Earth Centered New Year Traditions
Gifts to the Hawai’ian god Lono during the Hawai’ian winter new year festival of Makahiki at Bellows Air Force Station in Waimanalo, Hawaii, 2010. Image source: Wikipedia
This time of mid-winter has been celebrated by many agricultural and pre-agricultural societies around the world as one of rest, reflection and gratitude for what’s come to pass, visioning and prayer for what’s yet-to-come, and renewal of self and community.
My pre-Christian ancestors in Germany offered livestock, carried branches of juniper, silver fir, and Norway Spruce trees into their homes, burning candles and bonfires to implore the Sun back for another year of feeding the plants, animals and themselves. It was a time of rest and looking hopefully toward the new year.
Hailing from the very Northern part of New York State bordering Quebec along the St. Lawrence River, Mohawk farmer and seed keeper, Rowen White, explains that in her Haudenosaunee agricultural calendar, this deep winter time is spent visioning, planning, and communicating with the seeds of food crops in preparation for the coming Spring:
“If you imagine the winter, it’s the dark time. It’s when the seeds are planted in the soil. In this dark, really fertile time in the soil, we have a whole series of ceremonies when we’re continually praying and renewing our connection to the seeds in the midwinter. So you can imagine that farmers and gardeners are doing the same. We’re pulling at seed bundles, we’re dreaming of what is possible in the seasons ahead. We’re using that opportunity to imagine.”
In the Hawai’ian islands, the ancient New Year’s festival of Makahiki begins with the rising of the star cluster Makali'i (Pleiades or Seven Sisters) over the horizon at sunset in the late Fall. The festival season continues for about four months until the Pleiades cluster sets around February or March. This astrological event corresponds to the rainy season in the Hawaiian agricultural cycle, a time when: “the lands rest and are softened by the rains in preparation of the new planting season.” The time is marked as one of “rain, plant growth, peace, and renewal,” and all human beings as members of the ecosystem must also keep peaceful and generative thoughts during this season. Fighting and war are suspended. Games are played. People make offerings to the god Lono, who rules rain, thunder and the fertility of the fields- thanking him for the previous year’s harvests and asking his blessing for more abundance in the coming growing season.
Makahiki is also a time for renewing interpersonal and social relationships, explains teacher, Imaikalani Winchester: "It's an important time for all of us to come together and to have important conversations that heal, conversations that clarify, conversations that move us forward. In this season of Makahiki, we make plans and resolutions for what the following year will bring.”
The celebration of Makahiki among native Hawai’ians was greatly diminished by colonial and missionary influences starting in the 1800’s, but in the last 40 years, Makahiki has experienced a resurgence as part of a movement of healing Hawai’ian land and culture.
In my training as a nature-connection educator, I was introduced by Jon Young, to a seasonal practice based on mentorship in agricultural and earth-based renewal traditions such as Makahiki, called “Renewal of Creative Path.” A form of tracking one’s inner landscape, the Renewal of Creative path gave me a framework that I still use to reflect upon and give thanks for the previous year’s gifts and lessons, to repair what has been broken, and to vision for the upcoming year.
I wonder if you know of any New Year’s celebrations from your family lineage - or those that you have made for yourself- and whether these contain any aspects of giving thanks, planning ahead, or encouraging a time of rest from regular activities.
Whatever your way of celebrating the New Year, we wish you a beautiful month that hopefully includes slowness, moments outside or near a window to soak in the late-morning sun, and the blessings of gentle winter rains on your gardens.
With love for the Earth and all people,
Meg Handler, family and the Staff of The Human Nature Center