"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 on trees."
Scots new year weather omen
New Year's Day is a time of reading 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 and tune your intentions to the unfolding year ahead; sense the pathway of the year that stands about you, including the mythscape, story folklore, and feeling of the land. Keeping the year ahead to your consciousness, allow your attention to widen to include everything about you. If you come across something that 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 the 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 walks until you have had twelve such experiences. Each time stop, attend and intuit (with 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 successively 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]
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.
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
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