It's Groundhog Day!

"Ok, campers, rise and shine, and don't forget your booties, 'cause it's cooold out there today! - It's cold out there every day..." That's what Phil Connors, played by Bill Murray, hears first thing in the morning in the movie Groundhog Day. The film was released in 1993 and quickly became THE classic flick to watch on February 2nd.

Groundhog Day, of course, is real: it's the day the "prognosticator of prognosticators", the groundhog, tells us how much more winter we're saddled with. If the groundhog sees his shadow and retreats into his burrow, we can expect six more weeks of freezing cold. As I hear, Punxsutawny Phil did indeed see his shadow this year. Don't put away those hats and gloves yet!

Punxsutawny, by the way, is a real place in Pennsylvania. Funnily enough, I know someone who grew up there. It doesn't look anything like the movie version, though. Especially charming Gobbler's Knob is, in real life, rather unspectacular.

Phil is real, too. During the year, the groundhog lives in the Punxsutawny library, or at least he used to.

Groundhog Day is, however, also known by less mundane names and in a religious content. The Catholic church celebrates Candlemas or Lichtmess on this day. Forty days after Mary gave birth to Jesus, she presented him at the temple and was purified, therefore this day is also known as the Purification of the Blessed Virgin. Some interesting lore about Candlemas can be found here.

But as with so many Christianized holidays, this one, too, started out as a Pagan festival. My Gaelic is not so up to snuff, so I can't vouch for the popular translations of Oimelc and Imbolc. The first denotes the time of being "in milk", meaning the ewes who are now bearing lambs. The latter, meaning "in the belly", points us towards the fact that deep inside the Earth, things are indeed beginning to stir after a long sleep. If December 1st is the first real day of winter, this is the halfway point on the way to spring. From this springs the lovely tradition of the festivals of light, of which nearly every culture has one. Now is the time to coax the sun back up into the heavens. In my house, I do this with a very simple, brief ritual: for a few minutes after I get up, I turn on all the lights in house (yes, even now that my electricity bill has gone up). While all around, it is still dark and quiet, it is an incredibly uplifting and joyful experience to be so bathed in light. And to me, it is also a harbinger of better times to come.

Here comes Halloween!

The end of October is almost here, and with it comes that spooky-ooky time of year, Halloween. I use it as my excuse to dress my house with witches and fall leaves and pumpkins, and if I had children, I'd make them make me some chestnut-and-matchstick animals, too! But I won't dress up and I won't give out candy (I admit it, it's because I'm cheap and don't see why I need to stuff kids I see once a year with chocolade I might as well enjoy myself); instead, I will light a candle, play some soft music and listen to the ghosts outside the door.

There are two things one needs to know about me to understand why I love Halloween as a spiritual holiday: one, I am not a party animal, not even when dressed up as Miz Kitty, and two, I am a neo-pagan. Coincidentally, I was raised in Germany, where November 1 is also a religious holiday, All Souls' Day, the Christian church's concession to those pesky pagans who wouldn't be deterred from celebrating the night when the veil between the worlds is thinnest and the dead may well walk the earth.

Depending on whom you read, we're told this used to be the old Celtic New Year, another turn of the wheel. Certainly other cultures have their new year's night associated with ghosts and goblins, perhaps as a chance for a last goodbye or last words of wisdom from a long dead relative, as fortune-telling and communing with the dead are two typical activities. One very nice tradition in a circle I used to go to for a while was the Silent Supper, a ceremony held in total silence, from blessing and invocation to feasting and farewelling. A plate was set aside to remember those who have passed on. The entire event was very touching and peaceful.

My candle, wine and music is the mini version of this ritual that helps me ease into the season of darkness, a kickstart to contemplation, if you will. This year, I will remember my grandparents and great-grandparents whom I was fortunate enough to grow up with, my favorite uncle who always supported my love of books, my younger cousin whom I never got to know well, my aunt's son whom I never even got to meet, Jeremy Brett, one of my favorite actors who brought so much life to the fictional character of Sherlock Holmes, as well as my assorted pets who allowed me to spend time with them for a while. I will express my gratitude for another year without a death in the family. And I will go to sleep knowing that on this special night, we got to share one of the great mysteries of the universe: we are all one.