New Year!

This year the full moon in the Birth Moon in this year happened to fall on New Years Eve of 2009. I didn't get to see the moon, it was a wet, cloudy, drizzly night here in Portland, OR, but my flickr friends all over the world captured some amazing photos. Not only was New Years eve a full moon, it was a blue moon, or the second full moon in a calendar month. It was also a partial lunar eclipse (not visible in the Western Hemisphere) and a magically powerful moon by all other measures. My friend Riana from the south of France wrote eloquently about the magic of this moon here.

Photo by Bourbon Familia.

Magic is all around on a night like New Years, isn't it? I was out with friends, surrounded by love, liquor and music ringing in 2010 with style. The evening was auspicious, especially considering we hitched a ride home in a stretch hummer limo! I woke up in the morning feeling much better than I had expected (also auspicious!), had a fantastic breakfast with friends, got my change in two dollar bills (!) and went home to make black eyed peas and greens. How can 2010 not be fantastic?

Early on New Years morning (well, not THAT early, but early) I was laying on my friend's couch, listening to the sounds of the city, when a thought came to me about time. What is it that makes this day special? On one level, nothing makes it special. By any objective measure of time this sunrise is exactly the same as yesterday's sunrise. Different cultures all over the world celebrate the "new year" in different seasons - the Celts celebrate in the late fall/early winter, the Jewish calendar starts in the early fall/late summer, the Chinese calendar starts later in the winter and many cultures celebrate a new year in the spring. Our New Year right after the solstice is a hold over from the Roman calendar, and like our day, week and month labels is all pretty arbitrary.

At the same time, the day is different. It is special and unique. We have declared it unique and celebrate that uniqueness as a community. This is why I am so interested in integrating my practice of following the Wheel of the Year with "the real world". I don't want to celebrate by going out into the woods, naked and alone and worshipping a deity (though woods, alone and deity are all important parts of my practice, and can be very fulfilling for other people). I want my celebrations to include my friends and family who maybe have not thought about spirituality the way I have, or not come to the same conclusions. And that communal celebration is a strong kind of magic.

*** *** ***
Ring Out, Wild Bells
by Alfred Tennyson (England 1809-1892)


Ring out, wild bells, to the wild sky,
The flying cloud, the frosty light:
The year is dying in the night;
Ring out, wild bells, and let him die.

Ring out the old, ring in the new,
Ring, happy bells, across the snow:
The year is going, let him go;
Ring out the false, ring in the true.


*** *** ***


I followed my tradition of eating black eyed peas and greens for dinner on New Year's Day but cooked the peas differently this year than last. I made some goals and reflected on the year and went to bed early ready to face the new year. What bells did you ring to celebrate the New Year? How do "secular" celebrations fit into your spiritual practice? Did you make beans and greens this year? Oh.. and just because I didn't have another photo to post, here is one of me and my dog Tumalo sometime close to the Full Birth Moon.


P.S. I have been thinking about trying to come up with a non-number naming scheme for YEARS to compliment the seasonal names of the moons. In one of my favorite kids books, Redwall by Brian Jaques, the animals that live at Redwall Abbey name the years after events that happen such as The Year of the Late Rose, or The Year of The Giant Perch or some such. Do any of you have any thoughts on naming years? Have you ever named a year? What would you submit for 2009? For 2010?

New Milk Moon

Last week was the new moon of what Annette Hinshaw calls the Milk Moon. Usually the Milk Moon begins later in January and the earth would be reflecting the first struggles of a new baby to grow and thrive. This year the Milk Moon began just before the new year and though we recently had 10 inches of snow melt overnight the earth is still deeply in the grip of winter. For a minute it felt like a false spring because of the green emerging from beneath the snow. False it was, though, seeing as nothing is growing and everything is still flattened by the ice and snow.

Right on the heels of solstice and Christmas comes another winter holiday that fell in the Milk Moon this year - New Years! Our New Years Day, celebrated in deep winter, is more a Roman custom than a Northern European pagan custom, but it's a rowdy fun holiday none the less. As is usual for Americans I went out with friends, enjoyed more than my fair share of alcoholic drinks and spend the first day of 2009 sleeping it all off. Happy New Year!

There are lots of traditions that are supposed to bring luck for the new year. All of my favorite, of course, include food. Hoppin' John is a traditional New Year's dish of black eyed peas or field peas and rice cooked with various pork products. It is indigenous to the African American cuisine of the southern U.S, the Carribean, Central America and Northern South America; everywhere Africans were brought as slaves to the New World.

Beans are a traditional New Year's food in Europe as well as America. The Italians eat lentils and both cultures claim that the little round beans look like money. Eat a bowl of beans on New Years Day and your coffers will be full all year. In the American South greens like collards accentuate the magic - a big pile of green is welcome all year round :) On New Year's day I made an easy stovetop version of Hoppin' John and a big pile of curly kale. It was easy, delicious and pleasantly warming on a cold, rainy night.

Stovetop Hoppin' John

Serves 3 or 4
*1/3 cup diced ham1 slice of bacon, diced

*1/2 onion, diced

*2 cloves garlic, pressed

*1 1/2 cups long grained rice

*3 cups liquid - water and/or chicken stock

*1 can of black eyed peas

*salt, pepper, dried thyme
Satuee the ham, bacon and onions together in a 2 or 3 quart pan with a lid until the bacon has rendered it's fat and the onion is soft and starting to brown. Add the garlic and thyme and sautee a minute more. Add the rice to the pot and sautee until the edges of the rice turn transluscent, or just a minute or two.

If the bottom of your pan is quite dark with carmelizing pork add just a little of the liquid at a time and scrape the browned bits off the pot. Otherwise, add the liquid, stir to combine and bring the whole thing to a boil. Add a little salt (be careful, both the ham and the bacon are salty) and black pepper then cover and turn heat to low.

When the rice is mostly cooked, in about 10 or 15 minutes, gently stir the peas into the rice mixture. Canned black eyed peas are quite soft so I had to literally fold them in. Taste and adjust salt then put the lid back on and let the rice heat up the beans. Make your greens while this is happening. Enjoy with some hot sauce or more black pepper.

Steam-Sauteed Hearty Greens
*1 bunch of curly kale or collards or mustard greens

*2 cloves garlic, sliced

*1 tbs bacon grease plus a little olive oil

*a shake of red pepper flakes

*a pinch of salt

*a dash of red wine vinegar
Clean the kale and remove the leaves from the stem. Chop or tear the leaves into fork sized pieces. Heat a couple inches of water in a pan big enough to hold all of the kale. When it is boiling add the greens, stir a bit with a wooden spoon or tongs and cover. Let the kale steam a minute up to five then drain in a colander. While the kale is draining and drying a bit heat the fat in a sautee pan or wok. Add the garlic and red pepper and cook until the garlic is starting to brown a bit. Add the kale and toss and turn with tongs. Cook until the kale is fully incorporated with the flavored oil. Sprinkle with salt and then finish with vinegar.

The time right after New Year's Day is a time for reflecting and thinking about plans for the upcoming year. 2008 was a great year. I have had wonderful times and learned so much. 2009 will just get better :)

What did you do to ring in the New Year? How is 2009 going to shape up for you? What's your favorite way to cook greens? :) Happy New Year and may we all have our bowls overflowing and our greens piled up in 2009!