Candlemas = Renewal

Each year, we celebrate February 2nd around the world. We call it Brigid, Candlemas, Imbolc, St. Brigid’s Day, and yes, of course, Groundhog’s Day. Why do we celebrate on February 2nd? Is it like President’s Day – providing a nice day for state and federal workers to stay at home? Not really… Brigid has been celebrated for many thousands of years. It is the day on which we recognize and honor the awakening of the maiden aspect of the Goddess.

Some of us celebrate the holiday as Brigid, in honor of Brigid who was a Celtic Goddess of poetry, healing, fire and smithcraft. In years past, the people of the British Isles would build a nice fire in their hearth, light torches and candles, and celebrate Brigid. What were they celebrating? The Maiden aspect of the Goddess awakes or returns from the underworld. At Winter Solstice she was impregnated with Spring. She sleeps until Brigid and returns, bringing Spring and renewal for the earth with her. The other names for this holiday are just different names for the same celebration.

Some may ask what this really has to do with us? We see that some of the animal kingdom hibernates through the dark time of the year. We tend to follow the same cycle. During the dark time of the year we retreat within ourselves. We focus internally. We stay inside our homes in the warmth and think about
what is upcoming for us. We may not even recognize it. We may not even think about it consciously, but subconsciously we are very much aware of it. We are very much a part of the spiral of birth, death, and rebirth throughout the year. We are interconnected with the earth and all that is on it. You have likely heard the old expression “Spring Fever” many times before. This is simply our anticipation of Spring’s return, when we can go out and live a full life upon the earth once more.

Often if we look at our ancestors and the His/Herstory, we can find the answers to many of our questions. I hope that everyone has a beautiful Brigid and remember… Spring is just around the corner.

—Mayfair Lightwind

You Call It Groundhog Day, We Call It Imbolc 

Author: Peg Aloi

I trudge over the snow-covered lawn to my backdoor, ignoring my earlier tracks and breaking new ones. I enter the house this way each night, initially because I misplaced my keys, but now because I like to use this roundabout path. It allows me to look up at the huge bare trees silhoetted against the blue night sky, and to check the birdfeeders, to see if the starlings, bluejays, cardinals, chickadees, and sparrows (not to mention the marauding squirrels) need more food. Crunching through the white crust, made glassy and sugary from a recent sleet storm on top of a foot of powdery snow, the sound is enormous: crunch, crunch, CRUNCH…I am a kid again, smashing my boots onto frozen puddles and frost-rimed grass, whacking at icicles with a stick, just to hear the sound of frozen water breaking.

As I usually do, I look up to gaze upon the moon…but I can’t see it. She is shrouded in greyish, opaque mist…her light gives the clouds form but not brightness. She wears the frozen fog like a gossamer cloak, through which she may peek at any moment…for now, I can see the surface of the snow reflecting the lights of neighboring houses, lamps, televisions, throwing gleaming color across the white expanse of snow-lawn, shimmering now blue, now orange, now pale green…

I think of the approaching festival of Imbolc, the midwinter fire festival honoring Brigid, and I picture the beautiful Irish goddess up there beside her sister the Moon, also wrapped in a white gossamer cloak, both of them aglow from the cold air…offering us their gifts of healing and hope as we wait for a brief respite from the single-digit temperatures, a thaw, a day or two when the snows melt away, the buds tremble with incipient growth and all living creatures feel a small, fiery flutter deep within our beings, as we whisper, gladly, “Spring will come again! Spring will come again!”

A Day to Divine the Weather

From the time we are schoolchildren in this country, we are taught the folklore of Groundhog Day, one of the last surviving vestiges of weather divination from old European customs. If, on February 2nd, the groundhog (most notably “Punxsutawney Phil” in the small Pennsylvania town that bears his name) sees his shadow, we may expect six more weeks of winter. If he does not, good weather will arrive sooner. It is largely a meaningless holiday, since whether it is sunny or cloudy on this day has not been shown to have much effect on how soon spring arrives. But the history of Groundhog Day is far more complex than what it has become: a staged event in which poor Phil is observed in the glare of television cameras so our local meteorologists have a cute sound byte and a brief close-up of his blinking, bewildered groundhog face, a yearly ritual that appears on the morning news. The origin of Groundhog Day is derived from earlier celebrations held on the cross-quarter day of February 2, dates variously known as Brigid’s Night in Ireland (festival of the Celtic goddess of poetry, birth, weddings, smithcraft, and healing), Oimelc/Imbolc/Imbolg in Scotland, and Candlemas in England. The cross-quarter days (Samhain, Imbolc, Beltane, and Lughnasa) were always associated in ancient times with divination–the veil between the worlds is believed to be its thinnest, and the balance of energies between solstice and equinox was thought to be very significant.

The type of divination associated with each tends to be connected to the purpose of the festival or the most crucial matters pertaining to the season. For example, Beltane was a time of planting and mating of livestock; so humans practice fertility rites and divination involving marriage and romance. Samhain, being the dark time before winter and associated with the risk of death from starvation or exposure, usually has rites of communing with or honoring the dead. Lughnasa, the time of harvest, is a time of thanksgiving, but also a time of sacrifice, reflecting the killing of part of the herd to feed the community through winter; these rites often involved ritual slaying of a harvest lord and fire divination (scrying) to give strength for the coming months. At Imbolc (which means “in the belly”; Oimelc refers to milk; both terms are said to connect to the animals known to give birth at this time: sheep), when it was still very much winter in the Northern lands, this was naturally a time to divine the return of warmth and growth.

Imbolc was known as Brigid’s Night in Ireland, and was celebrated, like the other cross-quarter festivals, from the eve of the holiday through the following night. Brigid, (pronounced “Breed” and also known as Brigit, Bridget, Brighid and Brid; she gives her name to our word “bride”) as the patroness of healing and birth, was honored with sacred bonfires, symbolizing the heat of the lifeforce, kindled on this night. Fires purify and cleanse, and the fires were often utilized in rites to bless livestock, as they were at Yule. Others seeking Brigid’s blessing, particularly smiths and poets or artists, also saw their own vocations blessed by these fires: the smith, for whom fire was a necessary tool for his art, and the poet, whose creative imagination was blessed with the fire of inspiration.

Brigid and Mary:
Healing Goddesses

As the Roman Christian Church sought to usurp this holiday (as they also did with Christmas, Easter, All Soul’s Day, and Lammas, among others, which are all based on pagan festivals), they changed the name to Candlemas, thus retaining the symbols of fire. Candles were blessed by clergy, and chapels were decorated with many burning candles. Candlemas later became, for the Catholics, the Feast of Purification of the Blessed Virgin Mary. In Ireland in particular, with its strong Catholic tradition, many of the early pagan goddess festivals were converted to days honoring the Virgin Mary. That February 2 became a rite of purification has several implications. First, Imbolc and Brigid’s Night both featured fires of purification. Second, February 2 was forty days after Christ’s birth; it was believed women were impure for six weeks after giving birth, and so for Mary to become pure again this holy day was necessary. As with Candlemas, churches were filled with burning candles to honor Mary’s purity–and parishioners received candles blessed by the priests. Catholics also used the blessed candles in a rite the following day called St. Blaise’s Day: parishioners were blessed with the consecrated candles held to their throats to help prevent colds and flu–maybe this is subconsciously meant to offer healing to the throat (heart) chakra, as yet another holdover to the festival of Brigid, patroness of women about to be betrothed.

Why a Groundhog?

The transition of Candlemas and other ancient celebrations to Groundhog Day dates back to the time of the Roman conquest of Northern Europe: the Christian celebration of Candlemas was associated with songs like this one:

If Candlemas be fair and bright
Come, winter, have another flight
If Candlemas brings clouds and rain,
Go, winter, and come not again.

This practice of divining the weather on this day spread to Germany, and was brought to this country by some of its first German settlers, also known as Pennsylvania Dutch: hence the location of the most famous groundhog. Also, the groundhog (also known affectionately as a woodchuck) was not the original prototypical weather-divining creature: in Europe it was a hedgehog. But early American settlers were nothing if not adaptable, and so the local creature most closely resembling a hedgehog was chosen for this ritual. Like hedgehogs, groundhogs are no-nonsense, practical animals; the same can be said for bears and badgers, who were also associated with weather divination in European folklore. If a groundhog sees his shadow on the 2nd, some inner sense tells him it’s not spring yet (does he feel the chill in the air most clear winter days have? or is the sunny day from an early thaw, which often presages a return to wintry weather?)–and he hightails it back to his burrow. Likewise, humans observe midwinter as a milestone, a moment which is on the cusp of change, between the harsh, cold winds of winter and the fragrant, sensual breezes of spring.

All Earth’s Critters

Groundhogs are exceedingly shy, and exceptionally cute. They abound in the Northeast, and as a child in western New York State, I saw them often on drives through the country, placidly sitting up on their haunches, nibbling grasses, or slowly scampering back to their burrows when a passing car scared them. That these smart, unassuming creatures, who I have admired since I was very young, are associated with a holiday I now observe as the Feast of Imbolc, or the feast of Februa, has special meaning for me now. I used to wonder why groundhogs had anything to do with predicting the weather. Now, after a lifetime spent cherishing all nature has to offer, and the last thirteen years spent honoring and learning from the many gods, goddesses, sprites, devas, fairies, dryads and other inhabitants of the natural world, I understand that all is as it should be. The earthy god of the woodlands, Pan, is revered by many witches at Imbolc, who call on him to awaken the flora and fauna in spring, and to bless them with his fiery fertility, passion and ecstasy. Pan is the perfect balance to Brigid, whose fiery energy is centered upon healing, creativity and purification. As man and beast approach a new season of rejuvenation and rebirth, they remember again what they need to do to reawaken, to survive and flourish. Just as Brigid bestows her blessings upon humans according to their needs, so Pan shares his wily knowhow and animal passion with the beasts and birds. And that includes the groundhog. May he return to sleep after his brief outing in the morning…to his groundhog burrow, comfortable and built to design as only a groundhog knows how to build…may he return to his warm, calm, unassuming, groundhog dreams, where he nibbles grasses, sits proudly up on his haunches, and waves shyly at people out for a drive in the country.

Peg Aloi

You Might be Giving Pagans a Bad Name If…

You insist that your boss call you “Rowan Starchild” because otherwise you’d sue for religious harassment. (Score double for this if you don’t let that patronizing dastard call you “Mr. or Ms. Starchild.”)

You request Samhain, Beltaine, and Yule off and then gripe about working Christmas.

You expect your employer to exempt you from the random drug testing because of your religion.

You think the number of Wiccan books you own is far more important than the number you have read, regardless of the fact that most of your books are for beginners.

You’ve won an argument by referencing “Drawing Down the Moon,” knowing darned good and well they haven’t read it either.

You said it was bigotry when they didn’t let you do that ritual in front of city hall. It had nothing to do with the skyclad bit.

You picketed The Craft and Hocus Pocus, but thought that the losers who picketed The Last Temptation of Christ needed to get lives.

You’ve ever had to go along with someone’s ludicrous story because it was twice as likely to be true than most of the nonsense you spout.

You complain about how much the Native Americans copied from Eclectic Wiccan Rites.

You’ve ever referenced the Great Rite in a pick-up line.

Someone has had to point out to you that you do not enter a circle “in perfect love and perfect lust.” (Score double if you argued the point.)

You claim yourself as a witch because how early you were trained by the wise and powerful such-and-such of whom nobody has heard.

You claim to be a famtrad (hereditary), but you’re not. (Score double if you had to tell people you were adopted to pull this off.)

You claim to be a descendant of one of the original Salem Witches. (Score to a lethal degree if you don’t get this one.)

You think it’s perfectly reasonable to insist that, since every tradition is different, and no one tradition is right, there’s no reason not to do things your way.

You’ve ever been psychically attacked by someone who conveniently held a coven position you crave, and suddenly had a glimpse into their mind so you could see how evil they were.

You’ve ever affected an Irish or Scottish accent and insisted that it was real.

You think it’s your Pagan Duty to support the IRA, not because of any political beliefs you might share, but because, dammit, they’re Irish.

You talk to your invisible guardians in public. (Score double if you have met the Vampire Lestat or Dracula, triple if you got into a fight and escaped, or quadruple if it was no contest.)

You’ve ever confused the Prime Directive with the Wiccan Rede.

You’ve ever tried something you saw on “Sabrina, The Teenage Witch”

You’ve suddenly realized in the middle of a ritual that you weren’t playing D&D.

You’ve failed to realize at any point in the ritual that you weren’t playing D&D.

You’ve suddenly realized that you are playing D&D.

You hang out with people who each match at least fifteen of these traits.

You recognize many of these traits in yourself, but this test isn’t about you. But, boy, it’s right about those other folks.

by Cather “Catalyst” Steincamp

eCauldron.com

Astronomy Picture of the Day

Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer.

2016 February 2

Comet 67P from Spacecraft Rosetta
Image Credit & Licence: ESA, Rosetta, NAVCAM

Explanation: Spacecraft Rosetta continues to circle and map Comet Churyumov-Gerasimenko. Crossing the inner Solar System for ten years to reach the vicinity of the comet in 2014, the robotic spacecraft continues to image the unusual double-lobed comet nucleus. The featured image, taken one year ago, shows dust and gas escaping from the comet’s nucleus. Although appearing bright here, the comet’s surface reflects only about four percent of impinging visible light, making it as dark as coal. Comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko spans about four kilometers in length and has a surface gravity so low that an astronaut could jump off of it. With Rosetta in tow, Comet 67P passed its closest to the Sun last year and is now headed back to the furthest point — just past the orbit of Jupiter.

Moon, Saturn, Antares on February 3

Before dawn on Wednesday, February 3, 2016, watch for the waning crescent moon shining close to the golden planet Saturn. The fainter, twinkling, ruddy object in the vicinity of the moon and Saturn is Antares, the brightest star in the constellation Scorpius the Scorpion. Antares represents the Scorpion’s Heart.

You can’t see Saturn’s rings through ordinary field binoculars, though binoculars are great for getting an eyeful of earthshine on the dark side of the moon.

But you can view Saturn’s rings with a modest backyard telescope. Try your luck tomorrow, before dawn.

Once you’ve identified Saturn, jump off from there to witness all five visible planets in the same sky. From east to west, the five visible planets are Mercury, Venus, Saturn, Mars and Jupiter. Look for Mars and Jupiter a good ways to the west of the ringed planet. The bow of the lunar crescent points in the direction of Venus and Mercury near the southeast horizon, but don’t expect to see Mercury until darkness first begins to give way to dawn (80 to 70 minutes before sunrise).

The five visible planets will adorn the February morning sky until around February 20. In the chart below, Mars shines close to due south, so Jupiter lies outside this chart in the southwest sky. Scroll to the bottom of this post for an additional chart showing Jupiter and all five planets in the morning sky.

In their order of brightness, the five planets are Venus, Jupiter, Mercury, Saturn and Mars. Mercury may not appear as bright as Saturn or Mars, however, because the solar system’s innermost planet sits so close to the horizon and in the glare of sunrise.

Bottom line: Before dawn on Wednesday, February 3, 2016, let the moon introduce you to Saturn – and, in fact, all five visible morning planets.

Author

Bruce McClure

Bruce McClure is the chief writer for the popular EarthSky Tonight pages. Since joining EarthSky in 2004, he has written thousands of astronomy articles, enjoyed here by millions. He also writes, gives planetarium shows and hosts a wide assortment of public astronomy programs in and around his home in upstate New York. If you ask an astronomy question on our site, it’s likely to be Bruce that answers it. His love for the heavens has taken him to Lake Titicaca in Bolivia, and he has sailed the North Atlantic, earning his celestial navigation certificate through the School of Ocean Sailing and Navigation. Bruce is also a sundial aficionado. He says his number one passion – besides his wife Alice – is stargazing.

Article published on EarthSky

Your Daily Influences
February 2, 2016 

The Emperor
The qualities of The Emperor include the ability to lead and wield power. He is paternal and mentally quick as well.

Ansuz
Ansuz represents mankind’s spiritual connection to God and the universe. It is often referred to as the “God Rune.” This Rune embodies reason, truth and justice. It denotes the coming of knowledge and true counsel from a higher authority.

The Menat
A few prayers to your diety of choice would serve you well when dealing with this aspect. Your questions or requests stand a better chance of being answered in the next few days if you do so.

Your Daily Influences represent events and challenges the current day will present for you. They may represent opportunities you should be ready to seize. Or they may forewarn you of problems you may be able to avoid or lessen. Generally it is best to use them as tips to help you manage your day and nothing more.

Your Animal Spirit for Today
February 2, 2016 

Porcupine

Porcupine has appeared in your reading today to bring a message of innocence and trust. Although Porcupine can throw quills when cornered, he is gentle, loving, and non-aggressive. Is there an area of your life that need Porcupine energy? Have you lost the ability to trust??

Your Ancient Symbol Card for Today

Evil

At its extreme Evil indicates a life force that embodies pure malevolence. Fortunately Evil in the extreme is very rare. Generally Evil suggests actions taken that challenge our morality and without regard to the harm that may be done to others. The appearance of Evil signifies a time in which someone is acting out of rage, selfishness, ignorance, or, sadly, sating a mean spirit.

As a daily card Evil is a warning that you or your group are the focus of someone’s malice. This is time for you to be very wary of the motives of those who haven’t earned your trust. It is likely you have something they want and they are willing to go to extremes to take it from you.

Your Crowley Thoth Tarot Card for Today

The Tower

The Tower is perfect card for the revolutionary or iconoclast or anyone who flourishes in rapidly changing environments. What The Tower brings to the mix is sudden, usually unexpected change. With that change there will be a period of disorder, and there may be loss. However, the loss is probably not yours, since you may well be the agent that created the change to begin with. Many positive things can occur from the change The Tower indicates: Truths will be laid bare, revelations and breakthroughs are not just possible but likely, and nothing spurs creativity like a good dose of chaos and confusion. In the end it is likely that what replaces what was lost in the fall of The Tower will be worth the loss.