I’m writing at the very end of our Weekend time this week, so if we were sharing our lives over coffee, mine would be more milk than coffee in honor of Imbolc, which I’ve somewhat been celebrating all weekend long.
We’d also be watching the Super Bowl since that is also going on at the moment.
The wheel has turned again, and we find ourselves at the next holy day of the old ways… well, a particular pantheon of old ways, anyway.
For those of you who have been around for a while, you already know I don’t fit in a particular religious group. There was a time when people would call me a dabbler, intending it as an insult, though I rarely took it as one. I am a bit of a dabbler. I am strong in my faith, and I accept that my faith doesn’t exactly fit well within the parameters of any other particular faith.
Though this day and age is particularly suited for exactly that sort of thing.
Today (or yesterday, depending on your tradition) is Imbolc, a Celtic Pagan holiday celebrating the sun’s return and the last of the snow. I’m fairly certain our (as in American) holiday of Groundhog’s Day comes from this holiday. Well, from the Christian appropriation of this holiday.
Christians took this holiday and called it Candlemas, and from there, they came up with a handy little poem to help determine the weather:
“If Candlemas Day be fair & bright Winter will have another flight But if Candlemas Day be clouds & rain Winter is gone & will not come again.”
The U.S. translated that into if a rodent in Philadelphia sees his shadow, we have, what is it, 6 more weeks of winter.
