Groundhog Day Surprise
More Winter or Spring?
There is quite a lot of confusion about Groundhog Day. So, I went digging in research to see what I could find. Evidently, everyone claims Groundhog Day as their own: Christians, Germans, England, France, and so on. And all the stories sound real and true, and I’ve shared small excerpts of information below.
Brigid the Goddess and Groundhog Meet
Imbolc is just one of several pre-Christian holidays highlighting some aspect of winter and sunlight and heralding the change of seasons. Imbolic celebrations took the form of a festival in honor of the pagan goddess Brigid, who was evoked in fertility blessings and oversaw poetry, crafts and prophecy. Brigid was worshipped by the Filid, a class of poets and historians among the Celts of ancient Ireland and Britain.
Groundhog Day has its roots in the ancient Christian tradition of Candlemas, when clergy would bless and distribute candles needed for winter. The candles represented how long and cold the winter would be. Germans expanded on this concept by selecting an animal—the hedgehog—as a means of predicting weather. Once they came to America, German settlers in Pennsylvania continued the tradition, although they switched from hedgehogs to groundhogs, which were plentiful in the Keystone State.
One old English song also connects Candlemas to the weather:
“If Candlemas be fair and bright,
Winter has another flight.
If Candlemas brings clouds and rain,
Winter will not come again.”
Eventually, Europeans started looking to animals’ hibernation patterns on Candlemas to predict the weather. Some watched to see if bears would come out of their dens, while the English looked for hedgehogs, and the French waited for marmots.
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Groundhog Day has existed since 1887, but before that February 2 was an important day of “ancient and modern traditions”. According to History.com, for the Celts it was a pagan celebration of the start of spring. During this celebration the Celts honored pagan goddess, Brigid. Brigid is the goddess of fertility, poetry, crafts, and prophecy.
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Melissa Leath writes A Mystics Journal on Substack. She supplies outrageous metaphysical babble/rant from a modern-day mystic's viewpoint and provides workshops about empowerment and psychic/metaphysical development. Her books Psychic Integrity, The Respected Practice of Modern-Day Mystics (Balboa Press, division of Hay House Publishing) and Does Your Child See Sparkles? are available through Amazon and Barnes & Noble. Melissa’s long-term study includes years of group development, platform mediumship, meditation, becoming a spiritual medium and minister and a BA in Metaphysical Counseling. She has worked with 10s of thousands of clients in USA and other countries, taught development classes for 12 years and settled into online workshops.
Please contact Melissa at melisssaleath@gmail.com.