Tag: cross-quarter days

within the grip of winter

image credit: jull at pixabay

Within the grip of winter, it is almost impossible to imagine the spring. The gray perished landscape is shorn of color. Only bleakness meets the eye; everything seems severe and edged. Winter is the oldest season; it has some quality of the absolute. Yet beneath the surface of winter, the miracle of spring is already in preparation; the cold is relenting; seeds are wakening up. Colors are beginning to imagine how they will return. Then, imperceptibly, somewhere one bud opens and the symphony of renewal is no longer reversible. From the black heart of winter a miraculous, breathing plenitude of color emerges.
~ John O’Donohue
(To Bless the Space Between Us)

Groundhog Day was one of our favorite holidays. We had a tradition of taking our groundhog stuffy outside to see (or to not see) his shadow. We named him Basil (Wasyl) after my grandfather, who was born in Ukraine on February 2, 1882. By 2014 Basil had a companion, who was at first named Basil, Jr. At some point Tim, with his endless sense of humor, started calling the little one Oregano, and it stuck.

I cannot bear to continue this tradition without my beloved. So I decided to dig up some of the pictures I took of it over the years, in memory of Tim. I am definitely within the grip of winter, the one outside and a winter of grief. I still can’t imagine how a future without him will ever feel like spring.

Tim, Oregano & Basil bird-watching together (2025, Bolin Forest)
this turned out to be our last Groundhog Day together
definite shadows (2024, North Carolina Botanical Garden)
Tim waiting for the parade to begin with Basil & Oregano
(2023, Essex Ed Groundhog Day Parade)
fun in the snow (2022, Haley Farm State Park)
by the sea (2019, Eastern Point Beach)
2.2.14 ~ Essex, Connecticut
Tim waiting with the Basils
(2014, Essex Ed Groundhog Day Parade)

Basil, Oregano and I will stay inside and light a candle this year.

god of sun and light

“Lugh – Celtic Sun” by Helen Seebold

Lugh, the Celtic god of Sun and Light, celebrates the sun’s annual path across the sky. Each of the year’s solar events — solstices and equinoxes and the midpoints between these — marks the passing of the seasons on Earth. I have written the name of each solar holiday in Runes around the sun’s face and marked him with Celtic knots that represent this unending cycle.
~ Helen Seebold
(36th Annual Sculpture in the Garden)

soon, when winter yields to spring

“When Icicles Hang by the Wall,
& Dick the Shepherd Blows His Nail”
by Edward Robert Hughes

Soon shall the winter’s foil be here;
Soon shall these icy ligatures unbind and melt — A little while,
And air, soil, wave, suffused shall be in softness, bloom and growth — a thousand forms shall rise
From these dead clods and chills as from low burial graves.
Thine eyes, ears — all thy best attributes — all that takes cognizance of natural beauty,
Shall wake and fill.
Thou shalt perceive the simple shows, the delicate miracles of earth,
Dandelions, clover, the emerald grass, the early scents and flowers,
The arbutus under foot, the willow’s yellow-green, the blossoming plum and cherry;
With these the robin, lark and thrush, singing their songs — the flitting bluebird;
For such the scenes the annual play brings on.
~ Walt Whitman
(Sands at Seventy)

facing the growing darkness

“Autumn Leaves” by John Everett Millais

The inspiration of nature can help us deal with death and endings, gifting us with the courage to let go and the strength to carry on. The pain and uncertainty may be no easier to bear but the release of autumn asks that we trust in the process, bravely facing the growing darkness without ever knowing if the light will reappear.
~ Maria Ede-Weaving
(The Essential Book of Druidry: Connect with the Spirit of Nature)

that we might be nourished

“Harvesters” by Anna Ancher

This is the blessing of the Harvest.
The soil is sacred.
Food is sacred.
We are sacred.
We give thanks for the life cut down,
for its generous sacrifice,
that we might be nourished.
~ Maria Ede-Weaving
(The Essential Book of Druidry: Connect with the Spirit of Nature)

of leafing and blossoming

“Chestnut Tree in Blossom” by Vincent van Gogh

Beltane is the joyous time of leafing and blossoming. This festival celebrates sex and the transformation that comes when we open ourselves to another at the deepest level. This alchemy can also happen when we allow ourselves to be profoundly touched by nature. When we open to and merge with our environment, we can discover sacred union with the world itself.
~ Maria Ede-Weaving
(The Essential Book of Druidry: Connect with the Spirit of Nature)

although winter is still with us

image credit: Katerina Vulcova at pixabay

Although winter is still with us, we sense the subtle renewing of life at the edge of our senses, visible in the growing light and the first greening shoots. Like a seed germinating in the dark soil, we, too, feel the bright spark of life that burns within us. Its call will soon drive us from the warmth and safety of the dark to the ever-quickening call of the light. For now, we must sit at Brigid’s hearth, dreaming and drawing nourishment and comfort from it until the lighter, warmer days. At Imbolc we honour those dreams and the inner fire that will create the world anew — we, too, shall soon become the spring.
~ Maria Ede-Weaving
(The Essential Book of Druidry: Connect with the Spirit of Nature)

ancestral remembrance

The Artist’s Parents by Felix Vallotton

We achieve some measure of adulthood when we recognize our parents as they really were, without sentimentalizing or mythologizing, but also without blaming them unfairly for our imperfections. Maturity entails a readiness, painful and wrenching though it may be, to look squarely into the long dark places, into the fearsome shadows. In this act of ancestral remembrance and acceptance may be found a light by which to see our children safely home.
~ Carl Sagan & Ann Druyan
(Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors)