So we’re into the Twelve Days of Christmas, a time I like to use not only for Christmas celebrations but for contemplating, going deep into that heart of darkness. Studies show that in Scandinavian countries, with their long hours of darkness, you are likely either to tap into your creativity at midwinter, or go crazy. Perhaps some of us do a bit of both.

It’s obvious that we’re in the darkest time of the year – those of us in the Northern Hemisphere, that is – but not why there are Twelve Days. And why, oh why, doesn't the sun rise earlier each morning, now that we’ve passed the winter solstice? Well, the two things are related. Because of the angle of the earth’s axis, and the elliptical shape of its orbit, there’s a strange anomaly: after we pass the shortest day of the year, around Dec 23rd, the sun will still rise later and later each morning until Jan 6th heralds in the shift to an earlier sunrise. So it feels as though the darkness is deepening, not dispersing.

In many cultures, these twelve days (actually a few more, but it’s genuinely twelve between Christmas and Twelfth Night or Epiphany on Jan 6th) are considered as time out. The Romans placed them outside the calendar itself, and the ancient gods of the Rigveda were said to rest for twelve days. In Germany all spinning must cease, so as not to offend the winter goddess Frau Perchta, and in England as in various other European countries, social order was overturned with the Feast of Fools and the reign of the Lord of Misrule. Finding a bean or a silver sixpence in your slice of pudding could elevate you to being King or Queen for a day! More poetically, the Irish said  that ‘on the twelve days of Christmas the gates of heaven are open.’ But they also added an ominous twist: ‘On Twelfth Night, ‘the souls of the dead are thicker than the sand on the sea shore.’

The Twelve Days are a magical time, with many traditions of fortune-telling. The veil between our world and the invisible world of spirits is said to be thin. There is the opportunity to seek out knowledge, and discern what is to come in the year ahead. One method is to take each day of the twelve as representing a month of the year, and for instance,  by studying the weather on that day, predict how the corresponding month will turn out. (I have tried this, with not very encouraging results…) Other divination rituals use candles, nuts and even the family Bible, to determine by word or action what will happen. More macabre practices involve watching out for the spirits of those who will die in the year to come, perhaps seeing them pass into the churchyard. Serious or a bit of fun, these rituals have embedded themselves in our Christmas traditions, whether it’s pulling crackers or playing board games, to see what fortune has in store for us.

The rich overlap of traditions, from indigenous folk traditions to the great rites of the Christian religion, all play a part in our appreciation of Christmas. The birth of the sun god, Russian Yarilo, or of Mithras, of Christ, is solemnised in worship, luck-bringing present ceremonies, and games and feasting that kindle a spark in the dark days of winter.

I love this period, and hope for fresh inspiration from it.

I enter the Kuan Yin temple in Singapore. I’m the only Westerner here, and I try to move quietly, unobtrusively in case I breach any detail of temple etiquette. Statues of Kuan Yin and other gods and goddesses in varied sizes and forms are grouped on shrines and in niches. The predominant colours are red and gold; the air is full of the smoke of joss sticks, varied altars are piled with offerings of fruit and flowers, and donation boxes are regularly stuffed with notes. I notice how many young people are here worshipping at the shrines, consulting the oracle, and invoking their own personal encounter with the deity.

But later, when I find out more about Kuan Yin, I discover that here is a lady who cannot be pinned down by religion or culture. She slips from one to another, from Buddhism to Taoism to Shintoism. She has connections with Christianity, and the ancient religion of Egypt. She may be revered as a goddess or as a spirit, a bodhisattva (a Buddha-to-be) or an immortal who was once an exceptional human child. Kuan Yin goes by other names, too, but they all mean one thing in essence: She Who Hears the Cries of the World. She is a listening ear, a saving arm, a calming presence.

And she has an oracle. More than that, her temples in the Far East are full of men and women seeking advice on a personal problem or significant question by consulting this oracle. The oracle consists of 100 numbered sticks which are shaken in a brass or wooden cylinder, vigorously and noisily, until at last one jumps out. The number corresponds to a reading, which in turn is a poetic reflection, augmented by an interpretation of what this means in individual life. Here, the seeker hopes, is the wise advice which will help to resolve their query. To me this is an extraordinary validation of divination as a part of spirituality, connecting it to sacred space, whether a temple or a church – something all but lost in the West.

I first ‘met’ Kuan Yin in her famous temple at Penang in December 2011, while Robert and I were working as lecturers on a cruise. I seized the chance to explore her domain, and witness the oracle in action. Then at Singapore, one of our next stops, came this second chance to visit one of her chief temples. Here I tried out the oracle for myself, and was given a copy of it in translation as a gift from the temple, something to be treasured.

I’d had a copy of her Oracle for some years, in fact, in the form of a book by Stephen Karcher, produced in an accessible version for Westerners but faithful to the spirit of the original. But discovering the living tradition in those two temples spurred me on to find out more about her, and to acquire my own set of oracle sticks. This I did  in a shop close by to the Singapore temple – but then how on earth was I to decipher the Chinese numbers? A helpful site on the internet finally gave me the tools to do that. http://www.mandarintools.com/numbers.html.

Then I fancied having a statue of Kuan Yin. I was due to present an evening to my current Nine Ladies group (see my book ‘The Circle of Nine’), exploring the Kuan Yin archetype, so there was something of a deadline. Could I find a figure in time that pleased me, and which didn’t cost a vast amount?

Kuan Yin’s chief symbols are the moon, the sea and a dragon. She is a patron of sailors, and there are many temples to her on the sea shore. She is merciful, and it is said that just as her heart is open to all, so should one’s own heart be open when approaching her. Elaborate rituals and paraphernalia are of little importance compared to that. Still, it would be nice to have a visual reminder of her. I hovered over bronze statues of Kuan Yin advertised on the internet, depicted with the crescent moon behind her, and a dragon at her feet, but in the end chose a relatively simple one in white porcelain. The image of her as a ‘white goddess’ has appeal to me, perhaps because it carries a quality of universality, of the archetype behind the archetypes of the feminine. So that’s what I went for – delivered from, of all places, a Bonsai centre! http://www.got-bonsai.co.uk/ For around £45 I received a speedy delivery of my white Kuan Yin, nestling safely in a cheerful Chinese patterned cardboard case.

She was described as ‘blanc de Chine’, which meant nothing to me until I looked it up and found, to my delight, that this figure had been made in Fujian province in China, and stemmed from a centuries-old tradition of making Kuan Yin and other sacred figures there. Ah – the People’s Kuan Yin! Lineage means more to me than lavish originality; this little figure has provenance to me. Excellent essay at http://www.holymtn.com/gods/BlancdeChine.htm!

And she has a secret resource: an internal reservoir which can be filled with water, and which then drips ‘blessed Dew’ for several minutes. It took me a little while to discover that you don’t look for a hole in her head to pour it into – you pour it into the hole at her feet, then turn her upside down to feed the reservoir before setting her the right way up again! That little challenge solved, she became a beautiful and serene model of a spirit, deva or deity – call her what you will – who presided over a very successful evening of discussion, meditation and oracle consultation in our front room last night.

Books:

The Kuan Yin Oracle: The Voice of the Goddess of Compassion – Stephen Karcher
Bodhisattva of Compassion: the Mystical Tradition of Kuan Yin – John Blofeld
Kuan Yin: Myths and Revelations of the Chinese Goddess of Compassion – Martin Palmer, Jay Ramsay & Kwok Man-Ho
Divination: The Search for Meaning - Cherry Gilchrist