![\"February](\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/441\/2016\/01\/389432_10150500914033297_768860788_n.jpg\")
<\/a>But as I commute, the sun comes up, and the sky becomes so large overhead. \u00a0My classroom is flooded with winter light during the school week, and at home, I bask like a lizard in the strong, sloped sunshine. \u00a0Counter-intuitive as it might seem, I love this time of year.<\/p>\n
Sometimes I say that to friends online, only to have them answer as though I must be being sarcastic. \u00a0This is the time of year I begin to receive reports from friends in warmer climes about the warm weather they are having, or even the new starts in their gardens. \u00a0(My New England friends haven\u2019t yet bothered to order our seeds.) \u00a0I don\u2019t envy them, however, even though the only sign of spring here is the faintest conceivable blush or swelling on some\u2013not all\u2013of the buds tight-furled on the winter boughs of the trees.<\/p>\n
The air is clear! \u00a0With the ground finally white with snow, the light is reflected into gloriousness, and it is still low enough to the horizon to be tinted with gold. \u00a0Days are growing longer\u2013indeed, we\u2019re almost halfway to the Equinox\u2013and yet, it is still bitterly, bitterly cold: perfect wood-stove weather. \u00a0We\u2019re lucky enough to have a hearth, a real hearth, and both because it saves us money on heat and because it is so delicious, my husband and I have a fire almost every night. \u00a0He sits at one side of the fireplace and I sit at the other, grading papers or reading a good book, our stocking feet stretched out toward the warmth. \u00a0Why would I want to be in Florida or Southern California right now?<\/p>\n
One tradition my Quaker meeting observes, every year at this time, is writing what is termed a \u201cState of Society Report<\/a>.\u201d \u00a0The idea is that, once a year, the entire meeting community from kids to elders, gather together to reflect on questions designed to get us to think about the life of the Spirit among us \u00a0(\u201cqueries<\/a>\u201d in Quakerese). \u00a0Some meetings skip this practice, but mine has always embraced it, looking back, every year in late January, at our lives together as a spiritual community.<\/p>\n Somehow, this always seems to be a good time for that. \u00a0Looking over my blog posts over the last six months, I can follow a distinct curve in my mood, darkening with the fading light from Samhain to Yule and the weeks immediately after. \u00a0As the light faded, my gaze turned inward and downward, and my thoughts dwelled on aging, loss, sadness\u2026 death.<\/p>\n But at Yule, the year began to catch its breath, and now we\u2019re climbing upward again. \u00a0I can see the future rising with the sun above the horizon, and it makes me glance backwards, over the terrain I\u2019ve been traveling, and then ahead to what\u2019s to come.<\/p>\n This year, the turn toward withdrawal and inwardness that comes with the waning light was exaggerated for me by a bad flu strain I contracted in December, that drained me of energy for weeks; I\u2019m only now beginning to recover. \u00a0With that loss of energy, I wasn\u2019t able to attend meeting for worship among Friends for over a month\u2013a longer break in my habits than I\u2019ve had in years, or maybe ever.<\/p>\n I\u2019m back into the rhythm of attending meeting now, but stepping out of it had the effect of turning my gaze to my Pagan life.<\/p>\n Over the past few weeks, I have been sensing\u00a0in my body that something important is drawing to a close, some cycle I had been unconscious of.\u00a0What\u2019s more, I can\u00a0feel something new on its way.<\/p>\n Coincidentally (or not) the Tarot study Peter has been engaged in<\/a> for a year now is drawing to a close, and both he and I are contemplating taking on a new course of Pagan study and practice\u2026 together. \u00a0We\u2019ve both found ourselves attracted to a new Tarot deck, and we hear the book that accompanies it is quite good. \u00a0Using the habits of study Peter developed studying with B.O.T.A. this year, we may begin working in a similar way with the Druidcraft Tarot<\/a>. \u00a0Or perhaps we\u2019ll undertake \u00a0together the Bardic course<\/a> offered by the Order of Bards, Ovates, and Druids. \u00a0\u201cIt will seem pretty basic to you, \u201d friends who have just completed it warn us. \u00a0But that\u2019s not the point, anyway: it\u2019s not about urgently needing new knowledge or training\u2026 it\u2019s about the pleasure of sharing a practice, a sort of \u201crenewing our vows,\u201d not so much as a couple, but as working partners, a spiritual support team for one another.<\/p>\n Maybe that\u2019s not what we\u2019ll eventually do; life is complicated, and there are many demands on our time, and many ways the gods find to get our attention and draw us to what they want us to undertake next. \u00a0Yesterday, for instance, they sent a pair of black bears to explore our yard, one up in our altar tree, the other pacing slowly and contentedly back and forth, between the altar and the apple trees. \u00a0I have no idea what that might mean, but it was unusual, and striking, and beautiful.<\/p>\n Imbolc is coming. \u00a0I am ready for another turning of the year.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Over the past few weeks, I have been sensing in my body that something important is drawing to a close, some cycle I had been unconscious of. What’s more, I can feel something new on its way. Imbolc is coming. I am ready for another turning of the year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1904,"featured_media":1499,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[163,167,161,102,168,13,166,165],"class_list":["post-1491","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cats-posts","tag-bears","tag-druidcraft-tarot","tag-druidry","tag-imbolc","tag-order-of-bards-ovates-and-druids","tag-practice","tag-state-of-society-report","tag-working-partners"],"yoast_head":"\n<\/a>