Celtic Tree Calendar
Whilst exploring the Ogham Tree Alphabet I came across yet another intuitive calendar to accompany The Wheel of the Year: The Celtic Tree Calendar. In one of the lessons in the 'Wheel of the Year' section I explained how we've come to adopt the widely used 12 month calendar despite there being a variation of between 12 and 13 full moons every typical calendar year:
"The Moon completes 12 full cycles of her phases in about 354 days – which is 11 days short of a Gregorian calendar year. Every two and a half years or so the difference adds up to an extra, 13th full moon occurring during the year and this relatively rare occurrence is sometimes referred to as a ‘blue moon’. Many indigenous calendars still use the moon to mark the passing of time, and the names of each month's full moon are heavily influenced by the agricultural seasons e.g. September's harvest moon."
I was particularly excited to discover the 13-month Celtic Tree Calendar as it offers us ways to mark the passing of the time between full moons by paying particular attention to certain trees. The Calendar goes as follows:
Birch: Dec 24th - Jan 20th | Rowan: Jan 21st - Feb 17th | Ash: Feb 18th - Mar 17th | Alder: Mar 18th - Apr 14th
"The Moon completes 12 full cycles of her phases in about 354 days – which is 11 days short of a Gregorian calendar year. Every two and a half years or so the difference adds up to an extra, 13th full moon occurring during the year and this relatively rare occurrence is sometimes referred to as a ‘blue moon’. Many indigenous calendars still use the moon to mark the passing of time, and the names of each month's full moon are heavily influenced by the agricultural seasons e.g. September's harvest moon."
I was particularly excited to discover the 13-month Celtic Tree Calendar as it offers us ways to mark the passing of the time between full moons by paying particular attention to certain trees. The Calendar goes as follows:
Birch: Dec 24th - Jan 20th | Rowan: Jan 21st - Feb 17th | Ash: Feb 18th - Mar 17th | Alder: Mar 18th - Apr 14th
Willow: Apr 15th - May 12th | Hawthorn: May 13th - June 9th | Oak: Jun 10th - Jul 7th | Holly: Jul 8th - Aug 4th | Hazel: Aug 5th - Sept 1st
Vine: Sept 2nd - Sept 29th | Ivy: Sept 30th - Oct 27th | Reed: Oct 28th - Nov 23rd | Elder: Nov 24th Dec 23rd
(Source: tree2mydoor.com)
The above time scales are 28 days long and roughly correspond with the full moons. May's Full Moon, the Hawthorn Full Moon, appears between 16 May and 14 June this year (2022).
It's important to mention that there is no proof that the Celtic tree calendar actually originated with early Celtic peoples and as with Samhain - one of the Sabbats in the Wheel of the Year - being introduced as recently as the 1970s, some sources state that "the calendar was conceived by the British poet and scholar Robert Graves. It was an idea put forward in his book The White Goddess, a historical grammar of poetic myth, first published in 1948"
That said, I still believe that The Celtic Tree Calendar is a meaningful accompaniment to The Wheel of the Year, which gives us not only a reason to celebrate the cycles and seasons every 6 weeks, but also points us to observe and connect with a special tree between the Full Moons.
(Source: tree2mydoor.com)
The above time scales are 28 days long and roughly correspond with the full moons. May's Full Moon, the Hawthorn Full Moon, appears between 16 May and 14 June this year (2022).
It's important to mention that there is no proof that the Celtic tree calendar actually originated with early Celtic peoples and as with Samhain - one of the Sabbats in the Wheel of the Year - being introduced as recently as the 1970s, some sources state that "the calendar was conceived by the British poet and scholar Robert Graves. It was an idea put forward in his book The White Goddess, a historical grammar of poetic myth, first published in 1948"
That said, I still believe that The Celtic Tree Calendar is a meaningful accompaniment to The Wheel of the Year, which gives us not only a reason to celebrate the cycles and seasons every 6 weeks, but also points us to observe and connect with a special tree between the Full Moons.
This month we'll be exploring Birch, Alder and Hawthorn: the trees for December, March and May respectively. We'll also be looking at Beech who offers us delicious edible leaves in May, however she doesn't appear to feature in the Celtic tree calendar and I'm on a mission to find out why....more will be revealed later in the month!