February 1, 2001

  • A few simple questions:

    Why does light bring continued darkness?
    And darkness, supposed light?

    On February 2nd we find the coincidence of many holidays: the Christian Candlemas (Feast of the Purification of the Virgin Mary) Day, the modern Groundhog's Day, the pagan celebrations of rebirth (Imbolc and Oimelc), and St Brigit's Day (Ireland). And they're all related! There's a re-aligned tie-in, too, of the Roman holiday of Lupercalia (modern St. Valentine's Day) since the Feast of Purification and Groundhog' Day were celebrated by the Eastern Orthodox calendar and some Ozark folks on Feb. 14th , and many pagans consider the current Candlemas Day (Feb. 2), the Feast of Lights, to be a pagan version of St. Valentine's Day anyways. So confusing! (For a stunning analysis of the all these intricate holiday tie-ins, check out Candlemas: The Light Returns)

    But back to riddle at hand....

    According to an old English song:

    If Candlemas be fair and bright,
    Come, Winter, have another flight;
    If Candlemas brings clouds and rain,
    Go Winter, and come not again.

    According to an old Scotch couplet:

    If Candlemas Day is bright and clear,
    There'll be twa (two) winters in the year.

    Why so? Because Candlemas day is a cross-quarter day in the pagan calendar, six weeks between the solstices and equinoxes. And according to pagan beliefs, the cross-quarter days can be used as 'inverse' weather predictors, whereas the normal quarter-days are used as 'direct' weather predictors.

    So face it: Punxsutawney Phil is a pagan (naughty groundhog pagan!) utilizing the presence (or absence) of sunshine to create a detectable shadow (or not) from which he inversely makes a prediction! No sunshine, (no shadow), winter's at an end! But sunshine (and shadow), six weeks more does dismality send!

    (btw, I'm not a *pagan*; simply, as a meteorological daredevil in Panama during my, hrm, *jungle days*, I didn't miss any forecasting tricks--even pagan ones!)

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