Friday Ramble - Last of the Year

It seems appropriate to end this calendar year in sunshine, a single beam of pale winter sunlight falling across the Clyde river in the Lanark highlands. Ice and snow are slow in forming at this bend, for the river is an old one, and her currents run fast and free. She is a wild goddess, a veritable crone among rivers, and she is not the slightest bit intimidated by winter weather and subzero temperatures - she will resist freezing over for as long as she is able to draw breath and taunt the season with her impetuous winding ways.

On the coldest day of the year, I can stand here and listen as the river sings her way along under the ice, and she often seems to be singing a duet with the wind. There's a kind of Zen counterpoint between the two wild voices, two unbridled entities utterly independent in their contours and rhythm, but meticulously interwoven and seamless in their soaring harmonies. Putting all notions of complex orchestration and liquid choreography aside, there's lovely music in the air on these icy winter days.

The sound of moving water has always been a leitmotif for me, and I often think that life can be measured in rivers and currents rather than cocktails, jewelry, pairs of shoes and coffee spoons. The thought of my dear little river in the highlands singing her way along under the ice is always a joy and a comfort, and it seems right to be in this place on the last day of the year.

In springtime, I have sat here and watched as the river overflowed her banks and published her claim to the fertile fields on both sides. In early summer, I have counted bales of hay, photographed deer and wild turkeys feeding along the shoreline, watched the sun go down over the trees. Once I sat here and cried my eyes out after learning that one of the people I love best in this whole world had passed beyond the fields we know, and again a few days later when my darling Cassie traveled across the Rainbow Bridge. One autumn not so long ago, I parked myself here for hours and tried to collect my thoughts when an imperative medical treatment stopped working. True to form, I was not really worried about expiring (I knew I would be back in some form or other), but I felt as if I was going round the bend from the stress of it all and was sure I would pass away as mad as a hatter. The river worked her magic, and I am still here of course, but it could be reasonably argued that I remain more than a little peculiar.

Happy New Year, and thank you for sharing the journey with me this year. May there be joy and health and abundance in your life this coming year. May all good things come to you!

Thursday Poem - At the End of the Year

The particular mind of the ocean

Filling the coastline's longing

With such brief harvest

Of elegant, vanishing waves

Is like the mind of time

Opening us shapes of days.

As this year draws to its end,

We give thanks for the gifts it brought

And how they became inlaid within

Where neither time nor tide can touch them.

The days when the veil lifted

And the soul could see delight;

When a quiver caressed the heart

In the sheer exuberance of being here.

Surprises that came awake

In forgotten corners of old fields

Where expectation seemed to have quenched.

The slow, brooding times

When all was awkward

And the wave in the mind

Pierced every sore with salt.

The darkened days that stopped

The confidence of the dawn.

Days when beloved faces shone brighter

With light from beyond themselves;

And from the granite of some secret sorrow

A stream of buried tears loosened.

We bless this year for all we learned,

For all we loved and lost

And for the quiet way it brought us

Nearer to our invisible destination.

John O'Donohue,

from To Bless the Space Between Us

Wordless Wednesday - Ambrosia

At the Edge of the Woods

On This Day

This Day Before

The best greeting of all for this day before Christmas is the one used by a friend to conclude her messages all year long, "Wishing you love and light...". To her words, I add my own this morning:

"Wishing you a lighted tree and a fire on your hearth, a comfortable chair nearby and tea in your cup. Wishing you the companionship of clan and kindred spirits and friends from far and near. Bright blessings in this holiday season. May all good things come to you!"

Thursday Poem - At the Winter Solstice

Owl hoots three times in the far woods,
fair warning for all small creatures
scurrying to their burrows.

Are we not still and always
those crouching figures
who flee the heavenly alchemy?
Three times in the crackling air,
Owl hoots for us.

*
Wind plays the drums of snow...
staccato taps,
crescendo off the roofs,
flourish of shuddering branches.
Ice snaps its castanets,
its daggers.

Atonal music of the darkest days
needs the most fearless,
subtle listeners.

*
Those strumming flamenco
fingers of sunlight
are a long time away from now.

Now we go comforted
in dreams and ceremonies,
flaming our star-speck candles,
raising our voices against that other music,
drowning out the forever
at night’s heart.

*
Look up! The wheel is turning.
The spectacular crowd of stars,
the tangle of dimensions
jostle for our attention.
Salute the birth of everything holy.

This beautiful poem was written for the Winter Solstice by Dolores Stewart Riccio and was published in her exquisite Doors to the Universe. It is posted here with the kind permission of the poet.

December's Moon of Long Nights

There was a full moon somewhere up there last night, and as it was the last full moon of 2010, Spencer and I were outside in the garden watching for it to come into view. Alas, the night skies were full of cloud, and there was no moon to be seen. In the wee hours of the day, we had also been outside to watch the scheduled lunar eclipse, and it was the same story - the eclipse came and went behind dark clouds and we didn't see it. It is only once in several hundred years that December's full moon, the midwinter solstice and a lunar eclipse all occur on the same date, and it would have been a wonderful thing to watch, but we shall have to wait for another lifetime to do so.

The thirteen moons of a calendar year wear many different names, faces and personalities according to one's culture, where one lives in the world and what the seasonal activities of one's native place are. There are common threads or themes to lunar lore though, and the moon's names provide food for thought about the nature of community, hearth and connection. The names in use among the diverse northern cultures of my own native place speak eloquently of timeless rhythms and the natural calendar of the seasons, of springtime and green things springing from the earth, of planting and sowing, of harvesting, hunting and gathering, of rest, hibernation and regeneration.

December's moon falls at a dark time of year in the north, and for me it will always be the Long Nights Moon. It makes me happy to think that when January's full moon arrives, daylight hours will be lengthening again and we will be on our way to Spring and warmth. Having said that, we will be making our slow and careful way through bitter cold, deep snow and high winds, and there is a long way to go. Now and then, there will be confetti skies at sunrise, and the dark vaults of heaven will be full of stars at night. Such celestial happenings make journeying through the Great Round a joyous undertaking, and in all the frenetic "toing and froing" of this holiday season, that is a fine thought to cling to.

We also know this moon as the: Ashes Fire Moon, Bauhinia Moon, Bear Moon, Beginning of the Winter Moon, Big Bear's Moon, Big Winter Moon, Birch Moon, Center Moon's Younger Brother, Cold Moon, Cold Time Moon, Bitter Moon, Deer Shed Their Horns Moon, Dumannos Moon, Eccentric Moon, Elder Moon, Frozen over Moon, Heavy Snow Moon, Holy Moon, Hellebore Moon, Her Winter Houses Moon, Hunting Moon, Ice Lasts All Day Moon, Ice Moon, Little Finger Moon, Little Spirits Moon, Long Nights Moon, Long Snows Moon, Midwinter Moon, Moon of Cold, Moon of Long Nights, Moon of Much Cold, Moon of Popping Trees, Moon of Putting Your Paddle Away in the Bush, Moon of Respect, Moon When Buffalo Cow's Fetus Is Getting Large, Moon When Deer Shed Their Horns, Moon When Little Black Bears Are Born, Moon When the Young Fellow Spreads the Brush, Moon When the Wolves Run Together, Moon When the Sun Has Traveled South to His Home to Rest Before He Starts Back on His Journey North, Narcissus Moon, Night Moon, Oak Moon, Paulownia Moon, Peach Moon, Poinsettia Moon, Popping Trees Moon, Poppy Moon, Real Goose Moon, Sap Moon , Sjelcasen Moon, Small Spirits Moon, Solstice Moon, Snow Moon, Star Frost Moon, Turning Moon, Twelfth Moon, Under Burn Moon, White Orchid Tree Moon, Winter Maker Moon, Winter Moon, World Darkness Moon, Yule Moon

Wherever you live in the world, and whatever form your own celestial rites or observances take, I wish you joy on your journey at this turning of the Wheel.

For Yule

The time of darkness is past. The winter solstice brings the victory of light.

After a time of decay comes the turning point. The powerful light that has been banished returns. There is movement, but it is not brought about by force... the movement is natural, arising spontaneously. For this reason the transformation of the old becomes easy. The old is discarded and the new is introduced. Both measures accord with the time; therefore no harm results.

The idea of RETURN is based on the course of nature. The movement is cyclic, and the course completes itself. Therefore it is not necessary to hasten anything artificially. Everything comes of itself at the appointed time. This is the meaning of heaven and earth.

The winter solstice has always been celebrated in China as the resting time of the year. . . . In winter, the life energy is still underground. Movement is just at its beginning; therefore it must be strengthened by rest, so that it will not be dissipated by being used prematurely. . . . The return of health and vibrancy after illness, the return of understanding after estrangement: everything must be treated tenderly and with care at the beginning, so that the return may lead to a flowering.

24. Fu / Return (The Turning Point)
The I Ching or Book of Changes

Wishing you the light and warmth of a brightly burning hearth on the longest night of the year. Yuletide blessings to you and your clan, may there be light in your life and much joy on your journey in the coming year.

Cate

Keeping Watch

In the midst of a romp in the highland snows with his friend Emma this weekend, our boy Spencer heard a pack of coyotes singing merrily across the hills and stopped in his tracks.

Gone was the madcap lad with snow on his nose, and in the place of that lad, a fierce and noble paladin on duty and keeping watch over his realm. He and Emma (another German Shorthair), stood side by side on the brow of the eastern hill, and they made an impressive pair of guardian spirits. At the end of the coyote song, they added a few resonant notes of their own and then returned to tunneling through the drifts, scattering newly fallen snow in all directions.

We are (of course) a wee bit prejudiced, but we think our furry son is the most beautiful boy ever, and what a magnificent profile.

Early Light

Thursday Poem - December at Dusk

A lambent moon just rising in the east tonight,
she pours her light across the sleeping garden
and the hills beyond, shadows painting the fence in
pansy purple and dusky indigo, the fragrant cedars
beyond rustling like thin silk in the hollow wind.

an inky darkness is moving along in the snow

under the trees, there's a light tinkle, the swaying

movement of wind bells suspended from the rafters

over my head, a sense of wildness and fey knowing

in the cold and starry fabric of this winter nightfall.

It's the journey's face, its true and ardent shape,

these lights and darks, those peaks and valleys,

the meandering trail into the bosky hills being

followed by an elderly shapeshifting acolyte—

she who is alone, yet magically enfolded on this

cold night in December's middling pages.

Sometimes, just sometimes, being alone in

the hills at night out under the waxing moon

confers a sense of community, a wild and gentle

benediction. It makes a passionate wanderer

long to dance and howl, rejoicing in the light.

kerrdelune

Wordless Wednesday - Peaceful

Fragile

A Yuletide Reading List

As promised, here is a short list of favorite reading materials for this festive time of the year when we are all thinking of light, community and feasting. Some of these books are out of print, but sometimes they can be found in used book shops online, and they are often happy campers in your local library.

The Oxford Book of Days,
Bonnie Blackburn and Leofranc Holford-Strevens

Echoes of Magic: A Study of Seasonal Festivals through the Ages,
C.A. Burland

Ancient Ways: Reclaiming Pagan Traditions
Pauline and Dan Campanelli

Wheel of the Year: Living the Magical Life
Pauline and Dan Campanelli

The Return of the Light: Twelve Tales from Around the World for the Winter Solstice,
Carolyn McVickar Edwards

Kindling the Celtic Spirit,
Mara Freeman

A Calendar of Festivals, Traditional Celebrations, Songs, Seasonal Recipes and Things to Make,
Marian Green

The Sun in the Church: Cathedrals As Solar Observatories,
John L. Heilbron

Celebrate the Solstice: Honoring the Earth's Seasonal Rhythms through Festival and Ceremony,
Richard Heinberg

Celestially Auspicious Occasions; Seasons, Cycles & Celebrations,
Donna Henes

Stations of the Sun: A History of the Ritual Year in Britain
Ronald Hutton

The Winter Solstice
Ellen Jackson

The Dance of Time: The Origins of the Calendar: A Miscellany of History and Myth, Religion and Astronomy, Festivals and Feast Days,
Michael Judge

The Solstice Evergreen: History, Folklore and Origins of the Christmas Tree,
Sheryl Karas

Perpetual Almanack of Folklore
Charles Kightly

Sacred Celebrations: A Sourcebook
Glennie Kindred

Celebrations Of Light : A Year of Holidays Around the World
Nancy Luenn and Mark Bender (Illustrator)

The Winter Solstice: The Sacred Traditions of Christmas,
John Matthews and Caitlin Matthews

Christmas in Ritual and Tradition
Clement A. Miles

Yule: A Celebration of Light and Warmth (Holiday Series),
Dorothy Morrison

The Battle for Christmas
Stephen Nissenbaum

Sacred Origins of Profound Things: The Stories Behind The Rites and Rituals of The World's Religions,
Charles Panati

The Shortest Day: Celebrating the Winter Solstice,
Wendy Pfeffer and Jesse Reisch

Pagan Christmas: The Plants, Spirits, and Rituals at the Origins of Yuletide,
Christian Rätsch and Claudia Müller-Ebeling

All Around the Year, Holidays and Celebrations in American Life,
Jack Santino

Circle Round: Raising Children in the Goddess Tradition,
Starhawk, Anne Hill and Diane Baker

Keeping Christmas: Yuletide Traditions In Norway And The New Land
Kathleen Stokker

When Santa Was A Shaman: Ancient Origins of Santa Claus & the Christmas Tree,
Tony van Renterghem

The Fires of Yule: A Keltelven Guide for Celebrating the Winter Solstice,
Montague Whitsel

Waiting

Thursday Poem - Containing Winter

make of this bitter winter day,
a container wild and sweet —
like a chalice carved in old wood

gift it with a song, one
woven of wind and tumbling snow —
breathe vibrant life within

hold it, oh so gently,
fluttering warm there in your hand —
then set it free to soar aloft

bow deeply to the day,
and embrace what it is telling you —
this is all there is

kerrdelune

Wordless Wednesday - Warmth

This Little Light

Gold in the Snow

This image of Kinkakuji, Kyoto's Golden Pavilion, arrived a few years ago with holiday greetings from a Japanese law firm with whom I did a fair bit of intellectual property work in the bad old days when I engaged in corporate employment downtown. Deadlines and court filings were piled up to the ceiling when I opened the envelope on that December day and extracted the little jewel of a card, but in that precious fleeting moment, all the cares of the day passed away like smoke. I caught my breath in delight and knew that the image was a "keeper", something I would retain and cherish and revisit, time and time again.

The original Golden Pavilion formed part of a retreat complex created in 1397 for the shogun Ashikaga Yoshimitusu, who had just abdicated the throne in favor of his son. It contained a pagoda or two, living quarters, temples, a bell tower and formal gardens. When the old shogun died a few years later, the pavilion became a Zen temple in accordance with his wishes, and so it remains to this day, a revered shariden formally called Kinkaku-ji (,Temple of the Golden Pavilion) or Rokuon-ji (,Deer Garden Temple).

Enshrining relics (ashes) of the Buddha, the temple exudes a timeless sense of peace by the lake in its exquisite garden setting. The present structure is covered in gold leaf and looks old, but is a replica erected in the fifties after a mad monk torched the original.

There is companion piece on the wall here in my studio, an old and fragile woodblock (see image on the right) which used to hang in my high rise office downtown. At difficult moments in my working life, the images always conveyed peace and serenity, and now they continue to give both pleasure and peace here at home.

There is nothing on my little gem of a card to indicate who the artist was. I don't really need to know, but I do wish I could say "thank you". It (the card) arrived at just the right moment, and it continues to bring pleasure now, years later.

The Gentleman Caller

Wordless Wednesday - Raining