Tired of paying heating bills and driving on slippery roads? You must be ready to welcome the arrival of mid-winter with a Groundhog Day prediction of an early spring.
The first official awakening ceremony was celebrated in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania, in 1887 with a groundhog by the name of ‘Phil’ as inaugural bearer of bad news if he saw his shadow.
Today, performance of this seasonal ritual links us in history to old world ancient mythology of the Pagans that later came to be known as ‘Imbolc,’ which they called the first day of spring.
This ritual was later combined and Christianized to become the religious feast festival commemorating the presentation of Jesus at the holy temple in Jerusalem.
Selection of a groundhog as ‘solar mammal’ indigenous to their fields by agricultural Amish farmers was appropriate. Coming out at dawn or dusk on a summer day from the realm of dark subterranean quarters, the groundhog is a standing sentinel like a living sundial whose regimen, much like that of humans, is somehow orchestrated on Earth by planetary cycles in tune with animated stations of the Zodiac.
No matter what the Sun Sign of your horoscope as the reader who may evaluate performance of pagan rituals with tongue-in-cheek, let’s hope the groundhog may live as a dear figure in our hearts, particularly for children as a prophet of an early spring. (Even though in a bad mood when awakened from a long winter’s nap, he’s been known to bite his handlers).
With you as reader and, like me, a mortal kindred earthbound spirit, keep an eye out for the living sundial and hopefully my message and image for this day may give it more meaning.
By George B. Emmons
