Introduction
At the beginning of each month I like to locate myself, metaphorically, within what is happening around me: the annual cycles, the celebrations and festivals of the calendar, the arc of the stars, the waxing and waning of the moon and the passage of nature whispered on the wind.
This is the first instalment of a regular monthly almanac I write to share with you. It is, in the main, a figurative contemplation, seasoned with some of the more prosaic anchor points and markers that I personally cherish.
Inspiration comes from many sources and I have listed some of these below.
Here we look ahead to the month of December in the year 2023.
Calendar
Friday 1 December - Start of meteorological winter
Sunday 3 December - First Sunday in Advent
Thursday 21 December - Capricorn season
Friday 22 December - Winter Solstice (3.27am) / First day of Yule / Start of astronomical winter
Sunday 24 December - Christmas Eve
Monday 25 December - Christmas Day
Tuesday 26 December - Boxing Day / St Stephen’s Day
Sunday 31 December - New Year’s Eve
Sky Calendar
Friday 1 December - Close encounter between Moon and red giant star Pollux
Monday 4 December - Best evening to see Mercury
Tuesday 5 December - Moon: Last Quarter (5.49am)
Saturday 9 December - Moon and Venus get close just before dawn
Tuesday 12 December - New Moon (11.32pm)
Sunday 17 December - Moon and Saturn adjacent after sunset
Tuesday 19 December - Moon: First Quarter (6.39pm)
Thursday 21 December - Vesta asteroid may be visible (8.40pm)
Friday 22 December - Jupiter comes up close to the Moon
Wednesday 27 December - Full Moon (12.33am): Oak Moon or Full Cold Moon or The Moon After Yule
The Rover’s Almanac: December 2023
Look.
The sun tracks low across the sky, making days cold and still.
The moon is in decline: its final waning of the year. On the first day of December it will pair with the giant red star Pollux. They will sit together in the sky, side by side, as gods.
After the summer solstice tipping point back in June, darkness prevails, ushered in without compromise by Samhain and Hallowe’en last month.
The mouth to the underworld is now yawning wide. Hades, the lord of darkness, beckons from within its enshrouded depths.
Behind him, deeper still, the Grim Reaper offers metamorphosis to those who will step down and take his cold killing hand.
Step down into the cauldron of regeneration that will scour the soul; separate flesh from bone.
Descend.
If you do not there will be no death; no resurrection.
Now is the time, while the robins still sing to each other in courtship and the holly berries are ripe and beautiful. Next month the berries will be gone, she will stop singing, and you will have missed your chance to dance with the devil.
Reflect.
The new moon with its fresh start arrives close to midnight on 12th December, rising above the eastern horizon with the sun the following morning.
So it’s out with the old and in with the new. The old is familiar and comfortable, like a favoured woollen jumper.
Put it on. It’s threadbare. There are moth-eaten holes at the back, right over the kidneys. The cold seeps in, sapping strength. It’s no longer serving its purpose. There’s an opportunity to create something new.
Take that old jumper and start pulling at the threads. Tease out the knots and watch it unravel. It’s hard to feel it come apart in your hands. Notice the discomfort and keep going. With searching fingers sort out what can’t be used, discard, and keep the rest.
With deft discernment the yarn will soon be ready for the warp and weft. Transform the old; weave something new.
First death, then resurrection.
The year continues to turn: farmers plough fields and repair dry stone walls, tawny owls mark out their territory in turn, fieldfares throng in flocks several hundred strong, advent candles begin to burn, turnstone shorebirds crisscross the mouth of the harbour in search of food, Sagittarius gives way to Capricorn the steadfast goat and Old Man Winter sends young Jack Frost to nip fingers and toes.
The wheel of the year grinds almost to a halt on 22nd December and the twelve days of Yuletide begin: the festival an atavistic appeal to the gods to sustain us through the longest and coldest nights of the year.
Although the tallest trilithon at Stonehenge is no longer standing, the ghosts of these imposing monoliths silently capture the setting sun.
All hail the winter solstice.
The sun stands still. There is tension in the air. We are poised for this shift. We’ll pay close attention to what feels heavy across the shoulders, what burdens we are carrying, what ails us.
In his poem, The Rainy Day, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882) writes:
The day is cold, and dark, and dreary;
It rains, and the wind is never weary;
The vine still clings to the mouldering wall,
But at every gust the dead leaves fall,
And the day is dark and dreary.
Faced with this we secretly start dreaming of the return of the sun. Ancient memories of ancestral ceremonies gathered around a fire are set alight: drumming, dancing and singing together in midwinter prayer.
Time to gather evergreens that symbolise everlasting life; bring in the holly and the ivy for they are both full-grown, hang the branches, make a wreath, lop the mistletoe from the oak tree and mount above the lovers exchanging confidential glances, bring in a yule log for the fire, light candles, gather with family, kith and kin, celebrate friendships, celebrate the sun.
Before you know it, Christmas is coming, the goose is getting fat, please put a penny in the old man’s hat.
This year Christmas Eve falls on Sunday, Monday is Christmas Day. Tuesday is Boxing Day and also the best time to see the last full moon. This one goes by at least three names: oak moon, cold moon and the-moon-after-yule. It peaks on Wednesday 27th December.
Under that moon, withdraw, be still, drink the darkness in.
As D. H. Lawrence wrote in a letter to Lady Cynthia Asquith, this is the winter of our era:
It has been two thousand years, the spring and summer of our era. What, then, will the winter be? No, I can’t bear it. I can’t let it go. Yet who can stop the autumn from falling to pieces, when November has come in? It is almost better to be dead, than to see this awful process finally strangling us to oblivion, like the leaves off the trees.
Rather than suffer strangled oblivion, go out in search of the hooded man who roams the innermost depths of the forest: the outlaw who can guide you into the dark recesses of your fear and incomprehension, where wisdom awaits.
Be bold, like winter fox faced with lean pickings who takes necessary risks in the darkness.
Later, emerge from underneath the shadowy eaves of the trees reborn, blinking, back into the light, to begin the work of breathing life back into the frozen heart of the world.
When dawn breaks and the sun rises anew, promising another day, only then, return to the warmth of the den.
Only then.
Sources
The Almanac: A Seasonal Guide to 2023 by Lia Leendertz
Sacred Earth Celebrations by Glennie Kindred
The National Trust Book of Nature Poems edited by Deborah Alma
Folklore Myths and Legends of Britain published by Readers Digest
The Wild Wood Tarot by Mark Ryan and John Matthews
Sky Guide (App)
BBC Countryfile