Saturday, January 17, 2015

GROUNDHOG DAY CELEBRATIONS

JANUARY - here in the Northeast we are knee deep in winter.  One of the few things to look forward to is the annual prediction of the underground weatherman.  All you never wanted to know about
the GROUNDHOG.




GROUNDHOG DAY: A SHADOWY CELEBRATION


 


On February second Groundhog Day is celebrated.  It's not


every animal who has its own holiday or who has such a reputation


as a prognosticator of weather.  Or to put it another way, why do


otherwise sane people get up before dawn in the dead of winter


and walk to the top of a hill looking for a groundhog burrow?


Why do we do what we do?  


            Marmota monax, groundhog, a member of the rodent family, is


distinguished only by his once a year appearance on February 2nd


to predict the arrival of spring.    To clear up any confusion groundhogs and woodchucks are both


Marmota monax.  Woodchuck comes from a mispronounced Native


American word ”wuchuk” or ”otcheck” which may have to do with the


tongue twister usually brought up in conjunction with him: How


much wood could a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck
wood?  Or, if  you've practiced that one, how much ground could a


groundhog hog if a groundhog would hog ground.


The groundhog/woodchuck is a weed eater - grasses, plantain,


clover, common in the northeastern United States and Southern


Canada.  He loves the early morning and the late afternoon sun.


I often see one who sits on a fence post and watches traffic


going by on the expressway.  I had an idea about a groundhog love


affair broken up by the New York State Department of


Transportation.  She lived beyond the northbound lane and he


lived over the median past the southbound lane.  Perhaps that is


one explanation for the number of dead groundhogs on our


highways.  They are a common sight roadside, a brown bundle


appearing to wear a red corsage, which is soon pounded to the


color of concrete.


         Not as fast on his feet as his cousin the squirrel, the


groundhog is slow moving, but feisty when aroused.  I've seen one


rise hissing on his hind legs to fight off a dog.  He looked


formidable indeed.  They are not overly bright, but don't seem to


do much harm unless you have an alfalfa field overrun by them.


Farmers tell me they  burrow under a field undermining it so


badly that when you drive a tractor over the field, you


find yourself capsized, the big front wheels sitting in a roomy


grasslined den.


            Gardeners complain that young shoots and leaves become an


attraction for groundhogs, as well as rabbits, but contend that


while rabbits nibble, groundhogs act like pigs, chomping through
a row of vegetables or herbs until there is nothing left.  The


worst thing about them is their catholic diet.  Vicious gardeners


retaliate with rifles, or gas bombs. 


            Groundhogs usually mate in February or March and within a


month a litter of four or five babies are born.  By mid summer


the family disperses and searches out new burrows and begins to


eat to put on a layer of fat for the long sleep. In fall, the


groundhog enters his burrow and closes it up.  He curls into a


ball, head between the legs, arms folded around the neck and goes


to sleep.  The body temperature drops to between 40 and 50


degrees, the pulse is faint, respiration slows, and the long


winter passes by overhead while the groundhog sleeps like the


dead.  He can neither feel nor hear and it would take several


hours in a very warm place to awaken him.


 Early settlers found groundhogs tasty especially in groundhog


stew, and if you ever visit Punxsutawney, PA, for the


Prognosticalion festivities you can purchase a groundhog cook


book or two although this seems rather cannabalistic for a town


that made its reputation on the groundhog's annual predictions. 


            Historians guess that the groundhog came into modern


folklore via the German settlement of Pennsylvania and their


belief that the badger of their native land would predict good or


bad luck for sowing and planting.  Badgers, nowhere as docile as


the native groundhogs, were soon replaced.  Others suggest it was
the hedgehog who predicted, equally truculent and harder to


handle than the badger.  So it seems that prognostication fell to


the groundhog because of its reputation as an easy going, easy to


catch, easy to handle, animal, or are there other reasons.


In Druid Britain of 2000 to 3000 years ago there were four


main holidays.  Because Druids worshiped the sun, their holidays were the four


main turning points of the year.  They were fine accurate


astronomers.  The year ended at All Saints Day or November first.


All the fires were extinguished and new ones built (fires, little


suns).


     The other holidays were May Day on May first (Beltaine) when


the sun began to grow strong; August first (Lugnasad) when it was


at its peak; and February first (Imbolc) when it was about as far


away as it would ever get.  These dates are the halfway points


between the solstices (6/21 and 12/21) and the equinoxes (3/21


and 9/21).  Since the Druids liked three-day holidays as much as


we love do, it's not hard to assume that the


festivities on Imbolc drifted over onto the day after.


            Imbolc was associated with the sacred flames that purified


the land and encouraged fertility and the emergence of the sun


from its winter sleep.  On February first rites of


prognostication were held.  A great bonfire was built on a


hilltop and all the young men made their mark or name on a white


stone which was placed in the fire.  When the fire cooled, each


man searched for his stone and if he didn't find it, if the fire
had taken it, he had been chosen for the supreme honor.   He had


been selected by Bel (the sun god) to offer his life/spirit to be


sacrificed for the purification and general good of the tribe.


This bears close association with Shirley Jackson's short story


of the scapegoat, "The Lottery."  


The one who is chosen to be sacrificed for the good of the


tribe, the offering, fertilizes the fields for the coming


planting time.  This is a common motif of early agricultural


societys’ religious practices.  Until the 1800's this February


ritual was observed in the Highlands of Scotland only 'the chosen


one' jumped over or ran between the bonfires in a metaphor of a


metaphor.  (Bonfire is said to be an elision of ”bone fire” by


etymologists). 


            Imbolc is also associated with the lambing season when the


sheep lactated and was sometimes called ”oimelc” which means


”sheep's milk”.  This is related to the fertility aspect of the


mother goddess Brigit or Brigantia (High One, in Celtic), a


respected member of the Druid's pantheon, daughter of Dana, the


female principle.  Brigit was the goddess of prophecy and


divination as well as fertility, home, hearth, and healing.


February 1st was the day sacred to Brigit.   


The similarity of dates, that point in temperate climates


where the sun is as far away from the earth as it will ever be


and at its weakest, six weeks between the formal turning points


of our solar year make the connection between Druids and groundhog


 "predictions.”


Also, there is the relationship between


the groundhog and  mother goddess cults, and the synchronistic


tendency of the Romans to adapt local gods to their own, a


practice which was kept by the Roman Catholic Church which was


busy 'civilizing' the known world.


             In the Roman Catholic pantheon of saints there is a St.


Brigit who enters about 400 to 500 A.D.  St. Brigit was said to


have been born at sunrise on February 1st.  She became one of the


patron saints of Ireland and at Kildare she founded the first


nunnery.  The nuns of St. Brigit in Kildare tended a holy fire


(like Rome's Vestal Virgins) up until the monastaries were


destroyed by Henry VIII in 1539. 


            One of the legends about St. Brigit is the story of a blind


nun for whom Brigit restored sight.  When the nun Dara saw, she


realized that the clarity of sight blurred God in the eye of her


soul and asked to be returned to the beauty of darkness.  The


Druids were especially fond of riddles such as this which are


based on reversals.


The saint was said to have bathed in milk (lamb's milk?) at


birth and her house appeared to be on fire (born of the flame).


She is revered as the midwife of the Virgin Mary (the mother of


the lamb).


            Candlemas Day (February 2nd) commemorates the purification


of the Virgin Mary.  According to Jewish law Mary was required to


go to the temple in Jerusalem to be purified forty days after


the birth of Jesus (the winter solstice) and to present him to
God.   Luke tells us that he was "a light to lighten the


Gentiles. . . ."  For Roman Catholics February 2nd  is also the


time for blessing of candles for the altar and the congregation


used to march through the church holding lighted tapers


representing the entry of Christ, the Light of the World, into


the Temple in Jerusalem.


   In Celtic folklore candles are used for divination or to


keep evil spirits away with a circle of flame.  They are of


course, the little suns. Long after the last Druid had gone to


his fiery reward, farmers circled the fields carrying torches to


keep the evil spirits away and purify the field for the seed.


Burning off the fields in spring is a ritual that only recently


ended with local anti-burning ordinances.


            The French scholar Joseph Vendryes suggests that Candlemas


is patterned on the Roman Lustrations (feast of purification held


in early February) commemorating the actions of the earth mother


goddess Ceres (or Demeter) who sought her daughter Persephone (or


Kore) ("European Religions, Ancient" 767).  Persephone had been


kidnapped by Pluto (Dis or Hades), the lord of the underworld


(darkness), and Ceres, distraught, neglected her earthly duties


so that darkness fell over the earth and all the vegetation died


while she hunted for her daughter.  When Persephone returned from


the underworld, spring came to the earth and life began again.


Freed from the dark realm of Pluto, Persephone brought spring to


the world but because she had eaten six seeds of the pomegranate,
she was required to spend six months in each realm.


            According to Thomas Bulfinch's rendition of the tale, during


her search for Persephone, Ceres had made a promise to the son of


a family who had befriended her in her grief.  She had promised


to teach him the use of the plough and how to sow seed.  She


taught him about the grains and agriculture and he was to teach


mankind.  Triptolemus built a temple for Ceres in Eleusis and she


was worshiped under the name of the Eleusinian


mysteries.  Bulfinch calls the fable an


allegory, signifying the seed corn which appears to be dead,


 is buried under the ground (resides with Pluto), and is reborn.


.Agricultural societies were fascinated with the miracle of the


seed.  A dull piece of matter, a tiny pellet which appeared to


have no life at all was buried in the earth at the right time


(this is all important) and it comes back to life.  This is why


we bury our dead in the ground like seeds.


            The groundhog was sacred to many earth mother cults because


he lived burrowed in the earth.  He appeared to die (hibernating)


and in the spring was born again much like the seed.  Bears were


also sacred and for the same reason, but I don't intend to burrow


any deeper into this aspect.  


            When the days lengthen, when winter lets go of the earth the


Great Mother or her representative will let you know when it's
time to plant just as the lengthening daylight hours let the seed


know it's time to begin the cycle of growth.


And so the old weather rhyme passed down from Druid times :


            If Candlemas be fair and bright,


            Come winter, have another flight.


            If Candlemas brings clouds and rain


            Go winter, and come not back again.                                                                                                 These agricultural societies lived much closer to the edge of


survival than we do.  Crop failure, bad weather, were not just


financial disaster, but starvation, death.  Good weather meant


everything and they were willing to sacrifice much for it.


            One of the most important jobs then of the Druid priests was


to predict the proper time to plant.  Since rhyme was holy


to the Druids we might assume these old rhymes are adaptations


of memorable predictions. 


In the northeast United States, already six weeks in the


dark grasp of winter, Punxsutawney Phil comes out of his


Pennsylvania burrow on the top of Gobbler's Knob and makes his


prediction.  If he sees his shadow, he's scared back into his


hole.  So we should all have the good sense to be afraid of the


dark in us.  If he sees only the gray winter sky, spring will


come soon.   Their predictions have become an amusing story for


a slow news day..


Punxsutawney Phil has been predicting for 103 years


(or his descendants since ten years is a good long life for a


groundhog).  Young men in the Highlands of Scotland were still building


bonfires in the middle of the 19th century to celebrate the


immanent return of the sun, and who knows how long ago the Celtic


peoples of Europe gathered to hear the Druid priests interpret


the signs and rhyme the results.


            One way or another, we drag the past with us.  It casts a long shadow. 


 

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