Poor Will's Almanack

Just last year, after a January six degrees above average and a remarkable first three weeks of February over eleven degrees above average, the land responded with change not seen since the warmest January-February on record in 1890. The thaw began with a record high temperature of 66 degrees on February 18th. Many daffodils were budded that morning, and snowdrops, aconites and snow crocuses were in full bloom, pussy willows about half emerged; tulips and hyacinths and even a couple of peony

The Frolicking Fox Moon wanes until it becomes the new Ducks-Scouting-for-Nests on February 15. During this February Moon, ducks actually do scout for nesting sites. Geese are looking, too. This Moon brings more substance to the natural history of the year, an increase in the number of flower, foliage, insect and bird sightings and bird calls, a weightier accumulation of change than that of last week. That accumulation contributes a little more to the seasonal heritage of each region, adds to

In the long cold of the last few weeks, I have withdrawn into a fetal, psychic hibernation, reminiscing about childhood and about other retreats I have made from the weather and the world. This morning, while I was working alone in my attic bindery, listening to the wind and watching the snow, a memory mood from my hermetic high school years at Holy Cross Seminary came back and settled around me. In my mind, I went back to the seminary crypt under the main chapel, a windowless basement of gray

Despite the cold veneer of Late Winter and the power of tomorrow’s Supermoon, the natural year quickens. Nighttime excursions of skunks, the occasional appearance of flies, an increase in opossum activity, the prophetic calls of overwintering robins, and the disappearance of autumn seeds all offer counterpoint to winter silence and days of snow. No matter the cold, beavers strip bark for food along the rivers. The tufted titmouse has begun its spiral mating flights. Blue jays give their bell

Sometimes the arrival of Late Winter, carries a great thaw. One day I went out to the river in the warmth of such a thaw, when cumulus clouds tumbled across the sky in gusts of the southwest wind, and the water of the river was shining with low, brisk waves of silvers, then blues, then grays. The oaks of the far bank were black against the bright sky. On hillsides of Osage trees, patches of their yellow wood glowed like the flush of expanding spring buds. Below the Osage hardy green chickweed

The Frolicking Fox Moon is new today, and it waxes crescent throughout the coming week, entering its second quarter next Tuesday. This is the Moon that carries the Northern Hemisphere deep into the final days Late Winter, tantalizingly close to the first days of Early Spring. This Moon bodes well for the seeding of bedding plants and the earliest tomatoes under lights. It is a pruning moon that encourages making way for new growth. It is a moon that invites me out into the land to try to find

It seems that the world lies too still and too deathly quiet in the middle of Deep Winter, but the Sun finally starts to rise earlier this week, finally cutting away at the length of the nights, complementing the sunset times that have been been occurring later just a little every few days since the middle of December. The Bedding Plant Moon, weakens the meteorological tides as it reaches apogee (its position farthest from Earth) on January 14. And then on January 16, this Moon becomes the

“Different atmospheric conditions – different kinds of weather- are, precisely different moods,” writes the phenomenologist, David Abram. “Wind, rain, snow, fog, hail, open skies, heavy overcast – each…affects the relation between our body and the living land in a specific way, altering the tenor of our reflections and the tonality of our dreams. What might that mean this week? Maybe a little optimism, in spite of the arrival of Deep Winter. The Bedding Plant Superoon, full and at perigee (its

This week, the Bedding Plant Moon waxes and waxes, coming closer and closer to Earth. And the New Year will arrive as that Moon becomes completely full and reaches perigee, its position closest to Earth, becoming what many people call a SuperMoon because of its tidal strength. And that SuperMoon occurs in sync with the first high-pressure system of the first days of Deep Winter, almost certain to bring storms of rain or snow and windy cold. Rising in the afternoon and setting in the morning,

The Sun reaches its winter solstice declination on December 21, and that same day it passes from early winter’s prophetic Sagittarius into Capricorn, the fulfillment of the archer’s promise. Capricorn is the sign of the year’s end and of its beginning, the fulcrum on which longest nights of the year balance and fall into January and then turn toward June. Those born beneath the sign of Capricorn are sometimes said to be ruled by Saturn, the planet that is associated with time and aging. As the