Mid-Winter. The exact day of mid-winter varies a little dependent on when the winter solstice occurred, if it's a leap year, and when the vernal equinox will happen. Imbolic, a Pagan celebration of mid-winter, traditionally is from Feb. 1 through Feb. 2. The holiday is celebrated w/ bonfires and lighting candles. Candlemas is a Christian celebration held 40 days after Christmas (Feb. 2) when people brought their candles to the church to be blessed. When the Germans began celebrating Candlemas they sometimes passed by hedgehogs (some books say badgers) on their way to church and they began the saying that if a hedgehog saw it's shadow on Candlemas Day there would be a second winter (e.g. six more weeks of bad weather). German settlers in America brought their traditions w/ them. Not a lot of hedgehogs in the new world but there was another hibernating animal that would sometimes emerge around the beginning of February - groundhogs. Suddenly festivities included lofting fat rodents high in the air and proclaiming if they didn't see their shadow winter's bad weather would come to an early end. Midwinter in the Northwoods, shadow or no, means we all begin poring over seed catalogs and looking forward to spring.
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