New Beginnings

If Candlemas day be sunny and bright, Winter again will show its might.
If Candlemas day be cloudy and grey, Winter soon will pass away.

We all know the 'rule' about Groundhog Day- If the groundhog sees his shadow, then we get 6 more weeks of winter but if not, then spring is soon to come.  I find that whole thing a tiny bit odd. I mean .. I know where the 'official' groundhog is, he didn't see his shadow .. but here, it's bright an sunny and bordering on warm, so here, a groundhog certainly would. So how does that account for different parts of the country, much less the world?

Groundhog Day (or Candlemas, or Imbolc) for me is instead about new beginnings. It seems to happen that around this time every year, something new begins for me. last year, I left a job that was causing me stress and not paying me enough to even make traveling worth it.  I wish that the job at the yarn shop had lasted longer after that, but Sheri wasn't happy running the place, and it was becoming an unfun place to work.

With that in mind, I have chosen to take this Imbolc as a time to begin actively working on the School of the Season's New Year's Wishes workbook. It's something I wanted to start last year, but school and work and everything got in the way. I'll be posting my exercises here, both as a way to share my explorations, and because I don't really like writing things longhand anymore.

In honor of Brigid on this Imbolc Eve

Elizabeth of Trailing Yarn posted for Silent Poetry, and I found it a simply fascinating concept.

WHAT: A Bloggers (Silent) Poetry Reading
WHEN: Anytime February 2, 2007
WHERE: Your blog
WHY: To celebrate the Feast of Bridgid, aka Groundhog Day
HOW: Select a poem you like - by a favorite poet or one of your own - to post February 2nd.
RSVP: If you plan to publish, feel free to leave a comment and link on this post. Last year Reya put out the call and there was more poetry in cyberspace than she could keep track of. So, link to whomever you hear about this from and a mighty web of poetry will be spun.


Without further ado, a trio of poems:

One I didnt write:

To a Cat

Mirrors are not more silent
nor the creeping dawn more secretive;
in the moonlight, you are that panther
we catch sight of from afar.
By the inexplicable workings of a divine law,
we look for you in vain;
More remote, even, than the Ganges or the setting sun,
yours is the solitude, yours the secret.
Your haunch allows the lingering
caress of my hand. You have accepted,
since that long forgotten past,
the love of the distrustful hand.
You belong to another time. You are lord
of a place bounded like a dream.

Jorge Luis Borges

One that I wrote:

a life springs outward


seeds of fantasy whirl in eddies
cast off from branches like reaching hands
a life springs outward
seeking salvation in words

cast off from branches like reaching hands
the seers listen to the cries of children
seeking salvation in words
remembered from lullabyes long forgotten

the seers listen to the cries of children
thrusting hands into gold-filled cauldrons
remembered from lullabyes long forgotten
when days and youth were bright

thrusting hands into gold-filled cauldrons
that spilled their seeds onto the desperate fields
when days and youth were bright
with the promise of another new tomorow

that spilled their seeds onto the desperate fields
seeds of fantasy whirl in eddies
with the promise of another new tomorow
a life springs outward

And one fitting the season:

Snowflakes

Out of the bosom of the Air,
Out of the cloud-folds of her garments shaken,
Over the woodlands brown and bare
Over the harvest-fields forsaken,
Silent and soft and slow
Descends the snow.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow