 I cast the circle to enable me to make the best video that I can on January. Hello people, I'm Ginny Metherall and I am a fourth generation witch. Today is the return of my ever popular Almanac series looking at what witchcraft you can do on which day and why for the month of January. Now you might have noticed that it is not the first of January or the 31st of December today. And that's because I'm a bit late running this video. Apologies to all of you who are much more able than I am. However, you can always go and look at my previous years of video on this very subject, which I'll put up here for you should you be interested. This is my ever popular Almanac series where I do discuss all the witchcraft that you can do throughout the month. And what I'm going to do is to tell you first of all about the general witchcraft trends that run throughout the month. And then we'll get into the nitty gritty detail and look at the day-to-day witchcraft that you can practice why and when. January is of course named after the Roman god Janus, or Janus as actually is pronounced, who is a double-faced god with one half looking towards the previous year and the other face looking towards the new year. The Anglo-Saxons simply knew the month of January as the month of Yule. The fact that they named this month after the celebration of the midwinter festival simply shows into my mind at least how important that festival is and it is one of the big festivals of the year after all. With this said, January, traditionally for witches has been a great month of intuition. We are coming into our most intuitive selves at this time. We look inside ourselves in order to reach for the future. And so it is a great month for fortune telling. And in fact, when we went out to friends on New Year's Eve I did take my tarot cards and do some fortune telling for everyone, which was a bit distressing because I saw some things which I can't discuss here and certainly couldn't tell them and I've decided I'm never going to do that again. So that's the end of that, I think. I'll fortune tell it for you, Lord, but what I saw was pretty arbitrary is also a time of weather prophecy, not just intuitive and personal forecasting. So it's a really good time to get in touch with your crystal ball. Look at the future and see what it holds for you in the next 12 months. It is a still quiet time of the year and this is part of the intuitive cycle of self. And one way to celebrate this time is to take a candle and sit in your darkened room and light your candle and contemplate the silence and the stillness that is January. It's a nice way to celebrate the month, I think. The month of January is also the time where was a link hits its heights and what is was a link I hear you cry? Well, simply it is awakening the spirit of the orchards so that they produce a bumper crop for the year. There are so many different customs to how this happens essentially, you sing to the trees, pour hot cider over the roots of your apple trees, leave cider soaked toast in the branches for the guardian birds and bang and shout, make a huge howl to raise the spirits of the orchard and frighten away the evil negative entities that might damage your crop. There are so many different ways of doing wassailing but it is an incredibly joyous custom, especially down here. I live deep inside a country in the West and cider is a big part of what goes on in these parts. Everyone here drinks cider without a shadow of a doubt and if you go to a pub and they don't have a nice grumpy behind the bar that you could have a go at then there is somewhat a little bit of are you really a pub? I mean, are they? I mean, honestly, wassailing is always incredibly jolly. It happens generally at night. Sometimes they crown a king and a queen of the wassail. It's a great fun family driven occasion especially when done amongst the snow and the ice of January. I love a wassail. In fact, I'm going to a friend's to wassail next week so I'll let you know how I get on. Finally, January really has the sort of remnants of the last fire festivals of the season and the app Helly-R is one of the finest that you'll ever see in lyrics. So should you have the opportunity, go to it because quite frankly, you'll never see anything like this ever, ever. Fire festivals are simply a celebration of yule and they're part of the midwinter festivals lighting up the darkest months of the year with the brightness of fire. As January is where the days are starting to lengthen these fire festivals peter out because they are no longer required. So that's my overview for January. Have a fire festival if you can go wassailing definitely do that, it's really good fun and make some forecasts about your future. The first of January is New Year's Day and this is a day of charms. This is all about control, isn't it? Controlling your future. So you would bring charms into your house through the front door and let out the old charms or the old luck from the back door of your house. And depending on the area that you lived in is very much dependent on the charms that you would bring in. My mother always said that you should bring in coal for the warmth in your life, salt for the necessities of life and sugar for the sweet things in life. But if you're in Scotland, you might want to add whiskey because, you know, why not? And in Wales, they like to add apples which are stuck with holly and evergreens and cinnamon which are the New Year's apple. And they would display these on their windowsill. Different areas have different customs but we always had a tall and dark handsome man would have to walk over your thresholds just after midnight, bearing coal, sugar and salt. And actually I think my mother used to force a little bit of whiskey into his hand. She did have some Scottish ancestry in her. Well, judging by the amount of whiskey she's shipped I think she must have done. So the second of January, Neve's Almanac of 1633 says, in order to preserve your health or wealth and happiness for the coming year, do not bathe today. I'm filming this on the second and I'm definitely going to take a bath today. So if you don't believe this, I don't think that that's a problem. January the third is when the earth is a perihelon which means that it's closest to the sun and it's elliptical orbit. This is therefore a great day to look towards the sun. And should you wish to do any witchcraft that involves bright shining lights and suns burning bright energy with full of growth and warmth then this is the day to do it. It is also the day with the codrented meteor showers. And what do you do when you see a suiting star? Well, of course you make a wish. Wish magic is inherently selfish. You should never wish for somebody else because you might be turning them away from their path. And so therefore you should only ever wish for yourself to bring the greatest benefit. Don't wish through glass by the way because that means that any luck that you may get from the shooting star might be filtered out by the glass. In fact, doing any spell through glass is always considered a bit. The fifth of January is the traditional 12th night which I think is taken from the pagan end of Yule because Yule activities would go on for two weeks or so. This is one of the traditional days when at midnight animals can talk. But should you go and try and hear them talking you will never hear anything good and may even hear the date of your demise. So it's not a great thing to try and spy on the animals and talk. This custom has many pagan Christian European connections. It is one that's quite widespread in Northern Europe not necessarily on today's date but there is considered certain times of the year when animals acquire the power of human speech and today is one of them. This is also the day where we have the Bankside Festival of the Holly King and this is obviously just a played pagan festival. The Holly King wearing his wonderful cloak and a crown of hollies paraded through Bankside in London. No one knows where this processional custom came from but let us pagan orientated people put up our hands here and say, I think it might be from us. It is blatantly something to do with the Holly King which is a neo-pagan pagan festival. This is also the day where the holy thorn at Glastonbury is said to flower. Now this thorn tree is believed to have been planted by Joseph of Arimathea the great Christian saint. He was bringing Christianity to the UK and he planted the thorn there in order to establish its rooting. However, little did he know that what he was actually doing was planting one of the trees most sacred to the pagans at this time in one of the most sacred to the pagans sites. So he was really rather enforcing a pagan religion but trying to Christianize it. However, today it does flower has been known to. This is obviously not in season. Most thorn bushes, blackthorn, hawthorn, buckthorn, whatever, flower in March, April and this one is flowering much too early. However, it's believed to be an individual species of thorn tree, specially flowering at this time of year. The eighth of January this year is Plough Monday which is the day when workers traditionally go back to work. So this is also the day when it's probably raining, it's probably snowy, it's probably icy cold, there's therefore no work able to be done in the field. And so it turned into a slightly jesting and japing day. In the old days, people would drag their plows through the streets and bedeck them with ribbons, pour cider on them or wind and ask the community to bless the plow in order to ensure a good harvest which is rather charming, isn't it? I mean, there's not much else they can do if it's snowy and icy, isn't it? However, one of the important rituals on this day was to take your corn dolly, the one that you'd bought in in the summer which houses the spirit of the corn and if you were to plow the field you would plant the corn dolly underneath the first furrow that you plow. This ensures that the circle of life is repeated for this year. The 11th of January is the night of the new moon. This new moon is in Capricorn. Astrologers believe that each new moon has its own particular energy depending on what sign it's associated with. And as this new moon is in Capricorn and we're looking at career and gold-driven energies. So it's a great new moon to set your career plans and path for this year. And the best way to do that is probably just to write them down. Writing forms its own charm as you do it. The pen is mightier than the sword. It's very true, one can say. It is also the first new moon of the year and it's always traditional to go out and greet the first new moon of the year as you simply look up towards it and say all hail to the new moon. All hail to thee. Ah, it's sweet, isn't it? I like their fault of greeting a new moon, you know. And having it look down and bless you for your upcoming year. Sweet. Traditionally, the 11th of January, the night of this particular new moon is also when witches, such as myself, come back from their winter break and start up their traditional craft for the year. So it's a big day, the 11th, and should you wish to really give that a boost, come and join me on Patreon. There's extra videos and chats for you to look at. I'm on there a lot. We are doing two coven meetings this month because I miss January because I'm a bit ill. Do you come and have a go and if you want to one-to-one session with me or I can tell you're fortune, do contact me on Patreon and let me know. Go to patreon.com forward slash Ginny Mithril. There are lots of traditions associated with the new moon. One of my favorites is that you should show it some silver money. And therefore, as the moon increases in its strength, so will your wealth. Don't look at the new moon through glass because glass might filter out any good luck that's coming through to you from the new moon. And what's the third one? Oh, and also it is the best new moon that you can make a wish on. The 13th of January is one of the coldest days of the year. Traditionally, one of the coldest days of the year. No doubt it's actually going to be really warm this year because it's been a really warm season so far, hasn't it? However, it is also the day that you should get married. It's got really good associations. A bit like, a bit like Beltane has really good associations with getting married. And I wanted to tell you the reason why you have your wedding ring on the third finger of your left hand is because apparently it connects with through a vein the whole way up and into your heart. I don't know if that's true physically or not but traditionally it is thought that there is from this particular finger on the left hand side because of course your heart is on the left and they are connected with an energy channel. So that's why you wear your ring. The reason why you should, you know you can take your wedding ring off only for short periods of time is because if you take it off for long periods of time it breaks the charm of the ring itself because the wedding ring is a charm. Anyway, the 21st of January is when the sun enters Aquarius and I do like to tell you a couple of things about the Aquarian man and woman which I have from an old almanac. So bear with me because I'm gonna have to read it because I can't see. So the Aquarian man will be lonely. Sorry about that. And he will have silver at 32 so you'll be rich at 32, well done. And you shall win whatever you go for. He will fear water but will travel extensively. So that's the Aquarian man. The Aquarian woman however shall be delicious. She'll have many noises for her children. I'm not quite sure what that means. It might mean that she's got many pet names for them. Noises, pet name, I don't know. She will be in great peril at the age of 24 but thereafter have felicity. So does that ring true for you? Let me know in the comments below. The 25th of January is the night of the full moon. This moon is known invariably as the wolf moon, the cold moon, the snow moon or the ice moon. Yeah, not a great moon is it? It's definitely quite a chilly moon, this one I think. The wolf moon of course because this is the time when the wolves are howling. This doesn't happen in the UK anymore. However what we do here which is much, much more eerie is the howling and yowling of the fox as they call for their meat. So maybe we should re-christen it, the fox moon. The 26th of January is one of my favorite days of the year because you should shun the winter by indulging in pleasures of the flesh. And so Ginny says, go forth and multiply. The 29th of January is the last day that I wish to talk about and this is the day that you should listen out for the song of the missile thrush. The missile thrush was known as Jeremy Joy or January Joy, it's a contraction of the word, isn't it? They sing beautifully throughout this time and it just brings such a thrill that the spring is coming. However, the song of the missile thrush if you hear it on this day does precede tempestuous weather, so watch out. Do let me know what you like to do in January because I really enjoy reading all your comments. And if you would love to have a one-to-one session with me, Ginny Metherall, simply go to patreon.com forward slash Ginny Metherall and come and join or you can email me. All my details are in the description below. Otherwise, please don't forget to like and subscribe and remind me to let you know how I get on with my wassailing next week. And hopefully I'll see you very soon.