Backcountry Almanac
December 1, 2007
Stone: turquoise
Tree: Holly
Colors: purple/ deep blue
Goddess Vesta, guardian of December // Universal Human Rights month
01: The first drive-up gasoline station opened, Pittsburgh, 1913
02 1988 Benazir Bhutto became the first woman elected to govern a Muslim nation when acting President Ghulam Ishaq Khan nominated her Prime Minister of Pakistan.
03 Hopi & Zuni Shalako festival welcoming Kachinas // Charles Fourier published his utopian Universal Harmony
04 1981 USA: President Ronald Reagan authorized CIA spying on its citizens. The CIA charter originally banned domestic surveillance to prevent it from becoming a Gestapo.// Crazy Horse b. 1849, Native leader // Stew Albert b.1939, Yippie founder
05 Hanukkah // Walt Disney b.1901, E pluribus unum rodentae
06 Feast of St. Nicholas (Santa Claus) // 1917 Halifax harbor explosion
07 Noam Chomsky b.1928, social critic & intellectual //Harry Chapin b.1942 //
Tom Waits b. 1949
08 John Lennon assassinated in NYC, 1980 We will all shine on
09 New Moon in Sagittarius @ 6:40 a.m.
12 Our Lady of Guadalupe Day / Feast of the great Mystery
13 Geminid meteor showers 12/7-15 // Lucia’s Day
14 Nostradamus b.1503
15 U.S. Bill of Rights ratified, 1791 Now eroded by the Patriot Act
16 Boston Tea Party, 1773 – civil disobedience over taxation
17 Saturnalia
18 Clean Air Act, 1963 Show gratitude if you’re breathing good air
19 Ursid meteor showers 12/17 – 24
20 Yule Eve Billy Bragg b.1957, musician & activist
21 Winter Solstice // Soyaluna (Hopi) Calling back the Sun
22 In the depths of winter I finally learned that within me there lay an invincible summer.-Albert Camus
23 Full Moon/ Wolf Moon in Cancer @ 6:16 p.m.// Unhewn Stone: denotes the quality of potential in all things.// Day of Hathor (Egypt)
24 Festival of Isis
25 We are all divine
Compassion and love – those are the real jewels. Put the most beautiful dress on a closed face and it serves no purpose.
- The Dalai Lama, who fled his holy city of
Lhasa on Christmas day, 1950
28 Endangered Species Act, 1973 – Mourn loss of relatives
29 Massacre of Sioux at Wounded Knee by U.S. troops // Marianne Faithful b.1946
31 New Year’s Eve - Vigil for the new year, night of self evaluation and resolution
It’s better to have something to remember than nothing to regret. -Frank Zappa
Planets visible in the morning sky: Venus, Saturn, Mars through the 24th
Planets visible in the evening sky: Jupiter through the 10th, Mars from the 24th
Geminids meteors: 7 – 17th (max 14th)
Ursid meteors: 17 – 26 (max 23rd)
December days
Plant above ground crops: 10,11,12,15,16,20,21
Plant root crops & perennials: 3,4,5,6,7,24,25,30,31
Make wassail: 15 Unlock the mind: 18
Bake sweets: 19 Light Yule log: 21
The feast of Thor, which was celebrated at the winter solstice, was called giul from iol, or ol, which signifies ale, and is now corrupted into yule. The Yule festival continued into January.
Long nights and waning sun are the two most obvious indications that winter is here. We can’t tell the season by temperature because it is still unseasonably warm as of this writing. Leaves cling to trees looking as forlorn as the brown grasses, while insects are active in the day. Rain has been absent for months as told by the rustle of the breeze through summers’ dried plant bounty. Santa will have tough sledding unless our weather changes drastically before Christmas. Maybe we should let him have a vacation and take care of holiday gifting ourselves. Do we really want more unnecessary plastic objects? What with the price of hay and gas, we could go easier on the environment and save money, too. Wouldn’t you rather give something made with your own hands or by someone whose story you know than by enslaved Chinese persons? Imagine hearing, “Honey, I found something lovely for you made by impoverished people in a country I’ve never heard of. Hope you like it!” Personally, I’d rather break those chains.
Gifts from the garden are like getting summer in a jar. A suggestion for gifting someone whom “has everything“ is to offer your time. For instance, give a card that says you will spend a certain number of hours babysitting, house cleaning or will cook a dinner, or perform some other service appropriate for that person. Certainly, time is our most precious thing, Spend yours doing something that feels good.
Have you heard John Fogerty’s latest album, Revival? Our local community radio station, KXCI, caught my attention by playing Don’t you wish it were true? from that album. So I found it on YouTube to listen again and then discovered other recent Fogerty performances. I encourage you to give it a listen; perhaps sing it at the next party.
If everyone demanded peace instead of another television set, then there’d be peace.
-John Lennon
Garden and yard work will be at an ebb this month. Days are too short for reasonable growth rates of plants so I recommend waiting until January to start most spring things from seed. Exceptions would be wild flowers or a barley cover crop that you forgot to sow in November, dill and onions in flats. This is a good time to repair and oil your tools, mend fences, consider what crops and ornamentals you will grow next season. Order seed potatoes and seeds for early spring vegetables. Prune fruit trees and ornamentals the last week of December. Put a 40 watt (or equivalent) light bulb in with your chicken flock to extend the daylight so they keep laying eggs in the dark of winter.
Now, while the pace slows down, spend some time in reflection upon the year just passed. What will you do differently from now on? Who is there that you need to apologize to? With whom will you spend more time?
Choose joyful things and show affection to those you love.
Long life; honey in the heart, no evil, 13 thank yous. All Blessings.
Some scientists claim that hydrogen, because it is so plentiful,
is the basic building block of the Universe. I dispute that. I say there is more stupidity than hydrogen, and it is the basic building block of the Universe.
-Frank Zappa
‘The Thirteen Days of Solstice’
- Shekhinah Mountainwater
On the first day of Solstice the Goddess sent to me,
some healing to set me free.
On the second day of Solstice the Goddess sent to me,
Gifts from my love
and some healing to set me free.
etc.
1. Some healing to set me free
2. Gifts from my love
3. A helping dream
4. A branch of evergreen
5. Joyous song!
6. Greetings from my neighbors
7. Magick for the year
8. Fine conversation
9. Nine pearls of wisdom
10. Candles for the lighting
11. Deep contemplation
12. Showers of abundance
13. A grand celebration
Yule Fires
By John MacKinnon
(the tune Greensleeves
In ancient days the folk of old
When chilled with fright by winter’s cold
Did kindle up a great Yule fire
With leaping flames in its great pyre;
So to entice the waning sun
To rise again and wider run;
It’s fiery course across the sky,
To warm them so they would not die.
So we, whose minds now sense a chill
Of anger in the evil will,
The human conflict, hate, and strife,
Which hold a menace over life;
Would kindle up a flame of love
That we within our hearts may move,
In Yuletide joy, with love embrace
And thus abide in peace and grace.
‘2012- According to occult scientist Terence McKenna (1946 - 2000), the end of the world as we know it will occur on December 22, 2012 at 11:10 PM. His Timewave Zero theory claims time to be a fractal wave of increasing novelty that ends on this day.
“[McKenna has] worked out a computer model based on an intuitive decoding of the I Ching to prove it mathematically. Before you scoff at McKenna’s claims, bear in mind that the ancient Mayan calendar, a calendar accurate to within MINUTES for THOUSANDS of years ends at precisely the same time… But McKenna is no mere doomsday prophet and once you’ve been exposed to the psychedelic mindscape of the man referred to as ‘the Timothy Leary of the Nineties’ (by Leary himself!), your worldview may never be the same ever again….” Source, Wilson’s Almanac.
Aztec calendar [McKenna’s Timewave Zero calculations differ from the Mayan calendar’s ‘last day’ only by hours.’
Copyright 2007 Meg Keoppen
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