At times like these, we need all the cheerful holidays we can get, particularly the kind unfreighted with obligations to buy one another things to the point of bankruptcy.
Tomorrow, Groundhog Day, is also known as Candlemas, and, to our neopagan friends, Imbolc. For some, this holiday starts tonight, and I feel like I, and maybe everyone, desperately need this holiday this year. Here's why:
February 2nd is a cross-quarter day. It is halfway between the Winter Solstice and Spring Equinox. So, if you are suffering from Seasonal Affective Disorder, the Winter Blahs, or Yearly Suicidal Thoughts, take heart! Regardless of what that damned woodchuck says, there really are only six more weeks of winter. Really. Promise.
The groundhog tradition is older than old, and comes from the idea that cross-quarter days were days to predict the weather, only opposite. So if Candlemas is sunny and bright, allowing the rodent in question to see its shadow, six weeks more of desperate weather are in store. If it's dull and cloudy, then count on an early spring.
In Catholic churches, Candlemas is the celebration of the purification of Mary, 40 days after the birth of her son. By tradition, candles for use in church and home are blessed on this day, and candlelight processions commemorate the occasion.
A little poking around on teh Internets reveals that Candlemas is the time that European farmers first began to prepare their fields, and that neopagans draw from this a message that now is the time for new beginnings, new projects, new resolutions, new determination.
Neopagans put candles in their windows on Candlemas Eve, and this seems like a wonderful idea to me. It's just so dark and cold here in the Northeast; nearly everyone I know has a cold they can't shake and a bad case of the winter blues. The news is so godawful across the country and across the world. Maybe if everyone decided tonight to light a few candles and put them in their windows for all their neighbors to see, we could all take heart for a moment or two.
Winter ends. Recessions end. Colds end. Republican administrations end, and someday, even Rush will make his final signoff.
Did I mention that Winter ends?
It does. I promise. Six weeks! Ask the rodent.
Happy Candlemas!