My dog’s response when I told him it was February! Photographed by myself 1st Feb 2024. He doesn’t care what day of the week or day of the month or whatever it is!
No I’m not going to start a series of months of the year. Or I don’t think so. Who know where my mind might take me this year??
St Brigid’s day. Imbolc. Candlemass. Groundhog day. Halfway between winter solstice and the spring equinox. All different names to celebrate the 1st and 2nd February. Or as many people like to say or feel “thank goodness we’ve made it through January, the longest month of the year“.
Here the sun has shone for the last two days after a Monday, 29th Jan, where it poured with rain all day solidly. It feels like spring is coming. There are snowdrops and even some hardy daffodils showing their heads. On the grass over the road from my house the crocuses that were planted by someone long before we moved in are showing their heads.
So this is a post with no deep meaning but just to say “Hello February” and “I’m pleased you’re here and looking good.”
photographed by myself 25th January at Rhuddlan nature reserve
Daffodils in my local park. Photographed by me March 2022
February 1st is Imbolc. Often seen as the start of Spring. It comes exactly between the winter equinox and the spring solstice. It is known as a quarter day. In the church calendar it is known as Candlemas the time to get candles blessed but also when the light is coming.
It has been noticeable on my morning dog walks that the sky is lightening, that there is a something in the air. Things have changed. The Met Office is still “promising” us a cold snap later in the month, but the air does feel different. The dawn chorus is more vibrant. This morning there was a large flock of geese flying out across the sea honking away. I can feel the urge to spring clean, to start a new things. Being me of course that means that after promising myself in January that I would only sign up for one thing at a time I now have three things I have signed up for and 2-3 others on the back burner, simmering. I can feel I want to get on and do things. Whereas at New year I wanted to hibernate. We were meant to be going to see our mothers on the 2nd weekend in January but my husband had a bit of a cold and instead of me pushing him onwards I advocated a hibernation weekend. I do think we both benefited from it. But now that the lighter days are coming I am ready to start planning.
So it got me to wondering why we don’t pick Imbolc, Candlemass, Brigid’s day, 1st February, as the day when we make resolutions for the year. I’m sure I’m not the only one who feels more like it. That heaviness of Christmas has gone. That need to be doing has gone. I know people who have done Veganuary and Dry January and so are feeling lighter, fresher, healthier. Now is the time to start thinking of those things we’d like to do during the year.
No I’m not going to now start advocating goals and resolutions, as I said before [sorry can’t find that post to be able to tag it]. But I am as the sun starts to show itself more often, as the light is fresher, I am going to start doing what many did on 1st January, and am going to start looking at what I would like to achieve this year.
I’m also in that strange limbo land. My friend with the cancer died last week but there still hasn’t been a date announced for her funeral. I should know today. But for now all I can do is hold my plans lightly, not put anything firmly in my diary, and also trust. Though I also think threshold time is a good time to plan. One is stood between two worlds not yet able to step into the next. I can write my wish list on the walls of the chamber I wait in.
Though of course maybe that is why people do this in that space between Christmas and the New Year? That is a threshold time too.
Aspirational Adventures 