This morning as I sit at my laptop, the sky outside is that uniform, ominous grey that speaks of rain or snow. The bedroom is dark from the snow that has covered the skylight, and I didn’t want to get out of bed, but of course each morning my routine is determined by the breakfast and outing needs of my animals.

Oddly enough, this kind of grey day would delight me in the summer, promising a thunderstorm (out of which I always get an atavistic thrill) or at least drenching rains that will nourish my garden. In the winter, it’s just depressing. It’s yet another day of darkness and cold that I need to get through. I imagine in ancient times that it was easy to believe that the sun might never truly strengthen, that spring might never come again, our crops would never have the needed warmth to even be planted, and we would be forced to spend the rest of our lives huddled around fires when we weren’t out hunting for sustenance. We payed homage to goddesses whose very thought promised return of warmth and the budding of new growth. Today is Imbolc, or to the Celts, Brigid’s day, the bride, the young maiden who embodies that time just before the blooming, on the brink of womanhood. A symbol for the shy buds that will be appearing in another month or two. We make candles to light in her honour, an encouragement for the sun to grow stronger since its midwinter rebirth.

It is also Groundhog Day, the morning of which sees a gratifyingly chubby groundhog being pulled out of his faux tree stump to predict whether winter will continue for another six weeks or spring will come early. I got quite a bit of amusement watching the pomp and ceremony of the Punxutawney Phil celebration on live webcast this morning and found myself grinning along with the crowd when the “handler” held the chubby rodent up for all to see and the President of the Inner Circle read the prediction from a scroll chosen based on whether or not Phil saw his shadow. No shadow. Early spring. My heart lifted.

Now I know that I can survive this one more winter. I can stop thinking of how much I loathe snow and ice and slipping on my butt in the driveway. I can stop dramatizing to myself that despite all the compelling information on global warming, I am somehow going to be in the last remaining bastion of East Bay ice age.

Instead, I can begin to look forward to seed catalogs. I can drag out my gardening books and begin planning the new work I want to do in the front. I can daydream about the perfect green of new shoots, and the colours of an early spring garden. A couple of springs ago, as soon as the last frost had passed, I was out in the gardens playing Uillean pipe music on my little portable stero and planting 150 perrenials that would make up the teardrop garden in the sanctuary. The sun warmed top soil turned to cool under soil with my spade, earthworms waking from slumber. Dogs lolled near me, occasionally trotting off to investigate squirrels. The sun warmed overhead and moved across the sky and I was finally done around 2pm, with sore knees and a tired back, but thrilled with what would become an amazing garden for hummingbirds and butterflies.

Last spring I could barely garden because of a grueling schedule at the veterinary hospital for which I worked at the time. And this year, my schedule is once again my own and a similar project is in the works. I really can’t wait! So thank you Phil. You made my day.