January

Poems, Quotes, Folklore
Sayings, Links, References, Lore
Ideas, Garden Chores

Compiled by Michael P. Garofalo

Months of the Year

On January 1, 2005 this January webpage was moved and is now updated at:
http://www.egreenway.com/months/monjan.htm

January is here, with eyes that keenly glow,
A frost-mailed warrior
striding a shadowy steed of snow.
-   Edgar Fawcett

January is the quietest month in the garden.  ...  But just because it looks
quiet doesn't mean that nothing is happening.  The soil, open to the sky,
absorbs the pure rainfall while microorganisms convert tilled-under
fodder into usable nutrients for the next crop of plants.  The feasting
earthworms tunnel along, aerating the soil and preparing it to
welcome the seeds and bare roots to come.

-  Rosalie Muller Wright, Editor of Sunset Magazine, 1/99

There are two seasonal diversions that can ease the bite of any winter.
One is the January thaw.  The other is the seed catalogues.
-   Hal Borland

Here's to thee, old apple tree
Whence thou mayest bud
Whence thou mayest blow
Whence thou mayest bear apples enow.
-  Wassailing Songs, England, January 5th

Should auld acquaintance be forgot
and never brought to mind?
Should auld acquaintance be forgot
and days of auld lang syne?
For auld lang syne, my dear,
for auld lang syne,
we'll take a cup of kindness yet,
for auld lang syne.
-   Robert Burns, Auld Lang Syne

Bare branches of each tree
on this chilly January morn
look so cold so forlorn.
Gray skies dip ever so low
left from yesterday's dusting of snow.
Yet in the heart of each tree
waiting for each who wait to see
new life as warm sun and breeze will blow,
like magic, unlock springs sap to flow,
buds, new leaves, then blooms will grow.
-   Nelda Hartmann, January Morn

In order to set the calendar right, the Roman senate, in 153 BC, declared
January 1 to be the beginning of the new year. ... During the Middle Ages,
the Church remained opposed to celebrating New Years.  January 1 has
been celebrated as a holiday by Western nations for only about
the past 400 years.
-   New Year's Day

Seasons and Time

Many cultures celebrate New Year's day on
March 21st, the Spring Equinox. 

There is a privacy about it which no other season gives you ..... In spring, summer
and fall people sort of have an open season on each other; only in the winter, in 
the country, can you have longer, quiet stretches when you can savor  
belonging to yourself.
-  Ruth Stout

January is named after the Roman god Janus, who was always shown
as having two heads.  He looked back to the last year and forward to
the new one.  The Roman New Year festival was called the Calends,
and people decorated their homes and gave each other gifts.
-   New Year's Day

The name, given to the month of 'January', is derived from the ancient Roman 
name 'Janus' who presided over the gate to the new year.  He was revered as 
the 'God of Gateways', 'of Doorways' and 'of the Journey', later known as 
'St. Januarius'. Janus protected the 'Gate of Heaven', known as the 'Lord of 
Beginnings', is associated with the 'Goddess Juno-Janus', and often symbolised 
by an image of a face that looks forwards and backwards at the same time. 
This symbolism can easily be associated with the month known as for many 
the start of a new year bodes opportunity, casting out the old and in with the 
new. It is the time when many reflect on events of the previous year and often 
resolve to redress or improve some aspect of daily life or personal philosophy.

-    Mysitcal World Wide Web

You'd be so lean, that blast of January
Would blow you through and through.  Now, my fair'st friend,
I would I had some flowers o' the spring that might
Become your time of day

-   William Shakespeare, The Winter's Tale, Act IV Scene 4.

New Year ceremonies are designed to get rid of the past
and to welcome the future.  January is named after the
Etruscan word janua which means door.
-  New Year's Customs

Time has no divisions to mark its passage, there is never a thunder-storm
or blare of trumpets to announce the beginning of a new month or year.  
Even when a new century begins it is only we mortals 
who ring bells and fire off pistols.

-   Thomas Mann, The Magic Mountain

Dead of winter.
Cold hands warm heart.
As pure as snow.
Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness.
Now is the winter of our discontent.
Left out in the cold.
-  Clichés for Gardeners

The birds are gone, The ground is white,
The winds are wild, They chill and bite;  
The ground is thick with slush and sleet,  
And I barely feel my feet.

-  Winter Poems

The trees down the boulevard stand naked in thought,
Their abundant summery wordage silenced, caught
In the grim undertow; naked the trees confront
Implacable winter's long, cross-questioning brunt.

-  D. H. Lawrence, Winter in the Boulevard, 1916

For this beauty,
beauty without strength,
chokes out life.
I want wind to break,
scatter these pink-stalks,
snap off their spiced heads,
fling them about with dead leaves --
spread the paths with twigs,
limbs broken off,
trail great pine branches,
hurled from some far wood
right across the melon-patch,
break pear and quince --
leave half-trees, torn, twisted
but showing the fight was valiant.

To blot out this garden
to forget, to find a new beauty
in some terrible
wind-tortured place.
-   H. D. (Hilda Doolittle), Sheltered Garden, 1916

Leaves like rusty tin
for the desolate mind that has seen the end—
the barest glimmerings.
Leaves aswirl with gulls
made wild by winter.
-   George Seferis, On a Ray of Winter Light

Then sing, young hearts that are full of cheer,
With never a thought of sorrow;
The old goes out, but the glad young year
Comes merrily in tomorrow.
-   Emily Miller

Winter - Quotes for Gardeners

May the pot of prosperity boil over
May the Pongal that we cook,
the fragrance of turmeric
the taste of sugarcane, ginger and honey
Bring the joy of Pongal into our homes
May the blessings of the Sun God flood our lives.

-  Bawarchi: Indian Festivals: Pongal

Cuttings - January - Haiku and Short Poems by Mike Garofalo

Here's to thee, old apple tree
Whence thou mayest bud
Whence thou mayest blow
Whence thou mayest bear apples enow.

-  Wassail song, 5th January or Twelfth Night Celebration

The Old Year has gone.  Let the dead past bury its own dead.  
The New Year has taken possession of the clock of time.  All 
hail the duties and possibilities of the coming twelve months!  
-   Edward Payson Powell

Winter is the time for comfort - it is the time for home. 
-   Edith Sitwell

In the sniffed and poured snow on the tip of the tongue of the year
That clouts the spittle like bubbles with broken rooms,
An enamoured man alone by the twigs of his eyes, two fires,
Camped in the drug-white shower of nerves and food,
Savours the lick of the times through a deadly wood of hair
In a wind that plucked a goose,
Nor ever, as the wild tongue breaks its tombs,
Rounds to look at the red, wagged root.
-  Dylan Thomas, January, 1939

Winter, a lingering season, is a time to gather golden moments, 
embark upon a sentimental journey, and enjoy every idle hour. 
-   John Boswell

For the Lakota Sioux (Eastern U.S.) the month of January
was the period of  "The Hardship Moon."

Antisthenes says that in a certain faraway land the cold
is so intense that words freeze as soon as they are uttered,
and after some time then thaw and become audible, so
that words spoken in winter go unheard
until the next summer.
-   Plutarch, Moralia

We stand watching the yellow leaves go queer,
flapping in the winter rain,
falling flat and washed. ...
I tell you what you’ll never really know:
all the medical hypothesis
that explained my brain will never be as true as these
stuck leaves letting go.
-   Anne Sexton, The Double Image

New Year's eve is like every other night; there is no pause in the march 
of the universe, no breathless moment of silence among created things 
that the passage of another twelve months may be noted; and yet no 
man has quite the same thoughts this evening that come with the 
coming of darkness on other nights.  
-   Hamilton Wright Mabie

Look into the garden,
Where the grass was green;
Covered by the snowflakes,
Not a blade is seen.

Now the bare black bushes
All look soft and white.
Every twig is laden-
What a pretty sight!

Winter is icumen in,
Lhude sing Goddamm,
Raineth drop and staineth slop,
And how the wind doth ramm !
Sing : Goddam.
-   Ezra Pound, Ancient Music

Ice
on the earth, bitter
black frost, and a winding sheet of snow
upon her withered breast, and
deep within me, dread
and ice.

-   Jessica MacBeth, Winter Poems

Long yellow rushes bending
above the white snow patches;
purple and gold ribbon
of the distant wood:
what an angle
you make with each other as
you lie there in contemplation.
-   William Carlos Williams, January Morning - XII

No one ever regarded the First of January with indifference.  It is that 
from which all date their time, and count upon what is left.  It is the 
nativity of our common Adam. 
-   Charles Lamb

There is nothing in the world more beautiful than the forest 
clothed to its very hollows in snow.  It is the still ecstasy of 
nature, wherein every spray, every blade of grass, every 
spire of reed, every intricacy of twig, is clad with radiance.
-   William Sharp

The New Year, like an Infant Heir to the whole world, was 
waited for, with welcomes, presents, and rejoicings.   
-   Charles Dickens, The Chimes

We meet today
To thank Thee for the era done,
And Thee for the opening one.
-   John Greenleaf Whittier

This bright new year is given me
     To live each day with zest …
To daily grow and try to be
     My highest and my best!

I have the opportunity
     Once more to right some wrongs,
To pray for peace, to plant a tree,
     And sing more joyful songs!
-   William Arthur Ward

                    Frozen puddles--
                           the crack of axes
                           from four directions.

                           January sun--
                           puddle after puddle
                           becomes mud.

                                         - Michael P. Garofalo, Cuttings - January

The cold was our pride, the snow was our beauty.   It fell and fell, 
lacing day and night together in a milky haze, making everything 
quieter as it fell, so that winter seemed to partake of religion in a 
way no other season did, hushed, solemn.

-   Patricia Hampl

Farewell, thy destiny is done,
Thy ebbing sands we tell,
Blended and set with centuries gone -
Thou dying year, farewell.

Gifts from thy hand - Spring's joyous leaves,
And Summer's breathing flowers,
Autumn's bright fruit and bursting sheaves -
These blessings have been ours.

They pass with thee and now they seem
Like gifts from fairy spells
Or like some sweet remembered dream -
We bid those gifts farewell.

-   Mrs. Jones, Thou Dying Year, Farewell
Montreal Vindicator, January 6, 1829

The sun came out,
And the snowman cried.
His tears ran down
on every side.
His tears ran doan
Till the spot was cleared.
He cried so hard
That he disappeared.

-   Margaret Hillert, January Thaw

In the bleak midwinter
Frosty wind made moan,
Earth stood hard as iron,
Water like a stone;
Snow had fallen, snow on snow,
Snow on snow,
In the bleak midwinter,
Long ago.
-  Christina Rossetti

Ring out the old, ring in the new,
Ring, happy bells, across the snow:
The year is going, let him go;
Ring out the false, ring in the true.
-   Alfred Lord Tennyson

It's not the case, though some might wish it so
Who from a window watch the blizzard blow

White riot through their branches vague and stark,
That they keep snug beneath their pelted bark.

They take affliction in until it jells
To crystal ice between their frozen cells ...
-   Richard Wilbur, Orchard Trees - January

                           Someone painted pictures on my
                           Windowpane last night --
                           Willow trees with trailing boughs
                           And flowers, frosty white,

                           And lovely crystal butterflies;
                           But when the morning sun
                           Touched them with its golden beams,
                           They vanished one by one.

                                                   -   Helen Bayley Davis, Jack Frost

To leave the old with a burst of song,
To recall the right and forgive the wrong;
To forget the thing that blinds you fast
To the vain regrets of the year that's past.

-   Robert B. Beattie, A Way to a Happy New Year

Drop the last year into the silent limbo of the past. 
Let it go, for it was imperfect, and thank God that it can go.
-   Brooks Atkinson

Winter dawn is the color of metal,
The trees stiffen into place like burnt nerves.
-   Sylvia Plath, Waking in Winter

One must have a mind of winter
To regard the frost and boughs
Of the pine-trees crusted with snow;

And have been cold a long time
To behold the junipers shagged with ice,
The spruces rough in the distant glitter

Of the January sun; and not to think
Of any misery in the sound of the wind,
In the sound of a few leaves

Which is the sound of the land
Full of the same wind
That is blowing in the same bare place

For the listener, who listens in the snow,
An, nothing himslef, beholds
Nothing that is not there and the nothing that is.
-   Wallace Stevens, The Snow Man, 1923

An optimist stays up until midnight to see the new year in.  
A pessimist stays up to make sure the old year leaves.  
-   Bill Vaughan

And ye, who have met with Adversity's blast,
And been bow'd to the earth by its fury;
To whom the Twelve Months, that have recently pass'd
Were as harsh as a prejudiced jury -
Still, fill to the Future! and join in our chime,
The regrets of remembrance to cozen,
And having obtained a New Trial of Time,
Shout in hopes of a kindlier dozen.
-   Thomas Hood

January

Links and References

Above the Fog    Taoist and Zen poems by Michael P. Garofalo.  

An Annotated & Illustrated Collection of Worldwide Links to Mythologies,
Fairy Tales & Folklore, Sacred Arts & Sacred Traditions.   By Kathleen Jenks, Ph.D.

Ancient Origins of the Holidays

Anne's New Year   Christian and Jewish customs.  

Celtic Mid-Winter Poetry

Children's Songs for January

Chinese New Year Links from Yahoo

Cuttings - January   Haiku and short Poems by Michael P. Garofalo.  

First Grade Winter Poetry

January Holidays - Pagan Pathways

January Links from Yahoo   

January - Quotes, Poems, Folklore, Links, Chores

January Poems

January - Mystical WWW   

January Songs and Poems

German and German-American Customs, Traditions, and Origins of Holidays   

Happy New Year     Facts, Links, Poems, Songs.  By Jeanne Pasero.

Holiday Insights

Kwanzaa Festival Information Center   African-American Cultural Holiday Celebrations

New Year's Day

New Year's Day - History, Traditions, Customs

New Year's Page by Christina O'Keeffe     

New Year Quotes   

New Year's Quotes, Stories and Prayers

Mystical World Wide Web - January  

Poems and Feathers - Winter Poetry

Poems for a Long Winter's Night

Quotes for Gardeners.   A collection of over 2,700 quotes arranged by 130 topics.

Seasons - Quotes for Gardeners      

Snow and Snowman Links   

Snow and Winter Poetry

Traditional Customs and Folktales of January in England

Winter and Fall Poetry for Children

Winter and January Resources by Viki Blackwell

Winter and Snow Theme Page for Teachers

Winter - Books for Children

Winter Customs and Folklore in Austria

Winter Customs and Folklore in Germany  

Winter Quotations

Winter - Quotes for Gardeners  

Winter Poems for Children  

Winter Poetry  

Winter Poetry at the Holiday Zone

January Weather Lore

A wet January, a wet Spring.

The blackest month of all the year, is the month of Janiveer.

Clichés for Gardeners

Weather Lore

On New Year's Eve, 
wrap a large rock with some rope and hang it from a branch.
One New Year's Morning:

If the rock is dry, good weather will come to stay.
If the rock is wet, rain is on the way.
If the rock is moving, high winds will come at night.
If the rock is white, snow will fall tonight.
If the stone is gone, time for moving on.

January Folklore

Astrological Signs:  Capricorn,  December 22 - January 19

Astrological Signs:  Aquarius,  January 20 - February 18

January Birthstones:  Garnet

Whatever you do on New Year's Day, you'll do often in the coming year!

For continued good fortune in love, kiss and hug your lover
in the first minute of the New Year.

January Garden Chores

Red Bluff, North Sacramento Valley, California, USA

USDA Zone 9

Typical Weather for Our Area

January Gardening Activities and Chores in Red Bluff
USDA Zone 9

Pruning leafless trees and shrubs.
Adding compost, ashes and fertilizer to the vegetable and flower gardens.
Taking cuttings from dormant figs, grapes, and other shrubs.
Spraying dormant fruit and other trees.
Weeding and mowing where needed.
Burning piles of gardening cuttings.  
Fixing wood and metal fences.
Placing cold sensitive potted plants in protected areas or indoors.
Sharpening and oiling garden tools.
Protect tender plants from frosts.  
Checking for and repairing any leaks in sheds.
The soil is usually too wet and cold for much garden digging.
Indoor activities: sorting seeds, planning, reading, writing, etc.
Caring for indoor plants.
Weeding the winter garden.
Watering potted plants as needed.   
Adding Ironite and other soil supplements.   
Browsing seed and garden catalogs.
Reading gardening, botany, and agricultural books.
Planning garden improvements for the new year.  
Keep a journal.  Write a poem.  
Take a slow walk in the garden.  

January Gardening Chores and Tips for U.S.A. Zones


Oak Hill January Tips - Georgia

Oregon State University January Tips

Earth Wise Creations January Tips - Zone 9

Seasonal Garden Chores - Links

Top Garden Projects for January by Ed Hume in the Pacific Northwest

52 Weeks in the California Garden by Richard Smaus

Monthly Gardening January Tips from Ortho 

Monthly Garden Tasks in an English County Garden

Winter Rose Care

The Garden Helper Tips for January - Northern U.S.

Fruits and Nuts - January Tips - Virginia

Gardening Tips - January - New York Botanical Garden

Master Gardeners Tips

More Quotes

for

Gardeners

Trees

Spirituality and Concerns of the Soul

Flowers

Weeds and Weeding

Simplicity and the Simple Life

Pulling Onions:  Quips and Observations of a Gardener
By Michael P. Garofalo

The Essence of Gardening

Working in the Garden

Garden Digest Links  

Green Way Weblog

Haiku Poetry  -  Links and Bibliography

Clichés for Gardeners and Farmers

Jokes, Riddles and Humor

The History of Gardening Timeline
From Ancient Times to the 20th Century

Short Poems by Michael P. Garofalo

Seeing and Vision

Beauty in the Garden

Seasons and Time

Awards and Recognition for this Web Site

Religion

The Mental and Spiritual Aspects of Gardening:
Bibliography and Resources

Quotes for Gardeners

Quotes, Sayings, Proverbs, Poetry, Maxims, Quips, Clichés, Adages, Wisdom
A Collection Growing to Over 2,700 Quotes, Arranged by 130 Topics
Many of the Documents Include Recommended Readings and Internet Links.
Over 6 MB of Text Files
Compiled by Michael P. Garofalo

The Spirit of Gardening

Distributed on the Internet by Michael P. Garofalo

I Welcome Your Comments, Ideas, Contributions, and Suggestions
E-mail Mike Garofalo in Red Bluff, California

A Short Biography of Michael P. Garofalo

January  -  Poems, Quotes, Ideas, Customs, Ideas, Lore, Garden Chores.
26 March 2003

January - Mirror Webpage   :::    January - Mirror Webpage

This document was first distributed on the Internet in January 2002.
This document will be expanded and improved in 2003.

My Web Page Design Approach

My Weblog

The Spirit of Gardening

Haiku and Zen Poetry

Quotes for Gardeners

The History of Gardening Timeline