WOLF MOON

The fearsome nocturnal animal represents the "night" of the year. Wolves were rarely seen in England after the 12th century.

To each Lunar month the ancients assigned a name in accordance with the nature of the activity that took place at that time.

The Moon of deepest Winter is the Wolf Moon, and its name recalls a time when our ancestors gathered close around the hearth fire as the silence of the falling snow was pierced by the howling of wolves. Driven by hunger, wolves came closer to villages than at any other time of the year, and may have occasionally killed a human being in order to survive. The wolf in northern countries was at one time so feared that it became the image of Fenris, the creature of destruction that supposedly will devour the world at the end of time.

The Christian version of the myth would leave it at that, but the myth continues. Like the wolf in the fairy tale of Little Red Riding Hood, which preserves the full idea of the myth but is used only to frighten children, the wolf is slain; and the grandmother, like the world, is brought forth once more.

As the light of the new-born year slowly increases and the Wolf Moon waxes full, it is a good time to look back upon that which has just ended and learn from our experiences.

Bid the past farewell and let it go in order to receive the year that has just been born. Learning to let go of that which we would cling to is one of the greatest secrets of magick.

text from The Witches Way
picture from Michael Bohbot Illustrations