Sångshyttan Micro Season Calendar
Inspired by Japanese tradition and Alexa Firmenich on her blog Lifeworlds, we now create a micro season calendar. We follow life on the farm as it unfolds over the course of a year. It describes different events and important relationships that we have with the more than human world on the farm. Instead of dividing each day into one of four seasons, the Japanese calendar is divided into 72 different sections. Each of these sections lies within one of 24 divisions, all of which have been given descriptively beautiful names. The 72 sections (or kō) only last for about five days each, but still perfectly describe what happens as life blossoms and ebbs.
10 – 14 December / Winter bathing
The entire surface of the lake has now frozen over and for the first time this winter I have to drill and saw my way through to get to the water. My weekend bathing form an important relationship with my water element.
5 – 9 December / Lake turning to ice
The lake is a living being that reacts to everything that happens around it. When the cold weather comes, the water temperature gradually changes and if the day is still, as it is now, the ice freezes, more and more, but it's as if it still can't make up its mind. Is the surface going to turn to ice or is it not? In several places you can see open water between frozen ice.
30 November – 4 December / Winter saga
Then came the heavy snow that fell on all the trees and created a whole new atmosphere, a silent world. I travel to work in the morning. Scraping car windows, brushing off the snow, shivering in the raw cold air. The sub-zero temperatures make my breath form smoke when I exhale, making my exchange with the world visible. I enjoy the journey in the white world.
25 – 29 November / Waxing cresent
The moon in waxing cresent. The moon affects in all its different stages. Right now it is about to grow big again. A small thin sliver against the morning sky, barely visible. Testifying to our eternal orbit around the sun and the moon's journey with us. We are in an important relationship with each other. The Moon's gravitational pull keeps the tilt of the Earth's axis stable. Without the Moon, the Earth's axis would change direction more often and more quickly, altering the strength of the seasonal changes. What would the micro seasonal calendar look like without the Moon?
20 – 24 November / First snow
The first snow falls slowly and also ends quite quickly. Like King Bore's first greeting that he will soon colour the whole world white. Now it's just the outlines that get a white streak and the clouds are low over the houses. The garden turns inwards.
10 – 14 November / Orange mornings
In the dark November mornings, each new sunrise is like a gift. It's getting chilly and you can sense the water is getting close to freezing. The fresh orange colour that emerges as the earth turns its axis is like glowing. I sit and look out over the landscape and feel myself slowly transforming, an inner morning glow that can help me move through the day.