Category Archives: Holidays

Coronavirus, Family, Health, Holidays, Mountains, Shadow Mountain, Third Phase, Travel, Weather +Climate

A Good Day

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Imbolc and the waning Megillah Moon

Thursday gratefuls: Kate, feeling better with a new placement of her feeding tube. Our 31st anniversary. Vaccine shot #1! Vaccines. Polio. Snow. Big Snow. Living in the mountains.  Ruby, sure footed on the snow. Blizzaks.

Sparks of Joy: Vaccine shot #1! Vaccines. Kate. Seeing her yesterday.

Kate on our 2011 cruise around Latin America, Santa Marta, Colombia

What a day yesterday. A good day. Needed one. Went into see Kate. Can’t miss seeing your wife on your anniversary, right? She looked and sounded wonderful, better than she has for weeks. I took her an empty olive jar filled with wine. Looked like a urine sample since it was white wine. I figured the hospital would be less likely to reject a glass jar than a wine bottle.

31 years. Good ones. We’ve been places together, grown flowers and vegetables, raised many dogs, and have two wonderful sons.

Her self-advocacy convinced the interventional radiologists to snake her feeding tube lower, getting it all the way into the jejunum. We’d expected that placement during her surgery to create the feeding site.

This puts the tube further down, out of the small pouch of her stomach created during her bariatric surgery. Hopefully this will mean less or no leaking, allow a faster feeding pace, and better absorption of the nutrients and calories. Since malnutrition is a major, perhaps the primary, medical issue for her at this point, we may see some significant improvements. Yeah! Go, Kate.

Love is a verb. Love guides and wills you to act. And, love is the act itself. Life without love is a sterile desert, nothing blooms. Flower for those you love.

First vaccine dose. Pfizer. Left arm. No pain or swelling. I sat in a socially distanced chair afterward, a small plastic timer stuck to a doorjamb behind my head. 15 minutes. Carla, the nurse, watched the long hallway filled with just shot folks. My timer beeped and I could go on with the rest of my day. And, I was that much closer with being able to go on with the rest of my life.

Even with the chaos of the weekend and the last three days I felt jubilant. A positive, wonderful step toward dealing with the virus instead of passively trying to stay out of its way. After a year.

45 in the rearview. One of two jabs complete. Kate feeling better. The stimulus passed. A big snowstorm on its way. I could get giddy.

I started yesterday with a trip to Bailey, The Happy Camper. (THC, get it?) Bought my Cheebachews for a good nights sleep. Had to wait until around 10 am so 285 could clear the snow and ice collected over night. That’s the beauty of the Solar Snow Shovel. The continental divide snakes along the horizon just after Pine. Snow covered.

On the way home I stopped at Scooter’s Barbecue. Voted the top barbecue joint in all of Colorado two years in a row. And it’s in Conifer. Odd, but true.

The guy who runs it is a linebacker sized guy, Southern. Thick accent. “I have this catering job, a Mexican wedding in South Park this Saturday. I’ve told them we’ll not be here on Saturday, that they have to pick it up on Friday.” He shook his head, “These people.” I waited for a racial slur, “They just don’t understand March in Colorado.” Ah. Good.

We’ll keep yesterday as one of the good days.

 

 

Cooking, Coronavirus, Family, Health, Holidays, Judaism, Shadow Mountain, Third Phase

Yesterday

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Imbolc and the Megillah Moon

Wednesday gratefuls: Trash. Covid. Vaccines. Kate’s wakeful, but good night. Sleep. Me. Sushi Win. Their Special roll. Spring rolls. Purim box from CBE. And, one from the Kabbalah Experience. Memories of Covid. Early ones. Seoah among them. Cold. Blue Sky.

Sparks of Joy: Rigel prancing. Kep lying on my legs. Kate excited. Vaccines.

 

Kate, costumed for Purim

 

Spent yesterday, some of it anyhow, moving and rearranging and tossing. Stuff that has needed doing but I’ve not felt the energy for. Found that energy. Felt good. Not done, but will finish this week.

Drove over to Congregation Beth Evergreen to pick up a Purim box. Each member has one. A mask, groggers, and I don’t know what else. Got another box from the Kabbalah Experience with masks and paints for Purim. Will explain all in the Friday megillah post.

In the same direction as Sushi Win so I got takeout. Sushi Win is an above average sushi joint. A special treat that it’s up here at all, so we order takeout every once in a while. Big tips, too. We want to see them survive the pandemic. Us, too.

Couple of Sheriff’s vehicles at Derek’s yesterday. No idea why.

Kate woke up with an idea about how her terrible bout of herpes might be involved with her current condition. She’s going to get her medical records from Abbott-Northwestern, see if they can help. I sure hope so.

A meme from Facebook: Mars is the only planet we know inhabited entirely by robots.

News of the strange: Saw an article in the Washington Post about an Oklahoma man who killed a neighbor, cut out her heart, cooked it with potatoes, and served it to his uncle and his family to get the demons out. Apparently didn’t work because he then killed the uncle, the uncle’s four year old grand-daughter, and stabbed his aunt in both eyes. WP, 2/24/2021

 

Cinema and Television, Commentary on the news, Coronavirus, Dogs, Family, Great Wheel, Health, Holidays, Judaism, Myth and Story, Reimagine. Reconstruct. Reenchant., Shadow Mountain, US History, Weather +Climate

The Frozen Rose of Texas

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Imbolc and the Megillah Moon

Sunday gratefuls: All the Megillah’s. More snow. More cold. A good sleep. Cold chicken. Red Lobster biscuits. My Ecuador alpaca coat. My new LLBean insulated plaid shirt. My duckies. Love the cold, don’t love being cold.  Vaccines. Covid. 45 gone. 46 in. Judah and the Black Messiah.

Sparks of Joy: Fresh, white Snow. Rigel jumping up on the deck like a 5 year old. Life.

 

 

Those vaccines. Hard to come by up here in the mountains. Not yet. We’ll get them though. Sooner, I imagine. Haven’t gone the obsessive click now, click again, click now, click again route. We’ve survived Covid so far doing what we’re doing. Gonna keep at no visits, grocery pickups, only essential medical visits. Probably for a while after the vaccine, too.

Love that they’re out there. That we’re eligible. That others are getting them. That more will get them. Might be Happy Hanukah and Merry Christmas. Ho, Ho, Ho. or Dreidel, Dreidel, Dreidel. If that happens, I’ll still enjoy the darkness of the Winter Solstice, but I’ll be right there with the light worshipers, too. Can you imagine how festive a season that will be?

Meanwhile a hyper clean, car sized robot will roam Mars punching holes in its surface and storing soil in special containers for the second part of a three stage project. The second stage is a lander that picks up those containers and the third stage returns them to Earth for NASA and European Space Agency labs. 2025-2027. Far away from the virus infected planet it left last July. Smart Perseverance.

And, maybe, just maybe, our nation will have made progress on sorting out its painful contradictions. I watched Judas and the Black Messiah yesterday on HBO Max. Fred Hampton was 21 when J. Edgar conspired with the Chicago P.D. to eliminate him. 21. When I watched, I kept saying yes, Fred, yes. Power is people. Capitalists, no matter their color, exploit the people. A Rainbow Coalition. Yes, Fred. Then he died in his bed, never waking up, his pregnant Deborah arched over his body.

Of course, the move reminded me of the damning curse of racism, but it went further, much further. Fred brought together Puertoricans and poor whites. He saw the thread that wove together the oppressed and was able to speak to it, to help others see it. No wonder they killed him.

What if the Proud Boys and the Black Panthers saw common cause? They could. It’s corporate capitalism that keeps them both down. What if those of us on the far left joined, too. And Chicanos. And Asians. And Native Americans. There would need be no violence. That sort of self-awareness would win at the ballot box.

I know. Texas. How would you like a $16,000 bill for keeping the heat on? See the paragraph above.

Colorado, Dogs, Family, Health, Holidays, Jefferson County, Politics, Shadow Mountain, US History

Life in the Mountains

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Imbolc and the Megillah Moon

Saturday gratefuls: Psalms. Rabbi Jamie. Gwen, Ayelet, Dean, Jan, Cherie. The class. Much needed, as I said before. Jackie. Hair stylist and lovely human. Covid survivor. Kep and Rigel, Kate. In our family crate. Yeti blue microphone, a stand. Dreams of podcasting.

Sparks of joy: A new hair cut. Kate’s revived color. Vaccines. Ruth. Hawai’i. Always there, waiting. My poem, Death’s Door. The Trial of 45.

 

 

Couple of odd mountain anecdotes involving emergency vehicles.

Told you I bought Kate one of those help I’ve fallen and I can’t get up buttons. It has three receivers. One in the loft, one in the kitchen (for when I have the fans on), and one in the great room. She’s turned over on it a couple of times and alerted me. Learning the system.

A couple of days ago I’d gone downstairs to watch TV. I heard the alarms sound from upstairs. Kate was up there! I ran up. Kate sat quietly at the table, playing solitaire. What? An emergency vehicle had gone by, lights and sirens. Something in its passing, like calling to like, had set off the alarms.

Second story. On Thursday we went into Swedish hospital for another visit with Kate’s pulmonologist. On the way home there were again lights and sirens, Hwy 285 closed ahead of us with pylons and ambulances; police cars just under the overpass where we turn to go back to Shadow Mountain.

I noticed the flight for life helicopter circling above us. It went west over 285, then came back as we routed around the traffic backup. As we made our way back to Barkley Road, it came down, then went back up again as if searching for a place to land. Even though there was a clear stretch of highway.

Jackie, our hair stylist whom we saw yesterday, told us that a man driving a truck that repairs windshields had plowed into the back of a CDOT truck. The workers were repairing the cable that prevents cars from going into the lanes of opposing traffic.

The truck driver died. As we watched, a flight for life was made unnecessary and went back to its home.

 

Impeachment and Trial. Guilty. You know it. The GOP knows it. Even Trump knows it. See his phone call to Minority leader Kevin McCarthy:

“…in her statement Friday night, Ms. Herrera Beutler recalled a conversation she had with Mr. McCarthy, where the Republican leader described Mr. Trump telling him, as the attack on the Capitol was unfolding, that members of the mob were “more upset about the election than you are.”” NYT, 2/13/2021.

This is state of mind. No uncertainty. Just glee. Put him in jail. Orange for the orange menace.

Rolling the years over for the 74th time tomorrow. That’s beginning to be high mileage. I’m good for another couple a decades, if not more. At least that’s how I feel. Of course, we’ll see.

Gonna cook a special Valentine’s dinner for my sweetheart and always Valentine, Kate. And, for me, too.

Beyond the Boundaries, Commentary on Religion, Great Wheel, Holidays, Myth and Story, Our Land and Home, Poetry, Shadow Mountain, Writing

Imbolc 2021

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Imbolc and the Wolf Moon

Monday gratefuls: Easy Entrees bacon wrapped pork tenderloins. Green Beans. Kate’s no nausea days. House cleaning today. LLBean and my new shearling hurricane shirt. The Ancient Ones tell stories around the council fire. Tom’s story. 45 gone. 46 doing stuff I like. Feel better. Imbolc.

The Ewes, the pregnant Ewes. Milk for their Lambs. Means Milk for all. For Cheese. For children. Imbolc. In the belly. In Ireland this is and was the birthing time for Sheep. The Lambs came; the Ewes freshened; the family fed on food not stored over the long fallow time.

It was clear the promise of the day after the Winter Solstice was not false. There would be another spring, another freshening of the earth. All would be well, all manner of things would be well.

What a precious and delightful time. Lambs gamboling. Suckling. Milk squirted directly into children’s mouths. All delighted by the miracle of birth and renewal.

Hard to put ourselves in the place of people who subsisted on stored Grains, Vegetables, smoked Meats over the long fallow time begun on Samain, Summer’s End, and lasting until today.

Brigid, the Triple Goddess. Her day. This from a wikipedia article:

She is the goddess of all things perceived to be of relatively high dimensions such as high-rising flames, highlands, hill-forts and upland areas; and of activities and states conceived as psychologically lofty and elevated, such as wisdom, excellence, perfection, high intelligence, poetic eloquence, craftsmanship (especially blacksmithing), healing ability, druidic knowledge and skill in warfare.

Poetry, the smithy, and the hearth were her domains, thus the Triple Goddess. The often week long festivals the Celts celebrated on their four cross quarter days: Imbolc, Beltane (May 1), Lughnasa (August 1), and Samain (October 31st) gave villagers a break from their subsistence lives. A chance to play, to sing, dance, trade, honor their gods and goddesses.

Imbolc was also a time for discerning weather, peeking into the immediate future. Hoping for Spring, but knowing it could still be distant. It was this tradition that has translated in the U.S. into Groundhog Day. Here’s a Scottish proverb that suggests the link. Bride is Brigit.

Imbolc is a good day to consider those freshened thoughts and projects you have. What came up for you during the dark, fecund days of Winter? Are there dreams or hopes or works you imagined then that need a push right now? You can ask Brigit for help. It’s her big day and she’s listening.

If you have an artesian well nearby or know of one, you could also follow the ancient Celtic practice of dressing the wells. On these holidays the Irish, the Welsh, The Scots, the Cornish, the Manx, and Bretons would, in ancient times, take flowers to the well, make corn dollies representing Brigit and leave them there, tie rags with wishes and prayers to shrubs and trees nearby.

These Holy Wells are pathways to the Otherworld, the world of Faery, and a place where the Holy Ones pay attention to the needs of the common person.

Brigit, the Triple Goddess, is a Fire Goddess, and at Kincaid in Ireland a double monastery, men and women, kept her eternal flame alive throughout the year. Might be a good day to have a Fire in the Fireplace, her hearth, and consider the creativity her Holy spirit represents.

Welcome all to the blessed season of Imbolc. May your projects blaze up and warm you and yours.

Commentary on Religion, Great Wheel, Holidays, Myth and Story, Reimagine. Reconstruct. Reenchant.

And so it ends, on the Twelfth Night

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Winter and the Moon of the New Year

Christmastide ends, Day 12: The Epiphany, Twelfth Night

Wednesday gratefuls: Anger. Trust. Feelings. Love. Rigel. Kep. Kate. The comforter. Cooler. Murdoch’s journey. Christmastide. Pagans. Seekers. Mountain Waste. The stars in their courses. 30 Coins. Eyes. Ears. Brain. Heart. Feet. Hands.

If you’ve followed these, we are at the end, the Twelfth Night of Christmastide. The Orthodox celebration of the incarnation. The three kings came, found the Child of Wonder, left. But on their way out they spoke with King Herod. Yes, the Child exists. Yes, he’s a king. Then left by another route to return home, to say they had found their way to this signal of a new age.

Herod takes the news hard. No infant kings allowed. Male babies under the age of two must die. And so the slaughter of the innocents which we acknowledged and whom we celebrated on Day 3, Children’s Day.

In Merry England the Twelfth Night was another time for the emergence of the fool, for the inversion of roles, for letting go of the amazement of Christmastide in preparation for the now imminent return to ordinary time. We saw this same impulse on Distaff Day and in the male equivalent, Plough Monday.

Shakespeare’s play, Twelfth Night, follows these themes with an exotic setting, gender role reversals, and a role for Feste, the fool. Written in 1601, it was for a performance on Twelfth Night.

Matthews offers another Robert Herrick excerpt:

Ceremony on Candlemass Eve

Down with the Rosemary, and so

Down with the Baies, and Mistletoe:

Down with the Holly, Ivie, all.

Wherewith ye drest the Christmas Hall

That so the the superstitious find

No one least branch there left behind:

For look how many leaves there may be

Neglected there (maids trust to me)

So many Goblins you shall see.

Any needles or leaves left in the Christmas Hall would, on the day after Twelfth Night, turn into goblins. A sound reason to finish taking down all the decorations.

Mine are all stored away except two: a shelf sitting Victorian Santa and the string of colored lights over my south facing loft window. Not sure whether I’ll leave them up or not.

If we take the other thread, the pagan/supernatural thread, during Christmastide, Yule, this marks farewell for the Solstice, too. We now know the Sun has committed for another year, the crops and the livestock will feel the heat, the warmth, the energy, the vitality. Whatever fears we had as the nights grew longer and the days colder, have given way to confidence that Spring and Beltane will come once again.

We integrate in this new year the lessons of the darkness. The going deep within ourselves, down to our roots, considering ourselves and our Souls in the most radical way, will nourish our accomplishments in the light of the world.

I hope Christmastide has a somewhat new meaning for you. And that your new year, this ordinary time, will bless you and yours.

 

Garden, Great Wheel, Holidays, Myth and Story, Plants, Politics

Distaff Day

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Winter and the Moon of the New Year

Christmastide, Day 10: St. Distaff’s Day

Monday gratefuls: CBE services online. Kate’s sisters. Bridgerton. Writers. Books. Ovid. Tolstoy. Ford. Cather. Oliver. Shelley. Whitman. Emerson. Camus. Berry. Electricity. Lights. Darkness. Stars. Ruth’s wisdom teeth. Out today. 16 days. Farewell, so long. Auf wiedersehen. Please be a stranger. Welcome, sanity.

 

 

Distaff day. Not sure about the St. That sounds like a Catholic appropriation to me. A quick search indicates that’s correct. There is no St. Distaff. The addition of St. to this more ancient day reveals patriarchal and misogynistic appropriation. Not to put too fine a point on it.

 

Partly work and partly play
Ye must on S. Distaff’s day:
From the plough soon free your team,
Then come home and fodder them.
If the maids a-spinning go,
Burn the flax and fire the tow;
Scorch their plackets, but beware
That ye singe no maidenhair.
Bring in pails of water, then,
Let the maids bewash the men.
Give S. Distaff all the right,
Then bid Christmas sport good-night;
And next morrow everyone
To his own vocation.

Robert Herrick, Hesperides

 

Written in the 17th century by poet and cleric, Robert Herrick, this poem gives you the essence of Distaff Day. On this day the Midwinter festival came to an end. Women returned to spinning and weaving. Hence, distaff day. The men, a few days later, would celebrate Plough Monday when they returned to the fields with their teams of oxen.

A return to ordinary time. To domestic and agricultural labors. But not without some play. On Distaff day the men would set fire to the flax or wool the women tied to their distaffs for spinning. The women would have buckets of water ready. To put out the wool and flax, yes, but also to dump on the rowdy young men. Not sure, but it seems neither gender was quite ready to give up the play of the festival time.

Plough Monday, the traditional start of agriculture in England, fell on the first Monday after the Epiphany. This year Plough Monday falls on January 11th. A plough might be pulled through the village by young men, one dressed as a Fool and another as a purser.

The purser would go from house to house collecting money. If the money received seemed adequate, the young men would plow an acre, then dance around it. If the villagers were miserly, they would plow up the street.

I’ve been readying my space for a return to ordinary time after Christmastide. Each morning I’ve taken down a bit of the decorating I did. This morning I removed two wooden bowls in which I’d placed Christmas ornaments. On other days I’ve returned Santa globes to their shelves, folded up Christmas cloth and packed it away.

Tomorrow: the Eve of the Epiphany

Commentary on Religion, Dogs, Garden, Great Wheel, Holidays, Minnesota, Mountains, Our Land and Home, Plants, Shadow Mountain, The West, Weather +Climate

Evergreen, Pine, and Conifer

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Winter and the Moon of the New Year

Christmastide, Day 9: Evergreen Day

Sunday gratefuls: Coffee. Cold coffee. The Denver Post. All print newspapers still at it. An informed citizenry. Trump, for exposing our weakness. 17 days. Buh, bye orange one. 2021. 2020 in the rear view.  Tara. Marilyn. Rabbi Jamie. Lobster and ribeye.

Vega in the snow

Once again. Pine, Conifer, Evergreen. This is our day in Christmastide. This day and the Snow day have no festivals associated with them, so we celebrate aspects of midwinter that bring us joy.

Matthews cites an interesting Cherokee story about the origin of the evergreen. The Great Spirit created plants and wanted to give them each a special gift, but could not decide which gift would go to which plants.

Second and third year cones. Cones have a lot of resin.

Among the trees, the Great Spirit decided on a contest. He asked all of the trees to keep watch over creation for seven days. After the first night, all the trees remained awake, excited at the opportunity. On the second night some fell asleep, but woke right back up.

As the nights went on, most of the trees began to fall asleep, unable to stay alert for so long. By the seventh day, all but the pine, the cedar, the spruce, the holly, and the laurel had fallen asleep.

“To you,” the Great Spirit said, “I shall give the gift of remaining green forever. You shall guard the forest even in the winter when all your brothers and sisters are sleeping.” And so they do to this day.

At our elevation the Lodgepole guard the Aspen whose golden leaves in the fall proceed their winter sleep. At lower elevations the Ponderosa, the Spruce stand guard. At the treeline ancient Bristlecone Pines patrol. In other parts of Colorado the Douglas Fir, the Engleman Spruce, the Pinon Pine, the Rocky Mountain Juniper, and the White Fir watch. The Great Spirit reminds us each Winter of the Evergreens special gift.

Here is a special Solstice salutation from Italy’s sixteenth century:

 

I salute you!

There is nothing I can give you which

You have not.

But there is much, that while I cannot give,

You can take.

No heaven can come to us, unless our hearts find

Rest in it today.

Take Heaven!

No peace lies in the future which is not

Hidden in this present instant.

Take Peace!

The gloom of the world is but a shadow.

Behind it, within our reach, is joy.

Take joy!

And so at this Christmastime, I greet you,

With the prayer that for you, now and forever,

The day breaks, and the shadows flee away!

Matthews, p. 200

Anoka County, Beyond the Boundaries, Great Wheel, Holidays, Jefferson County, Mountains, Myth and Story, Our Land and Home, Reimagine. Reconstruct. Reenchant., The Move, The West, Weather +Climate

Let It Snow

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Winter and the Moon of the New Year

Christmastide Day 8: Snow Day

Saturday gratefuls: Rigel’s sleeping habits. Keps. Mine. Kate’s. All different. Dogs to feed. Humans to feed. The night Sky. The International Space Station speeding past Ursa Major this morning. The waning full moon. Sleeping through the night. Amazing. Writing, back to Jennie’s Dead. A new schedule. Working. Ribeye and Lobster, today. Held over.

 

April 2016 Shadow Mountain

Remember Frau Hulda, aka Mother Christmas, from Day 2? Also called Frau Holle in Germany. Midwinter Snows are the feathers shaken from her bedspread. We’ve still got a few feathers on the ground here.

Today we celebrate Snow.

Got into Jack London as a boy. Read Call of the Wild and fell hard for his descriptions of the North. Remember Buck? I fantasized about Pine Trees, Lakes, Dog sledding, and, Snow. Snow that lasted. Snow that did not turn into the slushy melt of Indiana Januaries. Winter as a real season, not a sometimes cold, sometimes chilly, sometimes wet, sometimes icy season.

We had family vacations that took us to Stratford, Ontario for the Shakespeare Festival on the banks of the Avon. Our journey often took us to the MS Norgoma ferry from Tober Mory, Ontario, across the Georgian Bay of Lake Huron and onto Manitoulin Island.

In Stratford we camped in the Ipperswich Provincial Park, also on Lake Huron. Those travels plus Jack London’s novels put living among Pine Trees and Lakes as a stronger desire than I realized while the impressions formed.

2012, Andover

As an adult, when I got the chance, I moved to Wisconsin, Appleton, and from there on to Minneapolis/St. Paul. I lived in the north for over 40 years, a place Jack London and Lake Huron had taught me to love.

The Winters were real. That first Winter in Appleton the temperature dropped to well below zero for a full week and we got a foot of Snow over one weekend. I discovered engine block heaters and knew folks that took their batteries out at night and brought them inside. This was 1969.

Minnesota is cold. It Snows, yes, but the big difference there is that the snow sticks around. The temperatures remain well below freezing for weeks, months. And the Sun hangs low in the Sky. When the Winds howl and the Snow blows, it can, as friend Tom Crane observed, blot out all the boundaries: fences disappear, roads, roofs, front yards and back yards.

January, 2015. Shadow Mountain

After our move to Colorado, we’ve experienced a different Winter. On Shadow Mountain, the second Winter we were here, 2016, 220 inches of Snow fell, four feet in one storm. Minnesota typically gets between 40 and 50 inches.

But. After the Snow in the Mountains, we get warmer weather. Often, a Snow fall, no matter how big, disappears in less than a week. The Solar Snow Shovel. The Sun’s angle is a bit higher than Minnesota and we’re a good bit higher at 8,800 feet. Colorado’s blue Skies mean we get a lot of Sun shine even in the deepest midwinter. This is the arid West. Humidity outside today is 19.

What’s your Snow story? Today’s a good day to go out and play in the Snow if you have some. Perhaps a Snowball fight. A Snowman. Skiing. Snowshoes. A hike.

Tomorrow: Evergreen Day.

Anoka County, Bees, Great Wheel, Holidays, Memories, Minnesota, Myth and Story, Plants, Reimagine. Reconstruct. Reenchant.

Here’s to Thee, Old Man Apple Tree

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Winter and the Moon of the New Year

Christmastide, day 7: New Year’s Day

Friday gratefuls: Sherlock Holmes. Cribbage. Ribeye and lobster. Mashed potatoes. Deli salad. Tony’s. Cold. Snow. Low wildfire risk. Rigel between us, sharing her head. Kate’s pillow. Mine. Kep at his spot. 19 days til 1/20 at 9 am. See the back of his head. Tom’s mother, Evelyn. Tom. His sister.

 

           Andover, 2012, Bees and Apple Blossoms

 

Paul, here’s an English New Year’s ritual for you. Wassail. You may have heard the word used in relation to wild parties. That’s good too of course. But. In England folks go out to the oldest apple tree in their orchard, usually around noon, and pour cider from a bowl around this tree.

In Devon and Cornwall they add bowing three times to the “Apple-Tree Man.” I like this. The idea is to encourage a large and healthy crop for the fruit season. Pieces of cake and toasted bread were hung from the branches. This was called wassailing the tree. Wassail comes from wase haile, or good health.

They sing:

Here’s to thee, old apple tree

Whence thou may’st bud and

Whence thou may’st blow.

And whence thou may’st

Bear apples anew.

Hats full, Caps full, Bushel,

Bushel sacks full.

And my pockets full too?

Huzzah

Or.

Blow, bear well,

Spring well in April,

Every sprig and every spray

Beat a bushel of apples against

Next New Year’s Day.   

Matthews, 193 for both

 

Another New Year’s custom from the Faery Faith involves dressing the wells. In the ancient Celtic way artesian springs were considered dwelling places for faery folk and pathways to the Otherworld. Like some Native American nations, prayer rags tied to trees and shrubs near the well were common. Also, bouquets of flowers, small candles.

In 1995 I visited St. Winifride’s Holy Well in Holywell, Flintshire, Wales. Called by some Catholics the Lourdes of Wales, her well has a stone well casing about three feet high and a large pool which the well fills. When I was there, wheelchairs and crutches lined one of the walls.

St. Winifride’s Holy Well is one of the few locales mentioned in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. Sir Gawain goes there on his journey to find the Green Chapel. Winifride was a Celtic legend long before the Roman Church and the connection to the tale of the Green Knight involves her beheading by Caradoc, a jilted lover.

The spring rose from where her head hit the ground. Her uncle Beuno, probably a Druid, reattaches her head, and healing became associated with her well.

May the healing power of Beuno and the well of Winifride wash over this new year, this new decade. May our 2021 heal as much as it can, cheer as many as it can, especially on January 20th at noon.