Though it doesn’t exactly feel like it, today is what I call “New Spring“.  However, it is mostly cloudy, windy, and my mood is almost as gray as the day. Technically, based on the pagan wheel of the year, February 4 (in 2008) is New Spring. The Gaulish peoples, including the Celts, called it Imbolc. The Roman Catholics celebrated it in days of old, as Candlemas. It has morphed over time and been drowned by the influences of the Christian Church to what most people know as Ground Hogs Day. What it really is, is the half-way point between Winter Solstice and Spring Equinox. Neo-pagans tend to honor it as Imbolc or Imbolg on a set date (February 1 or 2). I prefer to take full advantage of the Universal energy by celebrating New Spring on the exact day we reach the half-way mark, which is different each year. However, with my thoughts and emotions focused on Chami’s surgery tomorrow I just couldn’t seem to get into the spirit of the reawakening of the land. Also, I’ve noticed in years past that I don’t always feel this shift in the earth or my soul on the exact date of the halfway point. Perhaps it is because I live so far north, or at such a high altitude that the sun’s journey doesn’t affect me as much as it might. However, from past experience I trust that soon, very soon, I will notice the emergences of my mood, my life-force, and sense the same thing, if not see it physically, in the nature around me.

 

I lit a couple dozen candles for the evening, ate a simple supper, and used the power of the cosmos to run healing love and light into Chami to make her strong for whatever the future may hold.