Nothing in the Universe has an on/off switch. Movement from one stage of time/life to another is always gradual, progressive, each stage containing a subtle hint, a clue, of the next to come. Slowly shifting light, temperature, weather patterns, and emotions signal the winding down of one season and the impending commencement of the next.
While most people think of there being four seasons, each one beginning with a solstice or an equinox, this is only partially true. There are, in addition, four celestially energetic pivotal periods of the year that occur at the halfway point of each of the four seasons. These stations are called cross-quarter days. The halfway points serve as sort of semi-seasons, which, if we choose to observe them, help us to perceive and adjust to the changes around and within us.
Although the existence of the cross-quarter days is largely unknown, the holidays that have grown up around them are still actively celebrated in our mass culture. February 2nd, May 1st, August 1st, and November 1st mark the halfway points of winter, spring, summer, and fall respectively. The current holidays are Groundhog Day, May Day, Lammas, and Halloween/All Saints’ Day/All Soul’s Day. All but Lammas (known as Second Planting in agricultural communities) are still popular festivals celebrated throughout North America today. Rooted in ancient pagan and primal observances of cyclical change, these rites have survived through time and retain a strong, if subliminal, resonating relevance for us today.
February 2nd marks the midwinter point. The midwinter crossquarter day can be likened to the quickening of life, that magic moment when an expectant mother experiences the child within her shift positions for the very first time.
The days are perceptibly longer now. There is the faintest breath of a whisper of the coming of spring in the air. There begin to be signs: The first tiny buds, like goose bumps on bare skin, begin to form on naked branches. Snowdrops appear, pushing their fragile blooms up through the still-frosty soil. Hibernating animals begin a restless stir in their underground nests. They toss and turn and awaken enough to devour a midnight meal before turning over and tucking back in again for the duration. It isn’t spring yet. But there is the palpable promise. The eager anticipation of the annual resurgence of life that comes each spring.
Winter for most plants and animals is a time of retreat, both physically and psychologically. It is a quiet dark time conducive to deep rest and deep thought when we delve into the depth of the heart of our soul to discover the wisdom and riches buried there.
Prophesy and purification are the recurrent mythic and symbolic themes of the midwinter festivals. The concept of prophesy is drawn from the foresight and faith that spring, in all its verdant glory, is on its predictable way, even amid the hard white winter. Purification suggests careful preparations for its coming: clearing the way with the fiery brilliance of insight which comes from visiting the deep, dark internal winter of our souls and seeing therein our own part in the constant and continually changing cycles of life.
In midwinter the land is gripped in death, and Demeter, the ancient goddess of grain and fertility descends to the underworld in pursuit of her lost dear daughter, Persephone. Disconsolate, Ceres explores the far reaches of the territories of Hades and her own private hell, her journey lit by a single candle. The impassioned determination of her search and her ultimate discovery shed the first glimmer of light in the indelible dark of winter. The creative spark of full consciousness. With the light from her candle we can begin to see the spiritual direction of the new cycle.
In Greece there is an underground sanctuary dedicated to Hades, god of the underworld, and Persephone, his stolen bride. For millennia, pilgrims have made their way to the Nekyomanteion of Ephra, a labryrinthine arrangement of spiral-shaped rooms and passageways carved into the belly of Mother Earth. Manteion means “a place in which one hears prophesy”, and nekyo or necro refers to the dead. Petitioners descend deep into the divine womb by way of a serpentine tunnel leading to a cavernous dark chamber which sits above a crypt. There, encouraged by Demeter’s resolve, in the unsteady light of just one torch, they consult the oracles of the dead for inspiration, for direction. “It is better to light one candle than curse the darkness” could be their motto.
Midwinter was celebrated as Imbolc by the ancient Celts and also as an early Gaelic fire festival. Both were held in honour of Bridget, a.k.a. Brigid, Bride, Brigetis, the Northern White Goddess, guardian of the home fire and hearth. Fire was the symbol of her white-hot mystic magic. The intense heat of the flame, her fervent faith in the return of the light to the world. today the day belongs to her spiritual daughter, st. Brigid, adored patron saint of Ireland.
The hagiographic accounts of St. Brigid are few. She was allegedly Ireland’s first convert to Christianity and the founder of that country’s first convent in the fifth century. She continued to be honoured just as the goddess was before her, and the worship of her devotees did not change over the centuries. A holy fire, reminiscent of those kept constantly burning by the worshippers of her earlier goddess incarnation, was maintained at her shrine in Kildare until it was finally ordered doused by the church in the thirteenth century. Until not so long ago, domestic fires were routinely extinguished on her day, February 1st, and then rekindled and blessed in a preparatory act of purification.
In Rome, the Midwinter day belonged to Juno Februata, virgin mother of Mars. Februare, in Latin, means “to expiate, to purify.” Here, fires were lit and candles were blessed and burned in her honour. Women also continued to carry candles in street processions at this same time of year in memory of Ceres’ candlelit search belowground. Determined to stop this goddess worship, Pope Sergius I claimed this pagan holiday for the church. Renamed Candlemas, February 2nd was to be celebrated as the feast of the purification of the Virgin Mary forty days after she had given birth. The observance, however, remained the same – the blessing and burning of candles for Our Lady of Light.
At this halfway marker of the winter, it is customary in many places to foretell future weather conditions. In Greece, people maintain that whatever the weather on Candlemas Day, it will continue the same for forty days to follow.
The Scottish say:
If Candlemas day be dry and fair, The half o’ winter’s to come and mair. If Candlemas day be wet and foul, The half o’ winter’s gane at Yule.
The Welsh say:
If Candlemas day is fair and clear … There’ll be two winters in one year.
The winter cross-quarter day is also a time of weather prediction in Germany, where farmers claim they “would rather see their wife upon a bier, than that Candlemas Day be sunny and clear”. Midwinter is designated Badger Day in recognition of the underground movement toward life, which is manifest in this season. When the first wave of German farmers emigrated to North America, they brought Badger Day with them. But faced with a lack of badgers, the settlers were forced to substitute the North American groundhog.
Each year on February 2nd, the attention of United States is directed to Punxsutawney, Pennyslvania; and the attention of Canadians to Wiarton Ontario where in both cases Groundhog Day is big business. Weather forecasters and news reporters converge on these two communities to stake out the burrow of this furry hibernating creature in order to ascertain the true prognosis of the coming of spring. Groundhog Day is a direct and thriving descendant of age-old Midwinter divinatory practices like gazing into Bridgid’s holy well, or the tunnel leading into the oracle, Ceres’ explorations of the cave. Will the groundhog see his shadow? Will spring come on time?
Okay. Now pay attention. This is how it works: If the groundhog sees its shadow, it means there are still six more weeks of winter. If it doesn’t see its shadow, it means that spring is only six weeks away. Tricky, eh? There are always six more weeks of winter. Spring is always six weeks away. That is why we mark the day in the first place. To remind us that winter is half over. To assess our situation. According to the Old Farmer’s Almanac, by Groundhog Day you should still have half of your food store and half of your fuel if you are going to make it through the remainder of winter.
With the first sensing of the coming of spring at midwinter, we find ourselves antsy, anxious to emerge from our inward focus already. We strain toward the annual vernal miracle of rebirth and resurrection. Yearn for the light. But it isn’t yet time for spring, and spring always starts on time. First we have to finish winter.
At midwinter, we still have six more weeks before we will emerge from the dark. It can’t always be light, you know. If we always run in pursuit of the light, we miss half of each day; half of each year. Half of our feelings. Half of our lives. And, besides, there are some things that you can only learn in the dark.
We are like frightened little children who need a night-light. We forget that the light is always there – somewhere – anyway. We just can’t see it when it’s dark. It’s like the dark side of the moon which we perceive only as absence of light, failing to recognize the dark richness of its own ambiance, its own energy. Its own invaluable lessons. The dark offers us a chance for enlightenment, but our eyes fail us in the shadows. And so we panic, preferring anything to the pitch, the petrifying recesses, of the truth of our own souls.
This terror is the turning point. The time for determination. It is at this critical moment that we can consciously choose to dwell in the dark for a while longer – for as long as it takes – deal with it. To go where it takes us. To explore the blind byways of our pain, inching along, feeling our way with our tongues if we have to. To plumb our emotional depths and mine that precious secret ore of our own heartfelt experience. To feel our heart actually break, explode apart, like a geode, revealing the glittering crystals growing inside. To engage passionately in all that life has to offer.
At the funeral of Thurgood Marshall, the Reverend Dr. Calvin Butts, pastor of the Abyssinian Baptist Church in Harlem, eulogized,
“In order to get somewhere, you got to go through something.”
Celebrate life this day … decide where you are going, and determine what you have to go through to get there ….
Many Blessings, Francesca