New Moon - Celia Rees

Waning Crescent

This is the moon as it appeared in the early morning sky two days ago. A waning crescent. This morning you would see nothing because today, at 06:30, there is a new moon. The new moon is not visible. It is the time when the sun and moon are aligned, with the sun and the earth on opposite sides of the moon. 

New Moon

The Greeks called this dark time, the Old Moon and it was associated with Hecate, the Goddess of the witches. In India it is associated with Kali. In Celtic mythology, Cerridwen. In many mythologies, the moon is claimed by the divine feminine, the darker aspects of the Goddess, associated with the dark time of the moon. The Greek Goddess, Artemis was a Lunar Goddess, as were Carthaginian Tanit and her Phoenician sister, Astarte/Ishtar. All are shown with the crescent moon.  

Artemis

Tanit

Most people think of the waxing crescent as the new moon, the first sliver of silver visible after the astronomical new moon has taken place. The changing cycle of the moon has to be our oldest measure of time, along with the changing seasons and the movement of the sun across the sky. The appearance of the crescent moon in the sky is still highly significant for many religions and cultures. It defines the beginning of each month in the Islamic Calendar. In the Hindu Calendar, people begin new projects at the new moon. It marks the beginning of the month in the Chinese Calendar. In the Hebrew Calendar, it marks Rosh Chodesh or Rosh Hodesh, the beginning or head of the month. 

Waxing Crescent

Across the world, in different cultures and belief systems, from the distant past to the present day, the new moon was and is considered a propitious time.

“The new moon is the beginning phase of the lunar cycle, when seeds are planted and intentions set.

The new moon carries a fresh energy and potency, one that may spark a clarity of purpose and being within us. This sky is darker at this time, turning us inward to our own creative light.

Darkness is associated with the divine feminine, with seeing the unseen, and heightened psychic ability. The new moon is a time to tune into your inner messages and the frequencies that want to connect with you. To cultivate these manifestations, set aside time for an intention-setting and a new moon ritual to honor your intentions for this new lunar cycle.”

TheSpiritScience.net

Can the moon influence human beings? Can it affect our behaviour? We all know the origin of the term 'lunatic' and the full moon was the time when werewolves (and other were creatures) transformed from human to beast. The scientific community says a definite 'no', particularly to werewolves, but the moon is powerful. It controls the tides, it even moves the continents. Many marine animals exhibit moon or tide related behaviours even when they are kept in aquaria. Can it affect us? Despite the scientists, there is anecdotal evidence. Medical staff in hospitals and teachers in schools have reported behaviour changes at certain times of the month and some police forces draft in extra officers when the moon is full. 

I don't know if we are affected by the moon's cycle, but this new moon, coming so close to the winter solstice, seems as good time as any to make affirmations and set intentions in preparation for the time of renewal and re-birth that marks the year's turning from darkness to the light. 

Celia Rees

www.celiarees.com

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The Day the Sun Stands Still, by Laurie Graham

Do you know where you are? At your kitchen sink, or as you wait at the bus stop, can you say without hesitation where the sun will rise?

One of the most interesting books I read this year was Graham Robb’s account of the sun-centred world of Celtic civilisation, The Ancient Paths. It was a world in which awareness of the sun and its path was embedded even in the language. In the Gaulish language that was spoken by the Celts between 600 BC and 600AD words like ‘left’, ‘right’ and ‘behind’ carried far more meaning than they do for us today.  Dexsuo, for instance meant ‘behind’ but more specifically it signified ‘Where the sun sets.’ Dheas meant ‘to the right’ but more specifically ‘to the south.’  In other words all of Celtic life and language were ‘oriented’ to face the rising sun.

Which brings me to my theme today: the winter solstice.  A few days when sol stit, the sun stands still.

To people who were so conscious of the sun, its annual, predictable path was of practical use. Towns and buildings were laid out in alignment with the cardinal points and the solstices were the best time to take accurate bearings. Newgrange is aligned to sunrise on the winter solstice, Stonehenge to the solstice sunset.
 

But the winter solstice was more than a surveyor’s tool. It must also have been a source of anxiety.  As people watched the sun rising further and further to the south-east and setting further and further to the south-west there must have been a few doom-mongers who said, ‘What if it gets stuck? What if it never comes back to us? Is it any wonder that in so many cultures mid-December became a time of anticipation and preparedness (what women’s magazines now call The Countdown to Christmas) followed by celebration and relief. The heavens are on the move again. The sun is reborn. A Son is born.

From the old winter festivals it's possible to detect fragments that have adhered to our Christmas customs.

The Romans celebrated Saturnalia, at which the season’s greeting sounded something like ‘i-Yo!’ Familiar? Ding dong merrily on high, let steeple bells be swung-en. And io-io-io, by priest and people sung-en.

The Germanic and Nordic peoples celebrated Yule, a feast that continued as long as the ale and the meat lasted and the Yule log (probably more a tree trunk than a log) burned.  Light, warmth, the rare treat of eating one's fill. We can still hear echoes of the ancient fears and joys of the winter solstice, even in these days of electric candles and festive filo parcels.

I always like to add a sound file to my December post, and what more appropriate than the macaronic Boar’s Head Carol. Its words have only a glancing connection with the Nativity and even though it is sung every year in the privileged splendour of the Boar’s Head Feast at Queen’s College, Oxford, to me it seems to belong firmly to a pre-Christian time, to a forested world of wild beasts and long dark winters. Here it is, performed very beautifully by Magpie Lane.  

A BEAN FEAST FIT FOR A KING… FEVES – Dianne Hofmeyr

If you buy a cake on 6th of January, chew carefully, you might find a porcelain charm in your mouth.

I’m jumping ahead to the 6th to the feast of Epiphany when the arrival of the three kings, la fete des rois was celebrated with a cake. The custom dates back to the Middle Ages when a cake made of flaky pastry filled with frangipane paste, was cut into equal slices and placed on a table. Originally the trinket in the cake was a real bean, now replaced by a porcelain charm. A child was put under the table and when the mother pointed to a slice the child had to call out who the slice was for. Whoever found the feve in his slice became king for the day and wore a gold paper crown.

The kings are of course Gaspar, Melchior and Balthazar. But the festival is a relic of pagan times when during the period of the winter solstice, the return of the sun was celebrated with a feast and during the festivities even a slave could become king for the day. Why a bean? Because of its similarity to the shape of a human embryo. The bean plant is usually the first to emerge from the earth after winter and celebrates life.

I can’t recall celebrating Epiphany with a feve in a cake as a child. It seems it’s a Catholic custom but perhaps someone reading this might have their own memories of this cake known as the gâteau des Rois in France, the bolo rei in Portugal, rosca de reyes in Spanish countries but tortell in Catalonia, vasilopita in Greece and Cyprus and banitsa in Bulgaria. The closest I come to these feves, are the tiny chalky porcelain figurines that my mother took out of a box in the cupboard every year to put on top of the Christmas cake.

Who remembers the scene in Barbara Kingsolver’s "Lacuna" when that fabulous cook Leandro is teaching the boy, Hamilton William Shepherd to make the Epiphany cake?

“The rosca de reyes is hardest to make: the cake called Ring of the Kings using white flour the same as for tortillas. A blob of dough fit for a king is rolled out on the table as long and fat as a sea slug. Poking it and laughing. The thing of a king… (the text is a bit ruder here but I’ve left off some words in case of complaints!)

Leandro is usually much more pious. He made the cake into a ring by putting the-thing-of-a-king in a circle and pressing the ends together. The token goes inside, a small baby Jesus that looks like a pig.

All the rest of the year, the clay token sits in a jar in the cabinet waiting to go into this cake. Leandro took the little pig Jesus out of the jar and kissed it before putting it in the rosca. Round jellied fruits go on top but he put a square piece where the token was inside, his way of marking it. Reach for that one he said when the dish of cake is passed around.”

I first discovered feves at the market of L’Isle sur la Sorgue in the south of France. The little handful I bought with their exquisitely painted faces, is not with me now as I’m writing this from the southern tip of Africa. They are sleeping safely on gauze in their porcelain box in London – so I can’t show you my own Mary on her donkey, nor the shepherd with his crook, or my wise kings. Apparently there are so many collectors of feves nowadays that in France they have their own name – fabophile.

The best feves to collect go back to before 1914. They were manufactured originally in Germany. And from about 1874 onwards bakers began to replace the original bean with a tiny doll made of soft paste hand-painted porcelain. Then after the war, Limoges took over production and the baby doll evolved into other shapes. The last manufacturer of traditional porcelain feves in France is a factory in Clamecy, Burgundy. 

In Guy de Maupassant’s short story, Mademoiselle Perle from 1886, he writes:

“They brought in the kings’ cake. Every year Monsieur Chantal was king and he always proclaimed Madame Chantal queen. So I was astounded when in a mouthful of cake, I felt something hard and came near breaking my tooth. I quietly removed this object from my mouth and discovered it was a tiny china doll, no larger than a bean.”

So if you eat cake in the next few days, be warned – you might find a feve and be king for the day. But you might equally end up at the dentist

www.diannehofmeyr.com

Dianne Hofmeyr's latest picture book is The Magical Bojabi Tree