Augury & The Irish OMEN Days

“A” ….it’s undeniable!

This photo captures the oracular call to the old Oak tree through the very visible “A”. It’s meaning fully evident to me, at the moment I saw it. So much so, I laughed out loud - an instantaneous wisdom message delivered through nature. The moment in time, the land it was on, and the person I was with - all significant to it’s message. This is Augury.

Stick with me and I’ll explain more!

Countless times in years past, since childhood really, as I roamed the fields, the seaside, walked local Maritime forests and landscapes across the world - I have received signs, affirmations, and divinatory symbols on the forest floor, in the images created by the tree limbs, tree silhouettes, the timing of bird calls, the shapes of clouds, the sound the wind has made. Wisdom, prophecy, un-manifest potential held in the ethers delivered through the essence of life itself, for those awake and attuned to it’s presence.

This is AUGURY.

Augury is a term I learned this year, yet is an experience I’ve LIVED since I was a young child.

I simply didn’t know it had a name. I have always been sensitive to the subtle energies of life.

Maybe you can relate? Likely so, if this Blog topic caught your attention.

This sensitivity is a gift and holds a unique responsibility as one walks the human path. Some of this sensitivity is my Soul blueprint. I’ve been a Priestess, Healer, Wise & Wild Woman in many past lifetimes - and again NOW. Some of this sensitivity is childhood wounding and lineage trauma that created a nervous system primed for vigilance and hyper attunement to the environment around me. These are interwoven in my current life path and constant awareness of shifting energies.

AUGURY is listening to the language and wisdom of nature, and the subtle realms communicating through the flow of Source through daily life occurrences.

An AUGUR is one who is attuned to the “subtle world”. One who observes natural and life phenomena (weather, birds, dreams, animals, smoke, fire, clouds, dreams etc) and interprets their deeper meaning as a way of translating what is already alive in the Energetic Field of Life. A weaving of Gnosis within and without. Anyone can grow their capacity to become more aware and attuned, to experience Augury. It is a form of divination or oracular living.

This is not unique to ancient Celtic Lands or Pre-Christian cultures. It is something found cross culturally, existing in many indigenous cultures who have a reverent relationship with the natural world, and where life itself is viewed as a spiritual tapestry constantly weaving new threads of awareness, guidance and prophecy. Most often embodied by those cultures who have Anamistic and Shamanistic roots.

Forms of Augury:

Ornithomancy - Bird Divination: Flight direction, calls, behaviours, numbers of birds, type of songs. This is very prevalent still in Irish, Norse, Siberian, Andean folk traditions and North American indigenous beliefs.

Weather, the Elements & Land Guardian Communication - Sudden changes in weather; behaviour of wind, fog, thunder; shifts in temperature; stones appearance and “movement” - shifting under your feet etc.

Fire and Smoke - Type of movement of the smoke and/or flame, height, directionality, thickness, sounds - crackle, hiss, popping, level of intensity - raging or struggling to stay alight.

Animal Messengers - Unexpected encounters, out of ordinary behaviour, repeated appearances, animals crossing your path and how they do so; eye contact, sounds etc.

Land Augury - Similar to Geomancy or Dowsing, whereby the energies of the land and landscape communicate through shifts in your mood, emotion, mental capacity, body sensations, and specific experiences of nature on specific landscapes, or sections/point of land; Psychic experiences with messages while on these land spaces and/or through connection with specific Trees, Stones, Bogs, Swamps, Waterfalls, Rivers, Bridges - “threshold places”.

Timing - Any of the above occurring at liminal or threshold moments/times in your life; or at personally significant days/dates/times; and pre/post the timing of meaningful/relevant conversations, encounters, delivery of messages etc.

Dreams and Visions - Although not nature based, both of these experiences can bring forth nature based experiences in those dream/vision states that behold meaning. And are often spontaneous and arrive when messages are trying to come through, just as through these other pathways of Augury.

AUGURY is different from other forms of divination which involve the use of external tools/object such as Runes, I Ching Coins/ Yarrow Sticks, Oracle/Tarot Cards, Curio Kits etc. This form of divination works only with living signs, traditionally nature based, it’s relational as it occurs real time, in the moment of the experience - a sense and embodied experience by the person. It is not invoked nor does it work with a created system of symbols, as is the case with these other divinatory tools and practices.

In fact, Augury is ever present in life and always speaking to those aware and attuned.

The land itself is considered an Oracle and many of the Cross Quarter Days in the old calendar (the Wheel of the Year - Imbolg, Bealtaine, Lammas, and Samhain) are considered times of heightened Augury.

Augury is inherently a feminine essence experience - intuitive, receptive, rooted in deep listening, presence, embodiment, allowing wisdom to be revealed - not forced, which emerges through the land, cycles, and body of life itself.

IRISH Folk Tradition of the 12 OMEN DAYS.

Otherwise referred to as the Celtic OMEN Days.

The Omen Days refer to a Celtic tradition and belief that the twelve days between December 26 (known in modern Ireland as St. Stephen’s Day) and January 6 (Epiphany) form a liminal period outside ordinary time. A threshold time between the dying year, the dark womb time of the Winter Solstice and the year in the birthing canal, at the mid winter season. A time when the otherwordly and etheric wisdom is more prominent, accessible and relevant.

Before I move further into this tradition, it is important to note the relationship to St. Stephen’s Day (Dec 26th) and Epiphany (Jan 6th). Both of these have Christian application but the significance of these dates also have pre-Christian roots. St. Stephen is identified as the first Christian Martyr (sacrifice by death) and the feast day honouring him follows Christmas Day. In Christian faith, Christmas Day demarcates the birth of Christ. Weaving sacrifice (equated with death) and birth, or incarnation, together. Epiphany, another Christian feast day, in general terms (I am not a theologian or practising Christian) was when Jesus’s divine identity was revealed - and God’s presence made visible to the world, and in particular to the Magi of the East. The word Epiphany has Greek roots and suggests a sudden ecstatic revelation, a manifestation of a deity (God/Goddess) appearing in disguise, or a moment of divine truth that breaks through the veil.

Yet, again, as I explore not only my own personal UNTAMING, but the untaming of cultural stories, handed down traditions, socially shaped beliefs, and popularized secular ideas (Christian and otherwise) - to date there is ALWAYS a Pre-Christian experience to be found. Most of which have been co-opted and re-framed through a Christian lens, and dogma to go with it.

We are getting to the 12 OMEN DAYS tradition, I promise!
And if you’re not interested in this background info, just skip to the latter half of the blog for those details. Personally, I am fascinated by what lays beneath the surface. I really want to know more of the expanded truths, the deeper roots of what we have been so casually taught in western culture, and what has been intentionally left out.

The WREN DAY - “Hunt the Wren Day”, is a folk custom in Ireland and on the Isle of Man (located in the Northern Irish Sea - between England and Ireland). The Wren is a small bird of high spiritual significance. It is debated whether it was actually hunted, or was symbolically “hunted” and effigies of the Wren were placed on a decorated pole and paraded around villages. Folks would dress in a lively costumes (thatched hats), play music and collect donations before a “symbolic burial of the Wren”, a funeral dance and/or celebration.

Here is a link to “The Wren, The Wren” song, by Lisa O’Neill.

In Celtic mythology, birds are viewed as intermediaries between the non-ordinary and ordinary realms. The Wren has ancient association, and are called “the King of all birds”, as they can fly the highest of all Irish birds and the lore is that they would hide in the wing of the Eagle, and dart out once the Eagle was as high as it could fly. Often associated with Sacrifice, cleverness, “the trickster archetype” - it can outsmart larger beings/move in unseen ways and act with perfect timing, is a symbol of sovereignty, beholds sacred and adaptive intelligence, represents liminality and the turning of cycles. The Wren (An Dreoilín) being honoured at mid-winter, mid-yule and just passed the Winter Solstice is often associated with the marking of “time turning” and the old year dying so the new will rise.

Wrens lives in the hedges, stone walls, low shrubs - all known to be threshold spaces.

They have a sacred role as guardian of thresholds. Both guide and messenger between the realms. Appearing at death and rebirth moments in time. Solar dying of the old year, the energy given back to the land, so a new solar cycle can begin with the coming of spring energies. They present sacrificial death not as punishment, but as a transference of vital life force.

Therefore, the Wren is also a symbol of fertility.

The Wren is both paradoxical and sacred in its symbolism.

It is also interesting that the Wren later became vilified by the Church. Christian stories portray the Wren as the betrayer of St. Stephen, “a tattletale” which led to his death as his hiding place was reported to have been revealed by the Wren. However, it is well known and documented that early Christianity did not approve of folk traditions, and nature based spiritual beliefs that supported “non-hierarchical sovereignty” and direct communion of the lay person with the divine. Nor did they approve of “trickster archetype” figures which would challenge the moral authority of the Church over culture.

OK - so, to speak briefly to the time surrounding Epiphany - Jan 6th.

There is little written evidence of this particular date holding pre-Christian significance. However, this general time frame IS associated with Celtic and Germanic Mid-Winter Ritual, Ceremony and many folk traditions. A similar Germanic Folk Tradition - “Sternsinger” or Star Singers also went door to door during the time of Epiphany.

CANADIAN CONNECTION

In the East Coast of Canada, particulary Newfoundland and Labrador, the tradition of Tibbs Eve is similar to the Wren Day and the door to door revelry is referred to as “Mummering”.

My mother also recalls, as a child - in rural Nova Scotia (Queens County), people going door to door dressed in costumes, playing music for food, drink and a penny. She remembers it being called “Bell Snickling”.

NOW…..finally, here you are….

The Irish OMEN DAYS are sometimes referred to as Lae na Céalmhaine (Days of Observation or Augury in Irish), though terminology varies by region and source. Each day is believed to correspond symbolically to one month of the coming year, with weather, events, dreams, and various omens offering insight into the energy of that future month. In Irish lore, the Fili (Seer -Poets) and the Draoithe (Druids; Wise One) were the ones to translate what was noted on these twelve days, as a form of prophecy for the year ahead.

Many of these practices were localized, varying by region and household, and rarely systematized in any written form. Like many other pre-Christian folk traditions these were shared orally, and morphed according to the subculture of the region. Also, very often coopted in some way by Christianity as it spread across the Celtic and Germanic lands of continental Europe.

The revival of the observation of the OMEN Days (rather - the experience of them) emerged again in the late 20th century, and expanded to include other daily synchronicities, chance events, signs and experiences such as listed above. And also now includes your emotional, mental, and physical states on each day, as valuable insight into the months ahead.

Now, you can prepare to journal your observations and experiences for the next year.

You might have some fresh memories around the time of Dec 26th - Jan 6th, at the time you are reading this. Or like me, you might need to wait for the end of year opportunity to embrace this old folk tradition from start to finish.

The photo for this Blog is one of the Augury — OMEN signs I received on Jan 1st, 2026. It was OMEN DAY seven. It has personal significance for me, which I might share in its corresponding month of July - once I see what transpires. Stay Tuned!

I hope you have enjoyed what I have researched, experienced and shared with you.

BLESSINGS.

HUGS X AMANDA

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