In December, the birth month, there are seven great and vital Ceremonies, filling the whole month with their observances. The first is the Desire of Birth, the commencement of the mystic story. It is so remote from human and material life that it is impossible to describe it in human language. It is witnessed consciously only by the spiritual being before its descent into matter. The disciple who seeks to take part in it while living in the body, must endeavor to recall to his psychic memory the litany which he heard chanted in the spiritual sphere from which he came when he sought the experience of human life. The Ceremony of the Desire of Birth lasts for four days and nights, beginning on 1st December. During this time it is necessary for the disciple to contemplate all that is implied in its litany. At each midnight, and at the hour of dawn, he should meditate upon the words of the litany, endeavoring to obtain understanding in respect to them. They are very difficult and obscure, so much so as to seem meaningless to the man in material life if he tests them by the light of intellect. But the disciple who belongs to one of the occult schools, [1] and who desires to become a conscious part of the Divine whole, must enter into the psychic life of the world at this sacred season, and apprehend from year to year more and more of the mystery of the divine life in himself, and its union with the material.

LITANY
I.	I desire birth.
II.	I am ready to be burned and consumed;
	for that is what birth is.
III.	I am ready to be naked and unprotected,
	and to suffer from my nakedness;
	for that is what life is.
IV.	I am ready to make the pilgrimage
	through matter in darkness and in fire,
	so that the circle of the uncreated shall
	become one with the circle of the create.

The ordeal of fire which comes upon the soul immediately that the desire for birth is experienced, and continues while man remains man only, is the burning out and consuming of all alloy in the nature. When this is accomplished, the ego can effect the miracle of resurrection and rebirth into a higher state, and can begin to form a regenerated shape which shall be worthy of immortality.

The instinct of the animal nature is to avoid suffering and to seek protection from it. But the Spirit of Man has sought birth in matter with the object of obtaining purification, and desires, therefore, not only to enter the ordeal of fire but to enter it unprotected. Therefore does it utter these two stanzas of the litany which follow the expression of desire of birth. The mystic union is expressed in the last stanza; it is beyond the understanding of man. He can only dimly apprehend it by degrees as he follows the occult ceremonies, and obtains more and more illumination in respect to them. Autumn, winter, spring, and summer repeat themselves duly every year, because the Divine Spirit of Nature descends continually upon Nature, and passing through matter returns to itself. The drama is enacted afresh every year. The story of the pilgrimage of the spirit of man is contained within this yearly drama, and is the basis of the legends which form the groundwork of the great religions.

Desire, marriage, birth, these bring us hither: love, death, resurrection, these carry us hence; just as the green leaves come with every springtide, so does the inner meaning of the green leaves reveal itself to the disciple in perpetual recurrence.

The ancient Egyptians were the first to institute a sacred calendar, in which every day had its special religious ceremony. The Egyptian initiate, who gave fragments of the Birthday Litany and the Resurrection Litany from the ancient Ritual to the author of the Story of the Year, has now outlined the rites and vigils of the months between Christmas and Easter. But he has given nothing for the summer and autumn months, during which no existing religion has dates for ceremonies or feasts. Doubtless this is in accordance with the accepted belief of the ancients, that no great sacrifice can commence during the sun's southern progress. The south belongs to Yama, the God of the Dead. The sacred months are those in which the sun moves northwards.