Wind from the West, fish and bread;
Wind from the North, cold and flaying;
Wind from the East, snow on the hills;
Wind from the South, fruit in the tress.
___ Scots new year weather omen
New Year's Day is a time of reading the omens for a fresh beginning. It is widely held that the first twelve days of the year will reveal the disposition of the weather for the year ahead. This is a good day to go for a long walk, to divine the possibilities of the year ahead in a very simple way.
Before you set off on your walk, stop and tune your intentions to the unfolding year ahead; sense the pathway of the year that stands ready before you. Now begin your walk, attentive to everything that is about you, including the mythscape, story, folklore, and feeling of the land. Keeping the year ahead in your consciousness, allow your attention to widen to include everything about you. If you come across somethat draws your attention with urgent filaments of greeting - it might be the sudden movement of a bird, the beauty of a patch of moss, the intensity of the light through trees - stop and be attentive to what caught your attention.
Listen and attend to the greeting and intuitively reach out for and feel its meaning - a meaning that might not be experienced in words or even in sound but may come to you as a subtle understanding. Appreciate it, note it, and then pass on. Keep repeating this throughout your walk until you have had twelve such experiences. Each time stop, attend and intuit (without fishing for a rational explanation) why your attention has been engaged. Then return home and review the omens in the order you experienced them, relating them succesively to the months of the year. Next New Year's Eve you can check your findings.
"Take a walk as suggested above."
[From: "The Celtic Spirit" by Caitlin Matthews]
Month of January - smoky is the vale;
Weary the wine-bearer; strolling the minstrel;
Lean the cow; seldom the hum of the bee.
__ anon. Welsh poem
January sees the growing of the cold. This month's meditation themes include the soul's circuit, beginnings and approaches, the gifts of youth, mediators, mutual care and separateness, and clarity.
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