The Why of Winter

My mother turned 81 just before Christmas; wise, shrewd, beautiful, a mother of five; a gifted teacher, naturalist, poet, and for many years, a champion protector of women’s statutory right to give birth in their own home if they wished, not to become mandatory patients in a more or less public setting, rendered subordinates in their own care during what is a personal and family event.

An independent thinker possessed of moral and physical courage, self-discipline and fortitude; and with a keen sense of the absurd -without which there is no sense of humour, she could be described as a classical Capricorn Queen of Pentacles, born 23 December.

Both her parents were naturalists, and she in turn took her children to the wild places, beach combing and. hill- climbing. We climbed in the Lakes, in Glen Coe, on Mull. As teenagers, we were not always in the mood, but she would not leave us at home.

Nor could we always keep up with her, a smallish woman, 5′ 5…same height as me, and with the stamina of…well, a mountain a goat, trotting on ahead with her backpack, my stepfather, Pa, six foot five, toiling moodily at the rear with the biggest backpack.

Capricorn marks the winter solstice, so it marks the beginning of winter, but it also marks the returning sun.

Capricorn is the cardinal sign of Earth in the western zodiac, and also in the storybook of the Tarot, and its associated cards are The Devil (Pan) the Ace of Pentacles (Earth) and the Queen of Pentacles.