It is groundhog day tommorow. This is the day when we all wait for a gopher to pop out its hole then some expert must decide if he has seen his shadow or not. If the gopher sees sees its shadow than there is six more weeks to winter but if it doen't than we only have six more weeks until spring. Thus is the nutso ritual of this mid winter holiday. Why do we celebrate this? I haven't a clue. You can be sure of this you will not find me next to some groundhog tomorrow.
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a great Groundhog day whereever you are Chuckie in the Frozen North, Zone 5
Same difference, but the wording I like is: If the ground hog sees its shadow then there is six more weeks to winter, but if it doesn't, then it's only a month & a half until spring.
If you look at the Wheel of the Year, and mark off the equinoxes and the solstices, then you'll find that there are midpoints between these dates. In the European pagan calendar these holidays are Imbolc (Groundhog Day), May Day, Lammas, and Samhain (Halloween), but these holidays, because of their ties to the seasons, are pretty much universal in all cultures.
Groundhog Day is the remant in our culture of what was Candlemas, and before that, Imbolc. There's a gardening-related article on the Groundhog Day/Imbolc connection here:
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In the Shinto/Japanese calendar, the holiday is Setsubun-sai, and in the Hindu calendar, Vasant Panchami. The equivalent holiday in the Jewish calendar is Tu B'Shevat, which this year is coming in a couple of weeks -- the whole Jewish calendar is running late this year. (You can find an interesting little article about this holiday here:
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can readily understand why this time of the year is marked and celebrated. Here, you can feel a tiny kernal of warmth, an ember of what is the spring-to-be, wrapped in the icy tendrils of winter. It's not yet spring, but you can feel that the worst of winter is over. That is the magic of this holiday.
Thanks for these great articles. I have not changed my perpective on the silliness of groundhog day. Though I will on febuary 2 celebrate the mid winter holiday. I am not sure how I will celebrate it yet. Happy Groundhog Day everyone. Chuckie in the Frozen North, Zone 5
This year, both Groundhog Day and the State of the Union address occur in the same week. As Air America Radio pointed out, "It is an ironic juxtaposition of events: one involves a meaningless ritual in which we look to a creature of little intelligence for prognostication while the other involves a groundhog."
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