Springing Out of Winter Mindset into a New Lunar Year—Groundhog Style

SPRINGING OUT OF WINTER MINDSET into A NEW LUNAR YEAR SERPENT/GROUNDHOG STYLE

EXTRACTING THE (WRITING) DIGIT AND HAULING ONESELF OUT OF OUR (INSECURE) WRITER’S CAVE— FIRST WEDNESDAY OF THE TIGER DECADE

Prelude to Year of Change

Let’s not get ahead of ourselves, lunar Tigresses—Candlemas [February new moon, Imbolc, Feast of Bride, “return of the Light” Pagan quarter day, pagan Chinese new year] is U.S. Groundhog wrapped in a snow pig’s-blanket—or a signal to get back underground and hole up for another six weeks of winter.

"On the Feast Day of Bride the Serpent shall come from its hole. 
"I shall not molest the Serpent nor shall the Serpent molest me."         1860
Carmina Gadelica   Highland Beliefs

Tiger, tiger, burning bright In the forests of the night; What immortal hand or eye could frame thy dreadful symmetry?

William Blake

Tiger is the third of 12 zodiac animal signs associated with the Asian lunar calendar celebrated by Korea, Vietnam, China, Tibet, Mongolia, Malaysia and Filipino islands. If born during a Tiger Year you may be seen as brave, confident and well-liked.  Lucky colours—blue, orange, grey;  yellow lilies and cineraria are lucky flowers.

Reverse Resolutions better for Psychic Status{Quo}

Traditionally, first new moon of February in the Western World dictated timing for Roman & Protestant Easter—70 days from now—”late” this year. February 1st 2022 new moon happened in purrfeck timing for Tigers, but New Orleans’ Mardi Gras, rt. will have to wait another month—for March 1st new moon. Six weeks (till Equinox) to ponder outdoor-related, earth-nurturing garden & landscape restoring plans.

Not pie-in-the-sky any more.

During lockdown local neighbourhoods, garden clubs, community dig-a-thons and joint Trust-volunteer groups have flourished, resulting in phenomenal fresh vegetable/floral food gifts to charities in 2021.

Below, left remarkable similarity between Humboldt Co. Redwood Coast natural headland tree growth used in some introduced plantings, Scotland with success; rt,up Mardi Gras next month! mid Mildenhall treasure sometimes thought of as Brittonic calendar; lower rt. Loch Craignish Argyll success story by (rewilding) Oyster Boys using centuries-old regeneration beds—rewild both land and sea. Bottom, plant diversity in pinus sylvatica Caledonian pine woodland exclosure groupings, rural Buchan Aberdeenshire.

New Initiative—not Baby-Bathwater Conundrum

WWarII Veterans’ Dig-for-Victory Attitude: Like Getting Hands in Earth, Oldie Tip: Don’t Discard

Just sometimes us #vintage Boomers-&-beyond have a little something worth sharing. In city parks, university and campus allotments in Yorkshire, Durham & Northern Borders, locals are being taught the beauty/benefit of pre-Industrial hoe and rake! tho’ horse-drawn plough and mini tractor discs allowed.

Century-old oaks and beech trees were rescued 2021 by a Basingstoke village-resident association encouraged by HRH Duchess of York in Home Counties after threatened by Council removal for a road and storage upgrade.

Many individual primary and elementary schools in Scotland—since COP26 Summit—encourage local tree-planting initiatives where children dig and plant ‘shade’ areas in gardens of nursing and retirement homes, encouraged by residents. Reused veggie allotments have appeared with free food.

Vintage Landowning and Land working a “high value” experience

Some airlines have joined bona fide charitable donation/investment enterprises, like Carbonfund.org in a bid to reduce passenger carbon emissions by 20% in one year. Western governments now use a system in place for investing CO₂ offset levies in sustainable regeneration charitable funds which pay into rewilding, regeneration and restoration tree and hedgerow planting.

Eurobloc nations like Germany’s Schwarzwald, Czech Republic, Norway have limitless multi-age forest cover, supporting wondrous original wildlife. Great Britain lags behind with a staggering miniscule 1% left of its prehistoric giant trees—medieval Royals pillaging and burning wrapping up the last of Scotland’s Caledonian Pine Forest, in 1308. A [German] Royal shot the last Wolf in Scotland in 1722.

Royals are English Landlord—In Scotland, the Laird Rules

Royals do indeed play a rôle in 2022—mopping up after misbehaving ancestors both North and South of the Border. The Crown owns 1.4% of England. This includes the Crown Estates, the Queen’s personal residence at Sandringham, Norfolk, and the Duchies of Cornwall and Lancaster, which provide income for family members; with multiple properties, gardens and Palaces in Central London maintained by her.

A small number of ultra-wealthy individuals have traditionally owned land in Scotland. A Scottish Land Commission review conducted 2020, found that big landowners behaved like monopolies across large areas of rural Scotland with power over land use, economic investment and local communities. Conservation charities, like the National Trust and Woodland Trust, collectively own 2% of England. The Church has 0.5%.

Grouse moor ownership and access in Scotland are a law unto themselves.

Way Into the Baronial Heart—the Three Cs

While the Right to Roam Act 2003 covers England and Wales, convention, courtesy and courage are rules for approaching prickly pathways in rural Scotland: ancient domain of hereditary ‘superior’ lairds. Descended from pre-Independence Royalty of an earlier Pictish lineage, landowners are unaccustomed to having their ‘ways’ questioned.

Contrarily, by tradition the local “laird will provide”—for farmer tenants in times of hardship—is a ‘given.’ Not to be confused with the far North Clearances in Caithness and Sutherland, Aberdeenshire and N.E. Scotland’s agriculture tradition maintains rich productive coastal plain stretching to the central ridge of Cairngorms National Park, beyond Royal Deeside, Balmoral, Mar Lodge, to Ben Nevis and the West. Traditions here include Generosity of the Laird, but also his Rightful Domain aka baronial privilege.

Privilege Preferable to Pool Parties with Foreign Carbon Offsetters

Sadly over the last century, stone properties in Scotland have seen a decline—former hospitals, wartime youth centres, neglected then abandoned chapels, farm steadings, even castles. Drone photography has recently highlighted such hidden gems of heritage with uncertain future. Should current legislation on property ownership in Scotland remain unchanged, these (usually) isolated properties become a target for ‘Offsetters’—absentee (city) investment alliances with sights set on ‘owning’ a treescape/rewilding property thus legitimizing carbon emissions released daily in their ‘other job’. They give out coupons for treading a smaller (carbon) footprint!

Chief economist of Institute for Public Policy Research thinktank, Carys Roberts is NOT in favour of foreign ‘investment’ of this type. She thinks concentration of land in a few hands is reason enough for wealth as a whole being unequal in Scotland, without competing with incomers who care less about their community, just as they prevent those without land from generating more income.

“We have this idea that class structures have changed so that the aristocracy is not as important as it used to be. What this demonstrates is the continuing importance of the aristocracy in terms of wealth and power in our society.” She said one effect of the sale of public land was public loss of democratic control of that land so it could not then be used, e.g. for housing or environmental improvements.

Food for future thought. Yet how long dare we keep thinking before we have to do something about it.

As many #vintage traditions being reexamined, May we be guided well through this February starGATE.

any shortcomings please forgive—novacaine [sp.] erythromycin or plain ibuprofen take blame

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©2022 Marian Youngblood