Guest Author - Linda J.Paul

What do snakes, hedgehogs and groundhogs have in common? They have all been used as weather gauges to predict the coming of spring.

As you may have read in one of my earlier articles, Goddess/Saint Brigid was highly revered by the Celts. So revered, in fact, that she was the only Goddess to cross the line to Sainthood. They also saw her as a snake Goddess. Since prehistoric times, the return of the Snake Goddess from her underground lair was a sure sign of better weather ahead.
On February 1st, the first day of Celtic Spring, Brigid in her snake form would emerge from her winter mound.

In her guise as the Two Faced One, Brigid was depicted with one side of her face wrinkled and crone like, and the other side young and beautiful, depicting both the crone (winter) and the maiden (spring). In Scotland, Brigid was associated with the oncoming spring, ousting the winter reign of the crone winter Goddess Cailleach. As the snake (Brigid) emerges from hibernation, she transforms herself from crone to maiden. And, with that transformation came the freshness and newness of spring itself.

The stories of St. Patrick casting the snakes out of Ireland are all tied up with this transformation of the Goddess. Ireland, being an island had no snakes to cast out at that time, so it is commonly thought that the snakes refer to Pagans, and primarily to the worship of the Snake Goddess. There are a few legends that actually relate to both St. Patrick and St. Brigid.

Watching hibernating animals was not just confined to the Celts however. In Germany, it was the humble hedgehog that was used to predict the winter weather. If the hedgehog emerged from hibernation and the day was bright enough for it to see its shadow, than they surmised that the winter would last longer. If, however, it was cloudy and the hedgehog did not see it’s shadow, then winter would end soon.

When the German immigrants arrived in North America, there was a problem with this practice. There weren’t very many hedgehogs, but there were plenty of groundhogs, so they simply switched mammals.

The custom of Groundhog watching is still an American custom today. We call it Groundhog’s Day. If the groundhog sees his shadow on Feb 1, there will be six more weeks of winter. This has changed somewhat over the decades, from the groundhog hibernating from another four weeks, and rain for the next seven Sundays.

Whether or not the Groundhog and his shadow have any real validity about the length of time until spring arrives is not as important as the hope it gives us that spring will indeed arrive. After a long, cold winter of bundling up and driving through the ice and snow, seeing the first rays of that spring sunshine is always a heart lifting experience.

The fact is that as a world, we have more or less strayed away from the natural rhythms of nature. Back in tribal times, women would menstruate together at the dark moon. These were the times that women got together and shared their stories, their handiwork and their lives. Now, due to artificial lighting the natural rhythm of women’s bodies has gotten off kilter.

There are many people who are not aware of what phase the moon might be in, unless they happen to notice a full moon. There are also many people who haven’t got a clue of what plants and roots are edible or not, let alone their medicinal properties. And, if lost in the wilderness, how many people could survive more than a week without knowing what to eat or drink?

So, Groundhog’s Day is actually one of the last secular holidays, which is based on an ancient, practical, but also magical principle of weather divination.

Punxsutawney Phil is probably the most famous Groundhog alive today, and definitely a super star among mammals. Follow the link below to find out more about Phil.

Love and Light..