This coming weekend brings to us what the Natives of this continent called the "Cold Moon" and what we celebrate as Imbolc or Gwyl Mair--"the time of infinite possibilities for the new cycle of life and creativity, when energies are still gathering..." (Llewellen's Witches' Datebook 2010, 39). A time of infinite possibilities...
Isn't winter--at least, this darkest stage of winter when the winds are at their more biting and the days are shortest--THE season of possibility? We're given a "clean slate" of sorts. The earth lies dormant, the skies are usually steely-grey, and we gather indoors to recapture that which is most vital and life-giving to us. We "nest" at this time of the year--the hearth's fire is cheery and comforting, the meals we share are substantial and sustaining, and the plans we make are most lavish. This is not a season of distractions--there is no "pretty" in the socially-accepted form of the term. We concentrate on the "should be"s and the "will be"s now.
Louis MacNeice wrote of this in 1935...of the promise of this season...
The room was suddenly rich and the great bay-window was
Spawning snow and pink roses against it
Soundlessly collateral and incompatible:
World is suddener than we fancy it.
World is crazier and more of it than we think,
Incorrigibly plural. I peel and portion
A tangerine and spit the pips and feel
The drunkenness of things being various.
And the fire flames with a bubbling sound for world
Is more spiteful and gay than one supposes -
On the tongue on the eyes on the ears in the palms of one's hands -
There is more than glass between the snow and the huge roses.
(http://www.artofeurope.com/macneice/mac5.htm)
This is a season of dualities...of promise...of possibility.
In the softness of the winter moonlight....
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