February 2, Groundhog's Day, is also the feast of Candlemas, celebrating the purification of the Virgin Mary when Christ was presented to her in the Temple. The Catholic Church once had a procession to consecrate all the candles to be used in the church during the coming year; the candles symbolized Jesus Christ, called "the light of the world" and a "light to lighten the Gentiles." The Catholic ritual came from an ancient Roman custom. For the Romans, February was their twelfth month, and they prepared themselves for the new year with some bizarre rituals involving young men dressed in loincloths, with their foreheads ribboned in dog's blood and their bodies smeared with milk, running through the streets striking women with strips of goatskin to insure the women's fertility. The church obviously sanitized the performances while importing the message of purification into their own notion of salvation.
I'm not sure how we got from lightening our spiritual condition to Pauxatawney Phil emerging into a world of klieg lights, but most of us, in New England at least, don't feel very much purified by the month of February. By February we tend to focus more on the shadow cast by the groundhog than the light that makes the shadow jump out of its body. By February most of us have run out of ways to purify ourselves; we're white as a radish and feel about as physically attractive, and are troubled in our sleep by visions of Miami.
Well, there is some salvation lurking around out there to counter some of this groundhogwash, if not in its original religious format, then down more pedestrian avenues. In fact, walking is a great way to spend part of February. Some February days, with the right combination of sun, slight wind, and clean air, invigorate every cell of the body, and being outside can help us to get outside the cabin fever of ourselves. Baking and other kinds of cooking are another antidote, a way to literally fill up the world: our homes, with wonderfully rich aromas; our mouths, with delicious indulgence; our bodies, with the comfort able fatigue of creating. February is a good time to really listen to music, making it potent in the fore ground rather than a background ear massage. Extend the music: put it on loud and dance to it. Buy a Hawaiian shirt and wear it around the house. Watch the Steve Wright HBO videotape and laugh until your eyes crinkle shut. Do whatever you can to bring lightness and color into the landscape. While it may not be the old-time cleansing the church used to dispense, it'll lift the spirits and breach the contract a New England February seems to have made with shades of grey and clocks that run too slow.
Guns
Personal Responsibility