The Creation Spirituality Lineage Calling All Social and Environmental Activists, Mystic Explorers, Justice Makers, Cosmic Thinkers, Earth Keepers Daily Meditations with Matthew Fox |
The Multiple Dimensions
to
the Christmas Archetype By Matthew Fox 12/27/2025 Did you miss Matthew Fox on "What is the Real Meaning of Christmas?" Holistic Edge Radio host and producer Enoe Aracely Brown interviewed Matthew Fox on Christmas Day. Listen to the recording here. |
Christmas has multiple dimensions to it. Its stories in Luke’s Gospel, Matthew’s Gospel, and John’s Gospel are varied and absolutely loaded with archetypes that are nothing short of delicious. |
Roman Catholic biblical scholar Raymond Brown used to stress how one finds in the Nativity stories hints and summaries of the entire Jesus story to come, including, of course, the clash between Jesus’ teachings about peace and compassion vs. the Empire’s |
|
teachings about greed, war, and power-over. Furthermore, the Christmas stories add up to new creation stories as well, part of the promise of a “new heaven and a new earth.” Just as the Hebrew Bible contains multiple creation stories (check out Psalm 104, for example, and the Song of Songs and
much more), so too does the Christian Bible. Christmas is just too rich and powerful an archetype to ever go away. Even the onslaught of capitalist consumerism, eager to appeal to consumer addictions and thereby drown the story in buying and selling sentimental silliness, cannot fully erase the depths of the remembrance and meanings of
Christmas. As I indicated in yesterday’s DM, the story recounts the most important moment in human history, no matter whether one takes it literally or figuratively. |
Even from birth, Jesus was seen as a threat to Rome: ‘Scène du massacre des Innocents’ Léon Cogniet. Wikimedia Commons [Public domain] | Among topics and archetypes stirred up by the Christmas story are the following: Cosmic visitations from angels; the cosmic invite from a very bright star; the role of motherhood, its trials and its promises (see the Magnificat as well as the nativity moment); how women are necessary leaders destined to bring the divine more fully into history; the power of evil and empire builders who will even kill babies to
achieve their ends; courage of fathers |
(Joseph) to protect their wife and newborn baby and willingness to listen to dreams; the important role that the most vulnerable in the society (shepherds) play; the role of animals in human and cosmic history—ox, donkey, sheep, as witnesses to the divine (See Is 1.1); and how the Holy Spirit is the spirit of creativity who brings the divine into the world and how Christ is born in us as well as in Mary; how divinity is “novissimus” as Meister Eckhart
says, the newest and youngest thing in the universe always. And so much more. In the Christmas day DM, I shared M.C. Richards' two paintings on the theme of doxa or glory, so key to an experience of the Cosmic Christ—one pictures Mary and her “golden” baby, and another the angel announcing “Doxa”
to the shepherds. M.C. took up the theme of doxa regularly in her paintings and in her poetry. She painted one picture of a red barn surrounded by a golden halo, a sign of doxa and glory. |
On the occasion of her 80th birthday, M.C. reproduced a poem and handed it out to the participants (of whom I was one). The poem tells of a painting she created about the doxa to be found in nature, and the poem was so special to her that she printed it and framed it for that singular occasion. She called it, “In Celebration of the Poet’s Eightieth Year.” Here is the poem: THEY ARE SLEEPING I have painted the female
hills
stretched and piled against the sky.
They are sleeping.
I have given them golden haloes.
They are saints.
They are sleeping.
I have painted the gold in clouds and crevasses as well,
meaning to say how they too are saints,
how the world sleeps,
how womanly is the landscape,
how a whiskered angel also sleeps as a field of grain. |
“They Are Sleeping,” poem by M.C. Richards. From Imagine Inventing Yellow: The Life and Work of M.C. Richards, (Worcester Center for Crafts, 1999), p. 35 “They Are Sleeping,” painting by M.C. Richards. From Imagine Inventing Yellow: The Life and Work of M.C. Richards, (Worcester Center for Crafts, 1999), p. 35. |
She tells the story of this painting this way: A landscape! A neighbor suggested I paint the hills on our horizon. I did, and they look like women’s bodies lying stacked and sleeping. In the spirit of deep ecology and divine cosmology I gave them golden haloes. They are saints!—not literally—they are the holy presence of the earth, her body.* One is reminded of what Thomas Merton wrote: “Every non-two-legged creature is a saint.” |
*Imagine Inventing Yellow: The Life and Work of M.C. Richards, (Worcester Center for Crafts, 1999), p. 35.
Banner Image: The Holy Family with angels, shepherds, and animals rapt in glory: “The Nativity.” Painting by Lorenzo Monaco, c. 1408. Wikimedia Commons |
Queries for Contemplation What archetypes in the Christmas stories speak most deeply to you? Which ones
do you think are most needed for humanity to fashion a future of survival for itself and Mother Earth and other creatures today? Responses are welcomed. To add your comment, or read other comments and enter into dialogue, please click HERE to go to our website and scroll down to the Comments field. |
|
| Counterpoint: A Response to Peter Thiel’s Antichrist An Important Conversation with Matthew Fox and Gil Duran Did you miss this two-session series with its powerful counter-narrative rooted in wisdom, justice, and |
authentic spirituality? This is your
chance to add it to your library of classics to be watched, re-watched, and contemplated. Fox explores the archetype of Christ and Antichrist as it plays out in our world today but also in artists of old. He draws from the teachings of Jesus and Hildegard of Bingen, Meister Eckhart, Carl Jung, and other mystics and visionaries, illuminating the stark contrast between life-giving and life-destroying spiritual energies. Purchase HERE. |
UPCOMING EVENTS See Matthew Fox's full calendar HERE |
Join Matthew Fox in a free 4-session Online Lecture/Discussion/Q&A event, “Creation Spirituality and the Celebrating & Healing of Mother Earth & Ourselves,” co-presented by the Episcopal Diocese of Wisconsin and Matthew Fox Legacy Project. Wednesdays, January 14, 21,28, February 4, 2026, 4:00pm-5:30pm
PT January 14 - Creation as an Original Blessing and the Springboard of Awe and Wonder January 21 - Sacred Mother Earth: The Holiness of Creation and Recovering the Cosmic Christ January 28 - The Cosmic Mass, and the Stations of the Cosmic Christ: Reinvigorating Liturgy and Rituals February 4 - Jesus as a Teacher of Democracy and the Renewal of Education and Values through the “10 Cs” Register HERE |
MONTHLY: Join Matthew Fox and Skylar Wilson of the Order of the Sacred Earth in a free virtual meeting for connection and networking with other mystic warriors. Last Tuesday of every month, 4:00-5:00pm PT.
Join Zoom Meeting HERE, Meeting ID: 886 6530 2478 Learn more at www.orderofthesacredearth.org |
Awakening the Divine Human: An Immersion in the Living Wisdom of Creation Spirituality …a week-long retreat in Sardinia, Italy, May 25-30, 2026 Join us on the sacred
island of Sardinia for a deeply immersive 6-day retreat rooted in the teachings of Matthew Fox, C.G. Jung, and the ancient wisdom of the land. Set along the turquoise shores and among the Neolithic sites of this timeless Mediterranean island, this retreat invites you into a transformative journey of reconnection—with Earth, Self, Gender, and the Divine. Learn more HERE. |
Creation Spirituality Conversations |
Join Matthew Fox in a 6-Class Course: The Great Christian Mystics, exploring some of the richest and most inspiring mystic-prophets in the Christian lineage, including Hildegard of Bingen, Julian of Norwich, Mechtild of Magdeburg, Thomas Aquinas,
and Meister Eckhart. Course includes six modules of pre-recorded lessons. Sign up HERE. |
|
|
Inspired by this post? Share your insights on BlueSky, Instagram, Universeodon, or Facebook using the hashtag #RevDrMatthewFox and tag Matt with @RevDrMatthewFox FOLLOW MATTHEW FOX: |
|
|
|
