01/25/2024
The Full Moon of January: The Wolf Moon & Hibernation.
Tonight will bring the full moon for January, known in some cultures as the Wolf Moon. Other names for this full moon are the Old Moon or Cold Moon.
These names originate with Native American peoples but were then adopted by European settlers before making their way into many Northern Hemisphere cultures.
Some tribes who follow a lunar calendar have thirteen moons in a year.
Recent research indicates that some of the moon names may also have had parallels in old German and Anglo-Saxon.
https://www.time-meddler.co.uk/anglo-saxon-lunar.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Germanic_calendar
It’s also worth pointing out that the names that survived and we know today are the most popular seasonal identifications, I suppose, but individual tribes have variants of these names depending upon their own activities and, indeed, geography.
As you can notice through all of the various moon names and seasonal lore, these terms were real reminders about the seasonal changes and how a person might take advantage of the yearly cycle.
A full moon was always thought to bring prophetic dreams, more accurate intuition and the possibility of communication with departed ancestors and loved ones.
This link between the full moon and a stronger spiritual and emotional influence may have some part to play in the legends of werewolves and ‘lunacy’.
It is interesting that the term Wolf Moon is applied to January’s full moon when this time of the year was traditionally, in the Northern Hemisphere, one where people were often restricted in their movements due to the weather and cold.
Perhaps there is a relationship there?
In Ireland, the Goddess, Brighid, was very strongly associated with wolves.
In fact, the period of late January, early February was referred to as Faoilleach, which means time of the wolf according to folk etymology.
Wolves were much more daring and desperate at the beginning of spring, following a hungry winter. This could be one reason for Faoilleach, the time of the wolf, extending into early February as starving wolves would have been much more likely to approach and threaten human settlements.
Bear in mind that wolves were plentiful in Ireland up until the end of the 18th century.
Although we can’t be certain, records show that the last wolf in Ireland was killed by a farmer, John Watson, and his wolfhound on Mount Leinster in County Carlow. Surprisingly, this took place in the year 1786, almost five hundred years after the last English wolf and over one hundred years since the last wolf was shot in Scotland.
The Irish words for wolf are Mac Tíre, "son of the land", and also Faoil and Cú Allaidh which translate to "wild dog".
We still have many associations with wolves in the Irish landscape and this is something I spoke to Darragh from Spirit Box about in our recent chat.
Link here: https://youtu.be/DH9P43NcY38?si=6OQc7mEk7pJVbTk8
Alternative names for January’s full moon are also the Old Moon, due to it sometimes being seen as the last moon before signs of spring and the Cold Moon, for obvious reasons.
At this time of the year nature was still in hibernation and many spiritual traditions corresponded to this part of the yearly cycle by seeking the interior worlds and the places of the ancestors.
Because the days were still so short there were more hours of darkness and a chance to view the stellar realms which were very often considered the home of the gods and spirits.
The spiritual traditions which practice these rituals are worldwide and I would recommend the book, The Tree of Visions by David Nez as an excellent resource documenting shamanism from the Palaeolithic all the way through to contemporary societies.
This concept of going within during the winter is also interesting to consider in relation to the ancient megalithic sites containing alignments.
The illumination of an ancestor site is considered by many cultures to assist reconnection and a chance to travel to their spiritual worlds for advice and healing.
As a counter to this however, one of the oldest shamanic cultures, the Ulchi of the Russian Far-East advise against contacting ancestors for any reason.
In their view, the ancestors have moved on and must not be called back in order to solve the problems of later generations.
All learning and growth comes from people finding their own way and solutions, according to the Ulchi.
For more on this I recommend the book, Spirits from the Edge of the World, by J. Van Ysslestyne.
I was recently rereading The Living Goddesses by Marija Gimbutas and was struck by her commentary on ancient Cucuteni vase paintings where dogs are shown jumping and barking towards the moon.
There images date as far back as 3’800BCE. Considering the importance of the wolf in Romanian tradition I wonder if these dogs might in fact be wolves?
Returning to Ireland, a famous legendary King, Cormac Mac Airt, was said to have been raised by wolves. Cormac’s mother was also supposedly of the line of Ocl, which is the reflex of the Indo-European word for ‘wolf’.
In one of Ireland’s most famous mythological texts, The Tain Bo Cuailnge, The Morrigan, Ireland’s dark Goddess, turns into a wolf in order to stampede cattle.
Finally, an old Irish full moon healing tradition is known as All Heal.
In this tradition, it seems that the sixth night following a full moon is regarded as particularly magically potent.
If a person was sick they would be brought to the shore of a lake in order to bathe, but not in the water, and instead in the reflected light of the moon upon the lake's surface.
This moon-bathing for wellness is very interesting considering much more recent evidence regarding how different types of moonlight might affect us.
Link here: https://www.duchas.ie/en/cbes/4922068/4849492
As mentioned at the start of this piece, perhaps the most widespread spiritual aspect to the full moon is the association with ancestors and past family members. The full moon is said to create a thinning between the realms of life and death. Often it is the case that powerful and poignant dreams both remind us of those we have lost but also serve to help us remember to appreciate our own lives and those around us.
(C.) David Halpin.
Image: Patrice Audet.
