WHY A GROUNDHOG?

February 2 - we know it as Groundhog Day.  Where did this get started, anyway?  I remember hearing about it for the very first time in third grade.  Our teacher was reading us a book called "The Long Winter."  It was a sequel to a popular children's book of the time called "Rabbit Hill."  I guess Groundhog Day wasn't talked about in my home, or something, since I'd lived eight years of my life and never heard of it.  As the title implies, the animal characters in the book were anxious for this long winter to end.  (I often feel that way!)  So they were doing all they could to get the groundhog to not look at the ground (where his shadow was) and to go back into his burrow as quickly as possible.  But to no avail, and so there was six more weeks on winter.

But there are actually six more weeks of winter after Groundhog Day anyway, since it's the halfway point between the Winter Solstice and the Spring Equinox.  Most likely this day was some kind of pagan celebration in our  distant ancestors' time.  A time to remind themselves that winter would end eventually.  And so I'm doing the same.  Like many other 'pagan' observances, the Roman Church adopted this one, too, and it became Candlemas, the time  for blessing the candles used in the church for the next year.  So the idea of 'light' has carried through.

As for Punksitawny (sp?) Phil, I never heard of him until I was an adult and we moved into Eastern Time in Michigan.  I haven't heard what he saw today.  But if a groundhog here in the Flathead Valley poked his head out today, he likely saw his shadow.  We've had what our weather forecaster calls "patchy sun."  I admit it is a better description of our typical weather than "partly cloudy."  But has anyone else wondered why the groundhog is not supposed to see his shadow for winter to end early?  Seems to me, it should be the other way around--a cloudy day now means winter is still in full swing, not the opposite.  Guess the reason is hidden somewhere in the recesses of time, in some pagan ceremony.

Still, we can look forward to each day continuing to get a bit longer.