Tu B’Shvat: Birthday of the Trees

I first learned about the Birthday of the Trees in Arthur Waskow’s wonderful book about Jewish holidays, Seasons of Our Joy. Celebrated on the full moon of the Jewish month of Shvat, it marked the year-end date for the fruit crop, the time when the tithe of fruit was calculated and paid. This was considered a pivotal point in the life cycle of the trees, when the sap began to rise again in trees which had been dormant during the winter. In Israel, the almond trees put forth blossoms.

In the sixteenth century, the mystics of Safed associated the fruit tree with the Sephirot or Kabalistic Tree of Life. Thus, Tu B’Shvat was seen as the day the Tree of Life renews the flow of life to the universe. We can help heal the world, they said, by offering blessings. On Tu B’Shvat we bless the fruit before we eat it, thus the more fruit we eat the more blessings we can offer.

Many different customs developed as Jewish communities around the world created their own versions of Tu B’Shvat. According to Ellen Bernstein, in an article on the history of the holiday, in Bucharia and Kurdistan, it’s called the “day of eating the seven species” (see Deut. 8:8) and a dinner of thirty kinds of fruit is prepared. In India, fifty kinds of fruit are served. In Moroccan villages, the wealthiest villager invites everyone for a feast and sends the guests home with their hats full of fruit.

A Greek legend says that on Tu B’Shvat angels tap the head of each plant on this day and command them to grow. Another Greek legends says that trees embrace on this day and anyone who witnesses this will get their wish fulfilled. Women who want to get pregnant plant raisins and candy near trees on Tu B’Shvat night and pray for fertility. And in some places, young girls, eligible for marriage, are “married” to a tree. If the tree buds soon after, this is seen as a promise of the marriage to come. For families who have lost a loved one during the year, Tu B’Shvat can be celebrated as a holiday of rebirth and remembrance.

In modern Jewish practice, the Birthday of the Trees has been taken more literally and many communities plant trees on this day or send money to support the planting of trees in Israel. At the same time it has taken on a new symbolic significance as “a day of celebration and reaffirmation of the necessity of protecting God’s world.” A number of new Hagaddot have been developed which focus on healing the wounded earth.

One of these is called The Tree’s Birthday and was written by Ellen Bernstein. She uses the following correspondences to explain what is served during each of the courses:

1st course
Represents Assiya, earth, winter, the physical, west
Fruit with a hard outer shell (like coconuts, bananas, walnuts, pineapple, cantaloupe)
Glass of white wine

2nd course
Represents: Yetsira, water, spring, the emotional, south
Fruit with a hard inner core (like peaches, dates, apricots, plums)
Glass of white wine with a few drops of red in it

3rd course
Represents: Briav, air, summer, cerebral, east
Fruit that is soft throughout (strawberries, cranberries, grape, apples, figs, pears)
Glass half red and half white wine

4th course
Represents: Atsilu, fire, autumn, spiritual, north
No fruit at all
Glass of red wine

If you think fruit will not be substantial enough, seeds (like chickpeas and sunflower seeds), nuts and sprouts are also appropriate, along with crackers and cheese (foods of the season).

Bernstein provides readings which she culled from sources as varied as the Bible, the Whole Earth Catalog, e.e. cummings and Rumi to celebrate the elements associated with each season, for instance, the passage where Mole first sees the river from Wind in the Willows for water. Each course begins with a song or dance appropriate for the season. For each course, the plate of fruits are blessed and before drinking the wine, a toast is offered to the season. The traditional blessing is “Blessed art thou, O Lord our God, Ruler of the Universe, who creates the fruit of the tree” or “the fruit of the vine,” but you can adapt that so it fits your concept of the divine. As Bernstein comments:

“Because there is no specified liturgy for the holiday, Tu B’Sh’vat readily lends itself to creative interpretation.” If you don’t want to do a complicated ritual, you might simply add fruit to your evening meal on the night of the full moon. One of the injunctions for Tu B’Shvat is to eat a new kind of fruit, one you’ve never tried before.

My first Tu B’Shvat seder was one I hosted at my apartment with a group of friends from The Beltane Papers. We didn’t have a copy of Bernstein’s book at the time, so we improvised our own ritual. I asked each of the guests to bring a reading that represented the various elements. At the start of each course, I brought out plates of fruit of the appropriate kind. Each of the guests chose a fruit and blessed it. Instead of using the traditional Jewish blessing, which we didn’t know, we made up our own words of praise, speaking about our relationship with or appreciation for the fruit. After the fruit had been consumed, we poured the ritual glasses of wine and someone offered a toast to the season.

The details are lost in the fog of time but I remember the juiciness: the kitchen counter dripping with fruit juice, the table crowded with plates of fruit, sticky fingers, juice running down the chin. There’s a certain lightheadedness associated with a meal, hours long, consisting only of fruit and wine. Although I was drinking white grape juice and cranberry juice rather than wine, I too felt the lightening as we moved from the heavy element of earth to the most insubstantial element, fire.

We were in the middle of our second course when the full moon appeared in the eastern windows of my apartment, striking us with wonder. It was a magical moment as we sat bathed in her rays, feeling our kinship with others who had sat feasting for centuries under the full moon of early spring.

Tu B’Shvat Links:

This website has a long list of articles; some of the links are broken; scroll down to the bottom for links to recipes:
http://www.jr.co.il/hotsites/j-hdaytu.htm

Let me know if you know of other good resources for Jewish holidays on the web.

Resources:
Bernstein, Ellen, “A History of Tu B’Sh’vat,” “The Tu B’Sh’vat Seder,” in Ecology and the Human Spirit: Where Nature and the Sacred Meet, ed. Ellen Bernstein, Jewish Lights 2000
Bernstein, Ellen, The Tree’s Birthday: A Celebration of Nature, 1988. No longer in print.
Elon, Ari, Naomi Hyman and Arthur Waskow, eds., Trees, Earth and Torah, Jewish Publication Society 1999.
Fitzgerald, Waverly, “Tu B’Shvat: Reawakening the Tree of Life,” The Beltane Papers, Issue Four, Samhain 1993
Waskow, Arthur, Seasons of Our Joy, Beacon Press 1982

All the photos were taken by me in my neighborhood in April of 2010 while on a tree walk with Arthur Lee Jacobson.

Wordless Wednesday: Celebrating Light at Candlemas

Happy Chinese New Year

I love all the opportunities the year offers for a new year, and here is one of the first: Chinese New Year!

The observation of this lunar festival (which occurs on the second new moon following the winter solstice) begins two weeks ahead of time (during the waning moon) as people pay debts, clean homes, return borrowed items, and make offerings to the household gods. Children are given little red envelopes containing money. Tangerines are also gifts of good luck. Firecrackers and lion dances scare off evil spirits.

People give each other special flowers called “hall flowers” because they have been reared in artificial heat (like forced narcissi): peonies, plum, peach and kumquat blossoms and jasmine. In earlier times, shallot, onion and madder plants were sprouted by the same method.

People also put up lucky talismans—lucky words cut out in red paper, sometimes more than a foot long, which are pasted up on the front of gates. Pictures of the Eight Immortals are also cut out and hung up in front of divinities. (These are very much like the paper cuts that appear on Days of the Dead in Mexico and at Shavuot in Jewish synagogues).

Another New Year’s custom is the Money Tree: pine and cypress branches placed in a vase, and decorated with old coins and paper pomegranates and flowers. Old coins (with holes in them) are strung on colored threads in the shape of dragon and put at the foot of children’s beds. This is called “cash to pass the year.” It is supposed to be saved and not spent. However, money is given as a gift, usually in red envelopes.

New Year’s Day is sometimes called The Day of Beginning or the Day of Three Beginnings (of the year, of the season and of the month). On New Year’s Day, the aristocrats and officials of the Palace received purses from the Emperor embroidered with the eight treasures: the Wheel of the Law, Conch-shell, Umbrella, Canopy, Lotus, Jar, Fish and the Mystic Knot.

The meal is the most important part of the ceremonies, as each dish has symbolic significance. All the food is prepared ahead of time, as no frying or baking are permitted on the holiday. Knives and cutting instruments are put away as well. No one sweeps since that would sweep away good fortune.

The traditional main dish was a whole roasted pig, and at least one pork dish is still traditional. Chicken equals prosperity, a whole fish signifying the beginning and the end of the cycle is served but never eaten to symbolize plenty. Saifun (bean threads) represent long life and tangerines, piled high in a pyramid, are good luck and happiness. Expensive food items like sharks’ fin, bird’s nest and sea cucumbers set a tone of luxury. Clams are served to indicate receptivity to good fortune; vegetables are carved into the shape of coins.

Dumplings are popular: sometimes filled with meat and vegetables–and sometimes just vegetables as many families observe the practice of not eating meat on New Year’s Day. Deep fried to a golden color they are said to resemble bars of gold. Sometimes they contain a coin or other token inside the dumplings to bring good luck to the recipient.

In ancient China, the festival lasted two weeks, until the Festival of the Lanterns on the full moon. Today the festivities go on for three days.

According to the writings of a sage from the fourth or fifth century, the ten days beginning with Chinese New Year are named after animals and plants. The first day is Fowl Day. The following days honor the Dog, the Pig, the Sheep, Cattle, Humans and Grains. Very much as the Twelve Days of Christmas predict weather for the coming year in British folklore, the weather on the these days predicts the coming year for each of these creatures. Bright clear days indicate prosperity while dark days warn of trouble.

Year of the Water Dragon begins! (Did you know there really is a lizard called the Chinese Water Dragon?) For a thorough exploration of the symbolism of the dragon in many cultures, I refer you to Kathleen Jenks and her stunning compilation of folklore and mythological resources on the web.

Blackburn, Bonnie and Leofranc Holford-Strevens, Oxford Companion to the Year, Oxford University Press 1999

Li-Ch’en, Tun, translated by Derk Bodde, Annual Customs and Festivals in Peking, Peking: Henri Vetch 1936

Simonds, Nina, Chinese Seasons, Houghton Mifflin 1986

The Eve of St Agnes

I have always been fascinated by the customs associated with St. Agnes. They resonate with images of whiteness, freshness, newness, innocence and purity–all qualities that seem appropriate at the start of a new year.

According to Catholic legend, St Agnes was a 13-year-old Roman girl who was martyred during the reign of Diocletian in the fourth century BCE. Like many saints of this time period (Lucy is another good example), the story of her life is spurious, perhaps based on nothing more than her name (which means “chaste”). One legend says that she refused the suit of a Roman noble. Her father, a prefect, condemned her to be exposed in a public place but her long hair grew miraculously longer and covered her entirely.

Another legend says she was the daughter of a virgin and a man who had renounced sexual love (this seems to imply she was a miraculous child like St David, Merlin or Christ). She was killed for refusing to marry a Roman officer, saying she already had a spouse who could not be seen with mortal eyes. She is thus the patroness of young girls and chastity.

Accused of being a Christian by her rejected suitor, she was placed in a brothel where she inspired such awe in the male patrons that none dared approach her except for one foolish fellow who was struck blind for his impudence. Eventually she was condemned to death for refusing to renounce her faith. “She went to the place of execution more cheerfully than others go to a wedding,” wrote Ambrose, himself a saint.

Agnes is usually pictured with a lamb and lilies. Her name comes from the Greek word agnos (chaste) but it was confused early on with the Latin agnus (which means lamb). In Rome, two lambs are brought into the church of Sant Agnese on her feast day (January 21), where they are presented at the altar and blessed. The wool shorn from these sheep is used to weave the pope’s pallium for the year. Keats in his poem, “The Eve of St Agnes,” refers to the holy loom used by the secret sisterhood to weave St Agnes’ wool.

Other saints with feast days around this time are also associated with sheep and lambs (St Brigid—February 2 and St Blaise—February 3). This is the start of the lambing season in England. Perhaps St Agnes acquired the qualities of a goddess who protected lambs. Barbara Walker says she is a Roman-Jewish version of the Holy Ewe Lamb (Agna), virgin incarnation of the Ewe-Goddess Rachel, but I’m not sure I believe this any more than I believe the brothel story.

The evening preceding her feast day (January 20)  is an evening for love divinations, even though the spurious St Agnes chose death rather than marry a pagan Roman officer. Most of the methods recommended for determining your future spouse are challenging.

According to the Encyclopedia of Superstitions, you should take a row of pins and pull out everyone while saying a pater noster. Stick one in your sleeve and you will dream of your future mate. I’m not sure if this works if you don’t know the Our Father in Latin. Perhaps it doesn’t matter as the words simply represent your effort to make the process sacred, in which case you can write your own charm along the lines of the following:

Fair St Agnes, play thy part

And send to me my own sweetheart

Not in his best or worst array

But in the clothes he wears each day

That tomorrow I may him ken

From among all other men.

To dream of your future mate, you must fast during the day and keep silent. No one, not even a child, should kiss you. At bedtime you must don your best and cleanest night dress.

One method requires the making, in silence, of a dumb cake of salt and water, supplied in equal proportions by friends who help you make it in silence. You then divide it equally and each takes her piece, walks backwards to bed, eats the cake and jumps in bed.

In Northumberland, the custom is to boil an egg, extract the yolk, fill the hole with salt, eat the egg, shell and all, then recite the above lines of entreaty to St. Agnes. This will insure a significant dream which cannot be revealed to anyone.

Aristotle’s Last Legacy (written in 1711) provides another method for provoking an oracular dream of your lover. All you need to do is sprinkle a sprig of rosemary and a sprig of thyme with urine three times, then put each sprig into one of your shoes and put your shoes by your bed and say:

St Agnes, that’s to Lovers kind

Come ease the Troubles of my Mind.

If these seem too unpleasant, you can always try the simple charm of peeling an apple in one long strip and throwing it over your left shoulder to see what initial it will make or simply paying careful attention to your dreams.

References:

Blackburn, Bonnie and Holford-Strevens, Leofranc, The Oxford Companion to the Year, Oxford University Press 1999

Kightly, Charles, The Perpetual Almanack of Folklore, Thames & Hudson 1987

Walker, Barbara, The Woman’s Encyclopedia of Myths and Secrets, Harper & Row 1983

Wikipedia also has a great article on St. Agnes

Wordless Wednesday: Signs of Spring

Twelfth Night

Now Christmas is past, Twelfth Night is the last

To the Old Year adieu, Great joy to the new

This twelfth night of the twelve days of Christmas is the official end of the winter holiday season and one of the traditional days for taking down the Christmas decorations (The others are February 1 and January 13, St. Knut’s day in Scandinavian countries).  (see also January 13 and February 1). This is also a traditional day for wassailing apple trees. In southern and western England, revelers gathered in orchards where they sang to the trees, drank to their health, poured hot cider over their roots, left cider-soaked toast in their branches for the birds and scared away evil spirits with a great shout and the firing of guns.

The ancient Roman tradition of choosing the master of the Saturnalian revels by baking a good luck bean inside a cake was transferred to Twelfth Night. In Italy, the beans were hidden in focaccia rather than a cake: three white beans for the Magi and one black one. Whoever found the black bean was made king and could choose his queen and rule the banquet. In colonial Virginia, a great Ball was held on this night. The King wins the honor of sponsoring the Ball the following year; the Queen the privilege of making next year’s Twelfth Night Cake.

Twelfth Night

or King and Queen

by Robert Herrick

Now, now the mirth comes

With the cake full of plums,

Where Bean’s the King of the sport here;

Beside we must know

The Pea also

Must revel, as Queen, in the Court here.

Begin then to choose,

(This night as ye use)

Who shall for the present delight here.

Be a King by the lot

And who shall not

Be Twelfth-day Queen for the night here.

Which known, let us make

Joy-sops with the cake;

And let not a man then be seen here,

Who unurg’d will not drink

To the base from the brink

A health to the King and the Queen here.

Next crown the bowl full

With gentle lambs-wool;

Add sugar, nutmeg and ginger,

With store of ale too;

And thus ye must do

To make the wassail a swinger.

Give then to the King

And Queen wassailing;

And though with ale ye be wet here;

Yet part ye from hence,

As free from offence

As when ye innocent met here.

This final day of the Christmas season, was considered the beginning of Carnival in Italy, where it was associated with jokes and tricks. In Tuscany, a man used to dress up like a witch (Befana?) and surround himself with befanotti, low-life characters wearing false beards and inside-out jackets. Booths were set up in the piazzas, offering toys and games. Vendors dressed up young boys like women, with blackened faces, caps on their heads, a long reed in one hand, a lantern in the other and hung them with baskets of oranges and golden pine cones. All of these resemble Saturnalian customs (December 17) and Twelfth Night does partake of the quality of Saturnalia with its emphasis on light-hearted fun, social satire and role reversals.

In some Italian communities, engagements are announced on Epiphany. The remaining bachelors and spinsters are then paired off by lot (reminiscent of Valentine’s Day). If a girl is left without a partner she is given the title of Befana for the year.

In France, the special cake served on this night is the galette des rois. The lovely photo of the galette and useful information on creating your own can be found at this blog. It is thin and round and is cut into pieces in the pantry, always one more piece than there are guests, and carried into the room covered with a white napkin. The youngest member of the party gets to distribute the pieces. A small china doll (formerly a bean) is baked into the cake and the person receiving this piece becomes the Queen or King and gets to choose a consort. The extra piece is called le part a Dieu, and is set aside for the first person to come through the door.

In Portugal, the bolo-Rei cake is ring–shaped and, besides the dried lima bean which designates the King (who must make the cake the following year), contains amulets and fortune-telling trinkets.

In England, the Twelfth Night cake is usually a rich and dense fruitcake which contains both a bean and pea. The man who finds the bean is the King, the woman who finds the Pea is the Queen. But if a woman finds the bean, she can choose the King, while the man who finds the pea can choose the Queen. The royal pair then direct the rest of the company in merriment. They assign the revelers ludicrous tasks or require them to behave in ways that are contrary to their usual roles. In France, every action of the royal pair is commented upon and imitated with mock ceremony by the entire company, who shout “the Queen drinks,” “The King laughs,” “The Queen drops her handkerchief!”

Traditional Twelfth Night foods served in England include anything spicy or hot, like ginger snaps and spiced ale. If you didn’t try out the Snapdragon game on Solstice or Christmas, try it on Twelfth Night. It’s the perfect game for this wild and rowdy holiday.

In Russia, this was a night for divination. Pushkin describes several of these customs in Eugene Onegin. Every one put a ring into a dish and then traditional songs were sung which predicted events like bereavement or marriage. Then a ring was chosen at random from the dish and the fate of the song ascribed to its owner.

If you want to celebrate Twelfth Night in an appropriately medieval way, try these instructions from Robert May in The Accomplisht Cook (1665):

Make the likeness of a Ship in paste-board, with flags and streamers, the guns belonging to if of Kickses [odds and ends], bind them about with packthred, and covere them with course paste proportionable to the fashion of a Cannon with Carriages, lay them in places convenient, as you see them in Ships of War; with such holes and trains of powder that they may all take fire; place your Ship firm in a great Charger; then make a salt round about it, and stick therein egg-shells full of sweet water; you may by a great pink take out all the meat out of the egg by blowing, and then fill it with rose-water. Then in another Charger have the proportion of a Stag made of course paste with a broad arrow in the side of him, and his body filled up with claret wine. In another Charger at the end of the Stag have the proportion of a Castle with Battlements, Percullices, Gates, and Draw-bridges made of pasteboard, the Guns of Kickses, and covered with course paste as the former; place it at a distance from the Ship to fire at each other. The Stag being plac’t betwist them with egg-shells full of sweet water (as before) placed in salt. At each side of the Charger wherein is the Stag, place a Pie made of course paste, in one of which let there be some live Frogs, in the other live Birds; make these pieces of course paste filled with bran, and yellowed over with saffron or yolks of eggs, gild them over in spots, as also the Stag, the Ship, and Castle; bake them, and place them with gilt bay-leaves on the turrets and tunnels of the Castle and Pieces; being baked, make a hole in the bottom of your pieces, take out the bran, put in your Frogs and Birds, and close up the holes with the same course paste; then cut the lids neatly up to be taken off by the Tunnels: being all placed in order upon the Table, before you fire the trains of powder, order it so that some of the Ladies may be perswaded to pluck the Arrow out of the Stag, then will the Claret wine follow as blood running out of a wound. This being done with admiration to the beholders, after some short pawse, fire the train of the Castle, that the peeces all of one side may go off; then fire the trains of one side of the Ship as in a battle; next turn the Chargers, and by degrees fire the trains of each other side as before. This done, to sweeten the stink of the powder, let the Ladies take the egg shells full of sweet waters, and throw them at each other. All dangers being seemingly over, by this time you may suppose they will desire to see what is in the pieces; where lifting the first the lid off one pie, out skips some Frogs which makes the Ladies to skip and shreek; next after the other pie, whence comes out the Birds; who by a natural instinct flying at the light, will put out the candles: so that what with the flying Birds, and skipping Frogs, the one above, the other beneath, will cause much delight and pleasure to the whole company: at length the candles are lighted, and a banquet brought in, the musick sounds, and every one with much delight and content rehearse their actions in the former passages.

Blackburn, Bonnie and Holford-Strevens, Leofranc, The Oxford Companion to the Year, Oxford University Press 1999

Field, Carol, Celebrating Italy, William Morrow 1990

Kightly, Charles, The Perpetual Almanack of Folklore, Thames and Hudson 1987

Spicer, Dorothy Gladys, The Book of Festivals, The Womens Press 1937

Illustration:

Etching by “Phiz” (1840), an illustration for Harrison Ainsworth’s novel, Clitheroe, of Twelfth Night Merry Making in Farm Shakeshaft’s Barn

My Favorite Calendars

[this is a reprise of the article I wrote for my December 22 newsletter, but I've added a few gems here and there, including reader recommendations]

I love this time period between the end of one year and the beginning of a new one, when my new calendar is still empty and the old one is full of memories. I comb through one and look forward to filling up the new one.

Here’s a list of some of my favorite calendars. Calendars make great gifts, for you and for your friends.

Jim Maynard’s Pocket Astrologer

If I could buy only one calendar a year, this would be the one. It contains all the calendrical information I need for the year: the dates of major Christian, Jewish and other festivals, plus moon signs, moon void of course, eclipses (and where to view them), the best meteor showers of the year, planetary transits (including Mercury retrograde), and much more, all for my time zone (Pacific; there’s also one for Eastern time). I’m not sure why I love this calendar so much. Other calendars — Llewellyn’s astrological calendars and the WeMoon almanac — provide the same information. Maybe it’s the compact size. Maybe it’s because Jim Maynard was the first person to teach me about that mysterious time interval called “moon void of course” (a transition time when the moon is “in between” signs). Maybe it’s because so much is information is packed into such a small package. You get everything I mentioned above plus a blank horoscope wheel for writing in your own chart, a visual map of the planetary motions, explanations of the qualities of each zodiac sign and planet, an article on planting by the moon and much more. Orrder one at this web site.

Planner Pad

In a totally different realm, the realm of scheduling, I would be lost without my Planner Pad which is like the control panel for my complicated, multi-faceted life. Unlike traditional planners in which one tends to write mainly the dates of external obligations (appointments, etc.), the Planner Pad system encourages you to think of what you want to do in different areas of your life and then assign them time in your schedule. (I imagine this is similar to the Covey system which I’ve never used, though I have incorporated many insights from his books into my schedule, like putting first things first (my spiritual life, then my writing) in both my schedule and my day.) I’m going to adapt some of the Planner Pad ideas into my Natural Planner. I just found a great post online from Diane who loves using a Planner Pad for organizing as much as I do and she breaks down the process in great detail. If you are interested, you might want to read her post. For years I used the 8-1/2 by 11 size, but the year I ordered the smaller size, I had a lot more time (not so many lines to fill up with tasks), so I’m going back to the smaller size in 2012. To order go to the web site.

Wall Calendars

Besides my handy astrological guide and my planning system, I always like to keep a beautiful wall calendar on my wall. Both Pomegranate and Amber Lotus offer many beautiful choices. I think you can use calendars as a focal point for your dreams, which is why I sometimes give friends calendars as New Year Gifts, calendars that feature places they want to travel (Greece, Italy, etc. ) or activities they love (yoga, writing, knitting, etc.).  One year I chose a William Morris floral design calendar which helped inspire my flower essays.

When I wrote a version of this article for my newsletter, a reader wrote to let me know about the Literary Calligraphy calendar, which looks beautiful and would be a great gift for someone who loves words. For the past few years, I’ve been enjoying my own French Republican calendar. The lovely photo of snow was taken by Karen Karlovich and illustrates the month of December, or Nivose (Snowy).

Weekly Journals or Engagement Calendars

I often use beautiful calendars as journals. I have one I kept the year my daughter was turning two and it’s full of hilarious stories about her adventures and a detailed record of her vocabulary acquisition. We both still enjoy reading it.  I also have a Book of Days that came illustrated with Japanese seasonal paintings which I use as a phenological journal, where I track the seasonal changes in my life, noting the first whiff of sweet box in January, the first ripe raspberries in my garden in June, the first time the radiator comes on in my apartment in September. I put each entry under the appropriate day and write the year in parentheses, so that over time the book has become a palimpsest of over a decade in my neighborhood. I can say with certainty, “the lilacs are blooming earlier this year.”

I heart the inspiration for the Ecological Calendar, which is available both as a wall calendar and as an engagement calendar. It’s beautifully designed and meant to help you notice the natural rhythms of the year. In the engagement calendar, each weekly page shows celestial events, the ratio of sun to darkness, natural seasonal events, the tides and a preview of what’s to come. The right hand page offers space to write in your commitments or comments. It begins on Winter Solstice, as every calendar should. I love it that the creators have named the months and the days fanciful, seasonal names, just like the creators of the French Revolutionary calendar. Winter is Celeste, Sleet and Bluster. December 24 is MoonGlow, December 25 SnowLine, December 26 Ice Floe and December 27 Frozen Lake. But these names point out one problem of seasonal calendars: they don’t fit all regions. There are no frozen lakes in Seattle, and I’d be surprised if the emphasis on snow in winter works for residents of Florida or Southern California.

Pam from New York state asked me what I thought about the Sacred Journey Daily Journal which is available from Pomegranate. I actually haven’t seen a copy of this engagement calendar but it looks like it would be wonderful. There’s a grid for each month and also a pair of pages for coming up with gratitudes, affirmations, opportunities and goals. It looks like it offers room for considering goals as well as tasks like a more typical engagement calendar.

Almanacs

For the past four years, I’ve been enjoying the treasure trove of seasonal information collected by Bill Felker who publishes Poor Will’s Almanack. Felker started paying attention to the weather patterns where he lives in Yellow Springs, Ohio after his wife gave me a gift of a barometer, and that expanded into a passionate devotion to all indications of seasonal time. He predicts weather patterns, lists flowering plants for every day of year, provides a pollen count and a SAD index (hours of sunlight available), describes what’s happening in the night sky, and writes a perceptive and elegant essay to begin each month. You can order the 2012 edition at his web site.

Creative Calendars

One year when I was really struggling to find balance in my life, I made a collage calendar showing the year as a circle with different slices of pictures for each month. December and January were time off months, months for dreams and visions, which I depicted with a starry sky background. February, April, July and October were months I wanted to focus on my teaching, indicated by fields of lavender. March, June, September and November were months I planned to focus on my writing (I used the image of a page of handwriting). May was my month for sending out my work (I figured if I could get it all done in one month of the year, I’d be relieved of the pressure I always feel to market my work). I indicated this month with flowers and a hummingbird drinking from them. August was a vacation month (camels in the desert). This calendar proved to be enormously useful to me since every time I was feeling frantic, I simply looked at it to figure out my priorities.

Twyla Tharp describes using a circular calendar in her book The Creative Habit. She says she keeps track of multiple creative projects by drawing circles within circles on a piece of paper with the deadlines scrawled inside the borders. Although each circle is unique it rubs up against or enfolds other circles. She writes; “If I follow my circles and match things up with my calendar, the progression begins to make sense.”

Havi Brooks of The Fluent Self has just developed her own calendar (in a more conventional format). I like to think she was inspired by the French Republican Calendar I sent her last year. But Havi is never conventional and so she has created a calendar in which you get to write in your own names for the months and the moons.

It’s easy to make your own calendar. Many convenience stores, like the Walgreens in my neighborhood, offer templates you can fill in with your own photos. I’ve used their template for the last few years to make a calendar featuring photos of my daughter’s Chihuahua, Pepe (who is also the hero of my novel, Dial C for Chihahua). We give them as presents to Pepe’s fans (he has many).

A few years ago, after finishing a big genealogy project on my mother’s family, the Wittaks of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, I made a calendar that featured significant family dates on the date grids and displayed photo collages of the ancestors of the family and the houses they lived in. I sent a copy to all of the relatives who had helped me with my research. It made a great gift.

As you can see I love calendars! I’d love to hear about the calendars you love.

Michaelmas

September 29 is the feast day of St. Michael and all the Angels, the most ancient of all the angel festivals. From fairly early on, Michaelmas was an important holiday, the religious or Christian equivalent of the autumn equinox. Just as spring equinox was associated with another Archangel (Gabriel) and a fixed date (March 25), so did the Archangel Micheal’s holiday become a fixed date to celebrate the harvest holiday of autumn equinox.

Michael is one of my favorite saints, especially in his role as a protector. When I was worried about my adolescent daughter, I asked Michael to protect her and promised a pilgrimage to one of his traditional sites of worship. I was hoping to get to Mont St. Michel but made due with a walk up to the top of Skirrid Fawr in the Brecon Beacons where there was a ruined chapel to St. Michael.  Most churches to St. Michael are on the top of mountains, like this handsome church on an island off the coast of Cornwall.

In England, Michaelmas was considered the start of a new quarter. It marked the start of a new business year, a time for electing officials, making contracts, paying rent, hiring servants, holding court and starting school. Obviously we still see the remnants of this in the timing of our elections and school year.

This is also a time when the weather is known to change. In Italy, they say “For St. Michael, heat goes into the heavens.” In Ireland, people expect a marked decrease in sickness or disease. Barolini records a nursery rhyme about hours of sleep:

Nature requires five,

Custom gives seven,

Laziness takes nine

And Michaelmas eleven.

As early as 1014, the laws of Ethelred in England prescribed a three day fast for all Christians before the feast. Servants weren’t allowed to work during these days. Michaelmas was a time when rents were due, and rents were often paid in food. The traditional rent for Michaelmas was a goose.

Eating something rich like goose at this turning point of the year brings good luck. In Nottingham they say “If you eat roast goose on Michaelmas day, you will never want money all year.” In Norfolk, they say, “if you don’t baste the goose on Michaelmas Day, you will want money all year.” In Italy, where this is clearly considered a harvest festival, they say “For St. Michael all the last fruits of the year are honeyed and ripe.”

The celebration of Michaelmas in Scottish highlands and islands clearly shows that this was the occasion for a ritual thanksgiving for the abundance of harvest. An unblemished ram lamb called the Michael Lamb was killed on the eve of the feast to be served as the main course. Women made special cakes called struan Michael or Michaelmas cakes, from equal parts of all types of grain grown on the farm, kneaded with butter, eggs and sheep’s milk, marked with a cross and cooked on a stone heated by a fire of sacred oak, rowan and bramble wood. A piece of the cake was thrown into the fire as a tithe to St. Michael’s opponent, the Devil. Other cakes were made for special people, for the family and for the community. Cranberries, bilberries, brambleberries, caraway seeds and wild honey were baked into the cakes. Clearly part of the purpose of this charm was to take the bounty of the farm’s harvest and use it to fashion an offering of thanks. In a similar gesture, people in Yorkshire and Lincolnshire scattered grain for the wild birds to bring good luck to the farm.

Ginger was also a traditional flavor enjoyed at Michaelmas in the form of gingerbread. I love the playfulness of these little dragon breads which I found at a Waldorf site. They are made from bread dough, shaped like dragons, and decorated with almonds and raisins.

Uncluttering Time

Last month, my theme was Spaciousness and I decided to work with this theme in four different ways. The first was to create spaciousness in my time by getting rid of clutter time.

This concept came to me courtesy of Rebecca Ross of the Composed Domain. I took her clutter class at North Seattle Community College. It was a great class and helped me shift the mountain of stuff under which I am buried (you can get a glimpse of what I’m facing in this photo of my living room).

Many of the techniques Rebecca taught were ones I had learned before, like the sequence of sort, purge, contain and maintain, a maxim which I first picked up from Julie Morgenstern. It matches the way I normally clean which felt validating.

Rebecca also encouraged us to honor our own way of organizing. Two years ago, I rearranged all my file folders and I’ve been confused ever since. I am going to restore them back to their original order in my next wave of cleaning.

But this is not a blog about clutter in space but about clutter in time. Rebecca gave us a list of possible kinds of clutter, many of which I recognized.

Masquerade clutter is something that is valuable but you don’t use it, like exercise equipment.

Bestowed clutter is something someone gave you that you will never use, like a book you will never read, or an item of clothing you will never wear.

Memorabilia is anything you are keeping because it reminds you of a person or event that was precious. Rebecca suggested we deal with this by preserving the memory, for instance in a photo or piece of writing, but letting go of the item.

Bus stop clutter is simply clutter that is on its way somewhere else, for instance, items you are going to return or take to the Goodwill.

“Dust me décor” clutter is the name Rebecca gives to tchotckes, all those decorative items that line your shelves and cover your windowsills. For me, this category mostly consists of rocks which I pick up every time I go some place.

Someday clutter consists of items that you will do someday, like magazines you will read someday or, in my case, the shattered remnants of favorite dishes I will make into a mosaic someday, or the scraps from old clothes that I will turn into a quilt someday.

I amused myself after the class by trying to come up with comparable kinds of clutter in time. I couldn’t come up with exact correlations but I did notice a few kinds of clutter in time.

No Longer Meaningful Time Clutter: This is an activity that was once meaningful but now I’m only doing it because it’s a habit. I was able to get rid of several instances of this kind of clutter.

No Longer Prime Time Clutter: Some activities that I used to do regularly at certain times of the day, like writing my blog entries in the evening, had not been done at that time for over two years, yet I kept writing them into my schedule for that time. Clearing this kind of clutter simply means noticing what I was really doing and accepting it. If I really want to write the blog entries, I might have to find a different time.

Brain Wasting Time Clutter: TV is the prime example of this. I watch it because it’s on and it catches my attention and then it’s hard to turn off. So I put myself on a TV diet: one hour a night is all I’m allowed (some exemptions are given for Project Runway and So You Think You Can Dance).  Then I turn the TV off. Although at first, the house feels weirdly quiet, I soon get totally absorbed in my writing or my computer research.

Doing Someone Else’s Work Time Clutter: This would be time you spend doing something that really belongs to someone else. In my house, this would be an uneven distribution of chores, which it really is time to sit down and list and then parcel out in a more fair way.

Unrealistic Expectations Time Clutter: This is sort of like Someday Clutter in that I think I can really do 12 hours of work in 4 hours. I’ve had some luck correcting this kind of time clutter by actually estimating how long I think it will take to do all the things on my to-do list (for instance, last Monday I had on my list 1) make breakfast 2) sort out the trust 3) take all the files to the storage place 4) edit the Pepe novel 5) sort out the books 6) finish the Waverly Fitzgerald web site. I figured out how much time I thought it would take me to do each one, then worked through them in order of priority and actually got 5 out of the 6 done.

Too Many Choices Time Clutter: I’m always working on a number of different projects and this can become its own kind of clutter, as at any given moment, I could choose to do one of 20 things on my to-do list. To deal with this issue, I limited myself to six ongoing projects (writing a mystery novel, working on my non-fiction book on nature in the city, taking a photography class, teaching a writing class, updating Living in Season and uncluttering the house). I assign only one thing to do each week on each project and give each one its own day. It’s been weird but gratifying to experience the sensation of having completed a task and having nothing else to do that day. Wow!

Someday is Right Now: I’ve also decided to move some things off my Someday list to my Right Now list so I signed up for the photography class I’ve been wanting to take for three years. It will mean my Fall is a bit crowded but I don’t wait any longer for some day.

I’d love to hear about your Time Clutter and how you deal with it.

Michaelmas Daisy

The Michaelmas daisy, among dead weeds

Blooms for St Michael’s valorous deeds

Any of the various asters can also be called a Michaelmas daisy, so named because they are members of the Daisy (compositae) family and they bloom through Michaelmas, providing a late show of color and bloom in the garden.

There are species of asters native to America, Switzerland and Italy. The aster amellus or Italian starwort is the original plant dedicated to Archangel Michael, whose holiday we celebrate on Michaelmas, September 29.

The 16^th century herbalist, Gerard, commented on the aster native to England, the sea starwort (aster tripolium) which grew along the coast but flourished when brought into the garden. He called it tripolium because “It was reported by men of great fame and learning [he was referring to Discorides]..that it doth change the colors of his flowers thrice a day.”

In the 17^th century, the plant collector, John Tradescant Jr. began bringing asters from North America to England. In 1633 he brought over the Virginia aster (aster lateriflorus). Later he introduced the very popular New England aster (Aster nova-angliae) and New York aster (Aster nova-belgii). These plants have since been reclassified; they are still in the tribe of Asters but under the genus name of Symphyotrichum (from the Greek words for “growing together” and “hair”—poor plant, aster is a much more appropriate and glamorous name).

Still if you were looking for one in a nursery, you’d probably say you were looking for an aster. There are many varieties available, most of them hybrids of the New England and New York asters, in many colors and sizes, with names like Harrington Pink (an heirloom aster dating from the 1930s) and Persian Rose, September Ruby and violet Carpet, Purple Dome and Wood’s Pink.

Aster Etymology

Asters are named for the stars they resemble—the name comes from the same root word as astrology and asteroid, asterisk and disaster–and in England, they are sometimes called starwort (wort simply means herb or plant with healing properties). Several legends are told about their origins. One says that Virgo scattered stardust on earth and they became asters. Another attributes their origin to the goddess Astraea (often associated with the constellation Virgo) who withdrew from earth out of sorrow and looking down wept. Her tears became asters

Aster Folklore

In ancient Greece, aster leaves were burned to keep away evil spirits and drive off serpents. Pliny the Elder recommended a tea of aster in cases of snake bite and an aster amulet to ease the pain of sciatica. Virgil wrote about it in the Georgics:

There is a useful flower

Growing in the meadows, which the country folk

Call star-wort, not a blossom hard to find,

For its large cluster lifts itself in air

Out of one root; its central orb is gold

But it wears petals in a numerous ring

Of glossy purplish blue; ’tis often laid

In twisted garlands at some holy shrine.

Bitter its taste; the shepherds gather it

In valley-pastures where the winding streams

Of Mella flow. The roots of this, steeped well,

In hot, high-flavored wine, thou may’st set down

At the hive door in baskets heaping full.

Helen Baroli in her book about Italian holiday food mentions picking yellow Michaelmas daisies on the beaches near Rome. She also made a yellow sponge cake called “Margherita” (daisy) on Michaelmas.

I don’t think the cake has any asters in it but the Plants for the Future website gives aster amellus, the native Italian aster, a rating of 2 for edibility and 2 for medicinal qualities. The roots have been used to make medicine for coughs, pulmonary infections and malaria. However they warn that although the native aster is probably safe to eat, the hybrid decorative varieties may not be.

The aster is considered a herb of Venus and like the daisy, which belongs to the same family of Compositae, it has been used in love divinations.

Growing Asters

Asters are easy to grow. I just saw a meadow full of three-foot high purplish-blue asters in a marsh on Puget Sound, where I presume they were growing wild. Although the plant can grow in poor conditions, it likes moist soil and lots of sun. Asters should be divided every three years.

One of my favorite garden writers, Paghat, offers a selection of aster photographs and tips on cultivation (at least in the Pacific Northwest) at her website.  Check her index for other asters.

She’s also the person who referred me to Picton Garden in Worcestershire, the site of the original Michaelmas Daisy Nursery founded in 1906 by Ernest Ballard. He was an English plant breeder who specialized in Michaelmas daisies.

Chinese asters come from a different genus Callistephys, but they also bloom in autumn at the same time as the Michaelmas daisy. Their name means beautiful crown from the Greek kallistos (beautiful) and stephanus (crown). They were often planted in Chinese gardens in pots and arranged in a row with one shade blending into one another to produce a rainbow effect, something that might be fun to do with asters in your garden.

The sheer variety of China asters in shapes and color, is why aster means “variety” in the language of flowers. Asters are also associated with elegance and daintiness.

References:

Barolini, Helen, Festa: Recipes and Recollections of Italian Holidays, Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich 1988

Gerard’s Herbal, edited by Marcus Woodward, first published in 1597, reprint by Studio Editions 1994

Martin, Laura C., Garden Flower Folklore, Globe Pequot Press 1987

Martin, Laura C., Wildflower Folklore, Globe Pequot 1993

Martin, Tovah, Heirloom Flowers, Fireside 1999

Parson, Frances Theodora and Mrs William Starr Dana, According to Season, A Celebration of Nature, Houghton Mifflin 1990

Ward, Bobby J, A Contemplation Upon Flowers: Garden Plants in Myth & Literature, Timber Press 1999

Wells, Diana, 100 Flowers and How They Got Their Names, Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill 1997

Illustrations:

The lovely picture of the purple aster was taken by Heather Oetkin’s elementary school students and featured at the Human Flower Project website, where Julie Ardery admits that asters are on her hated plants list.

For Cecily Mary Barker’s depiction of the Michaelmas Daisy Fairy

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