I know I do go on about this myth, but bear with me. Grey February is the month associated with the ground hog. The ground hog, earth pig, is a neolithic epiphany or vision of the Goddess. Remember that the hog, hedgehog etc are all associated with the Goddess. In other words you'd find a preponderance of sculptures, drawings, and maybe sacrificial bones of those animals in a temple area sacred to the Goddess. They are the little mothers who feed many, often coming up from the earth in time to let us know there is hope for a return to the warmth and light of summer. Groundhog's day and it's attendant ceremonies (Ceres-monies, Ceres being the mother of Persephone) relate to a very early form of the Goddess faith and the rituals going on this month go back that far. They are burned into the brain stem. We look for Spring in the dark of Winter, not as a rejection of Winter Herself, but out of love for Spring and Her bright energy. And it gets manifested as a pudgy little critter, blinking nearsightedly at the world, which is yelling and showing devotion, feeding and stroking the sweet thing. But we know in our brain stem that somehow life emerging from dark, cold earth gives us hope that everything won't just keep getting colder and colder, like it did for our ancestors, following the glaciers and painting on cave walls.
Even the one about Jeshua emerging from the tomb after three days goes back to the Persephone archetype. The moon stays dark for three nights and then emerges, grows larger and larger until you can read by Her light. On the face of the full moon you can make out the shape of a rabbit, another symbol of the Goddess in neolithic times, not real common in Europe, and there it gets weird (wyrd, as in fate)having the male rabbit, the Easter bunny dealing out eggs, another ancient symbol of the Goddess. Easter, of course, is a very old name of the Goddess. All of this deals with something like salvation from within the Divine just when you were getting real down. Mother spit out Her child again, a rebirth for a Goddess. Persephone before the trip down was more like Diana, not very empathetic, preferring wild animals to men. After the journey she is a mature Goddess, her hair is bound up and she takes to drinking. So imagine if Jeshua was a woman emerging from the tomb to a bunch of men in top hats and ribbons across their chests, cheering and showing Her off to the crowd. Then everybody dances to polka music and eats sausage, made from ground up pigs and spices. Jeshua doesn't like pork, it gives Her gas, so she goes away. Some time later somebody claims to have seen Her in Reno, singing lounge but the story is suspect.
But this is February and we're deep into it. I took some photos during a trip from Hoosick Falls in a fog shrouded valley with corn stubble arcing off and a nice line of telephone poles for perspective. Everything is tan, black and white, except for the occasional cardinal and sumac, oh, and the pines. I guess actually there's a lot of color out there, it's just the sky is mostly grey and blotchy looking. I suppose the fact that I generally had a good time in Everett, Washington back in high school and it was pretty grey there, that I kind of like the grey sky, for a few days at a pop anyway. I do like a bright blue day over a snowy white world. But you don't go into a new year with the winter you like, you go into the new year with the winter you get. And red bark osier, yellow willow, highbush cranberry, I guess there's piles of colors out there, what the heck was wrong with me thinking it was dull? Attitude, I guess I had the wrong attitude. That's what days of no sun will do to you. By early February you're so bored and so cynical that the only thing to do is pull a woodchuck out of it's hole, point at it and cheer and laugh and then go barbecue some links and wurst, drink a pile of beer and fall asleep for six weeks, or days or hours, it all seems to repeat itself around here lately. Must be the rain. Of course it's been four days since Groundhog's Day and you'd think I would be getting on with it by now. I just keep wondering if they ever make groundhog sausage if the little varmint sees his shadow or vice versa?
No comments:
Post a Comment