February 2: A Lot More Than Groundhog Day

American Groundhog                                      John James Audubon (1785-1851)

Gen. Beauregard Lee emerged from his home outside Atlanta this morning to see a definitive shadow and predict six more weeks of winter. That other groundhog up north came away with a different interpretation. OTR would be only too happy to let winter rip across the South for three more weeks.  And speaking of interpretations, February 2 seems to have an inordinately large number of associations as do many of those "pagan" days in our calendar. What a difference a day makes:

Groundhog Day; and,

World Wetlands Day; and,

Candlemas, or the Presentation of Jesus at the Temple; and,

Feast of the Purification of the Virgin; and,

Imbolc, the first cross-quarter day of the year; and closely associated with,

St. Brigid's Day: and,

a scattering of additional national holidays and lesser feast days.


As February 2 comes to a close, we should be left with a completely unreliable winter weather forecast, all of our Christmas decorations neatly packed for next season, an enhanced understanding of the meaning of the number "40" in Judeo-Christian history, an introduction to the nexus of culture and cosmology, some knowledge of early Irish history, and an appreciation of the most biologically diverse ecosystem on the planet.

OTR intends to ponder all of this, drink in hand, in a silent conversation with the faces in the fire. We'll remark on this cross-quarter day that Winter's cold now gives way to the promise of Spring. Better that than relying on predictions from a titled marmot living in a Colonial Revival mini-mansion.