow down before it. Only a reverential heart can truly allow us to be in its presence. This reverential bow empties out ‘I’, at least to some extent, and into the resulting quiet spaciousness something enters. Or, perhaps, it has always been there but now is partly revealed.

Wishing every one of our readers seasonal greetings and goodwill to all beings!