What it means
Elder closes the year, running up to the winter solstice, and the sign is read as an ending that turns into a beginning. Elder people are said to be restless explorers, eager for new places, ideas and experiences, and wary of anything that pins them down. Many reinvent themselves more than once. They can be blunt and impulsive when young, and the tradition says they grow into real wisdom as their experience builds.
Strengths
Love of freedom, openness to change, honesty, big-hearted generosity, and wisdom drawn from experience.
Challenges
Impatience, bluntness, restlessness, a fear of being tied down, and a habit of leaving before things are finished.
Elder dates and Ogham letter
Elder runs from November 25 to December 23 (29 days, one more than the other trees, because Cosmic Array counts December 23 here). Its Ogham letter is Ruis, the letter for the sound R. The dates come from the tree calendar Robert Graves set out in The White Goddess (1948): thirteen 28-day months named after Ogham letters in his Beth-Luis-Nion order, plus one spare day, December 23. It is a modern system inspired by the Ogham, not a calendar recorded from the ancient Druids, and scholars think only some of the Ogham letter names first meant trees. Almost every Elder birthday has a Sagittarius Sun. The Sun reaches Capricorn around December 22, so the last day or two of Elder can be Capricorn.
The elder in folklore
Elder can be cut to the ground and grow back within a season, which made the tree a natural symbol of renewal. English and Scandinavian folklore tells of an Elder Mother who lives in the tree, and woodcutters were supposed to ask her permission before taking any wood. Burning elder on the household fire was widely thought to bring bad luck.
How Cosmic Array reads it
Your tree depends only on the day and month you were born, so the year and birth time don't change it. The Architect blueprint shows your Celtic tree next to your Chinese animal, Mayan sign and Egyptian deity, and its written synthesis can set the tree against your Western Sun, Moon and Rising.