Point of Reference

February 5, 2009 in Indiana is a bright, sunny beautiful blue sky day reflecting on a bed of windswept and drifted snow so perfect that it looks like meringue topping on Key Lime pie in a very expensive restaurant.

At previous points between now and last January 31, various seasonal celebration days have been recognized ... Imbolc, a Celtic cross quarter day may have been on January 31, or perhaps February 1. Yet another current tradition, which finds its origins in pre-Christian European rural celebrations, is "Ground Hog Day." Ground Hogs are actually marmots, but no matter for those who are bent on gaining a bit of notoriety (or a party) out of the occasion. On February 2 this year, Punxsutawney, PA welcomed around 13,000 visitors who came to see the resident marmot named "Punxsutawney Phil" emerge from his box/crate/burrow and look for his shadow. It was a bright, sunny day and so it was decreed that Phil had indeed seen his shadow - he was held aloft to the delight of his adoring fans, properly adored and then returned to his box/crate/burrow to snooze.

Further north, in NYC, the Staten Island Zoo presented the city's only ground hog/marmot "Staten Island Chuck." Despite several days of practice and predictions of an outstanding celebration by the director of the Staten Island Zoo, Chuck succumbed to the pressure of pomp and pageantry and responded by biting New York's Mayor Blumberg on the hand. The bright spot was that zoo officials were able to assure the Mayor there was no danger of Rabies because Chuck has never been exposed to other animals. No wonder he was in a less than social mood. Ground Hog Day may have come to the US with Germans who immigrated in the 18th Century.

The Celtic mid-winter traditions are also attuned to the cross quarter (40 days following the Winter Solstice) - the earliest recognition or meaning given to the February date was that of Imbolc - "center earth" and was the day traditionally designated as the time when seeds left in the earth "moved" and began to germinate. Not quite spring, but a definite sign that spring was not much longer in coming. Imbolc was also a fire celebration, a time to put out the old hearth fire and restart it anew with embers from the bonfires which burned in honor of Imbolc and Birgid. These days, neo-pagans like to represent Imbolc with designs which include candles, snow drops and new lambs gamboling on green hillsides. Prior to Christianity, Birgid was the Celtic patron goddess of healing, creativity and smithing. In some very ancient way, she is eternally linked with Imbolc, the promise of spring and the proof of fertility and fecundity. The Goddess Birgid survived the transition to Christianity by becoming St. Brigit and moreover her day of bonfires and celebrations became "Candlemas" ... flames confined to candles, and candles to be blessed by the Church for use in the coming year.

I've always felt a certain amount of confusion about the true meaning and importance of Imbolc, especially when I tried to tie it to an agricultural setting. Then it came to me that the cross quarter following the Winter Solstice is much older than agriculture. It may have originally been another of those "guiding light, guiding star mile stones" which was a sign of hope and direction to primitive peoples who depended on staying on the move to hunt, or later to find graze for their flocks, but also had to hunker down someplace for the worst of the winter weather. Imbolc must have been that point at which the ancients said, "Look, we've made it this far, we just have to stick it out a little longer and then it's spring!" There is nothing quite so foreboding to the human soul as the quiet, paralyzing cold of a sub-zero night, with a bright moon shining on glittering snow. The paradox of all nature - exquisite beauty and the deadly silence of arctic isolation. Nothing that a booming big bonfire or two can't fix - and think of the way the forbidding landscape must have cheered up when dozens of bonfires were visible for miles and miles! "Look! We're not in this alone -- and everyone agrees that we just have to stick it out a little longer! We'll make it, we're not alone!"

And, as I drive through the dark, quarter moon lit winter night of an Indiana countryside, I'm once again captured by the very primal sense of danger and isolation created by the extreme cold, and deep, sparkling snow. Tonight the moonlight illuminates the wind burned drifts creating the illusion of porcelain waves. So cold that even the snow has frozen. Stars hang in the clear sky and glitter in the brittle atmosphere. One feels suddenly close to the First Peoples who once called this land their own, and I am reminded that I travel on a modern highway which covers the migratory-hunting trail of ancient travelers. If I were a bit sleepier, or even more of a romantic I know that I'd be able to see the spirits of those old ones who traveled this traditional route from north to south and back again in search of good hunting. I stop the car, and roll the window down, straining to hear any message the earth and sky might have for me ... but there is nothing more than the pristine silence. Perhaps that is the message after all.

Imbolc Greeting Card Graphic courtesy of:
Hedinghamfair, UK
http://www.hedinghamfair.co.uk/bc_special.htm