First Cross-Quarter Day

We made it: This weekend marks the midpoint between the Winter Solstice and the Vernal Equinox.  It is a time of hope, and also of purification, a time of lighting candles and burning the last logs of the Christmas season.

Plant a hope seed!
Plan your garden!
Place that seed order already!

Have fun, and rejoice if it is cloudy for then, spring will not be far off.

“Still lie the sheltering snows, undimmed and white;
And reigns the winter’s pregnant silence still;
No sign of spring, save that the catkins fill,
And willow stems grow daily red and bright.
These are days when ancients held a rite
Of expiation for the old year’s ill,
And prayer to purify the new year’s will.”

– Helen Hunt Jackson, A Calendar of Sonnet’s: February

Many names are associated with this weekend:  Imbolc, Candlemas (40 days after Christmas when Mary would have gone to the temple to purify after giving birth), St. Bridgit’s Day, eventually Groundhog Day.

It is a time marked by hope.  Can you feel it, too?

Note:  The Fruehlingsboten pictured are blossoming in my dear mother’s yard back in the Old World.