Candlemas Blessings
Right under the wire let me whisper to you of Candlemas. Poised halfway between Winter Solstice and Spring Equinox, this day is presided over by St Brigid, the Celtic goddess of fire and deep wells. Known for her resourcefulness and beautiful tenacity, she excels at creating something from nothing. I call her in to harvest creative projects and am feeling her strongly as I finish my book’s first draft.
Here in Februa, while the soil is still frozen and the trees still bare, we have the time and space to sow our own visions; this holiday is also the secular Groundhog Day because it stirs us out of hibernation. So put on Kate Bush’s The Dreaming. Light a white candle. Crack a window and breathe that clean cold air. And bless sweet Saint Brigid. She’s here to walk you into spring.
Blustery February
Begin here, as May Sarton always wrote when she closed the door to her study and sat down to write. Begin here. Ok. So. I’m just going to get all my blurts out so I can buckle down on Book. Feel free to roll your eyes for I am blatantly using this forum to glide into my Foxhole. I am sorry, dear Sirenader, you deserve better and I promise to do right by you soon. But just showing up at the plate today feels like a feat, what with this cold-cold-cold and brain sludge and financial worries and existentially broken heart and okay yes blurts. SO. I wanna write, stage, and star in a new Broadway production entitled SNOTSICLES! THE MUSICAL! to take place on the first day of Febrooooary and ALSO I want an appropriate occasion for the gorgeous ill-advisedly long earrings I was gifted for my birthday and ALSO I miss sex on the regular and ALSO It offends me that my ex no longer stalks me on social media though I stopped following him halfway through that disaster of a relationship and ALSO fuck valdeTrump GOP MAGA corporatized Dems too. ALSO I think I have bitten off more than I can chew with this book sheeeit why isn’t it done yet it’s never gonna sell ALSO Grey’s Anatomy slayed last night and I 100 percent can defend my continued passion for the show ALSO should it bother me that I am a 48-year-old woman who still wears pigtails? Probably OK THANKS SEE YA SOON. (I hope.)
Time to Swing
Today K and I beat the arctic cold with a screening of Spider-Man: Into the Spider-verse and HOLY SHIT IS THAT MOVIE GOOD. Really, the best of 2018 because (aside from Black Panther) it’s the only film fully embracing the medium’s possibilities with joy and righteousness. Spider-Verse is all fourth and fifth dimension multiplicities–intersectionality and concurrent realities aglow in one big colorful valentine to the Brooklyn that never will be gentrified. I feel certain that the message of that film–that we all are superheroes when we live as our bravest kindest truest selves–summons the 2019 America that can and will transcend the white and orange demons currently in charge. Which is to say: Everyone should see this movie, if only to remember who we really are and what art can unlock. Here’s to the fresh start of a new month and Imbolc and Monday’s new moon in Aquarius and magic at the movies! Someday soon, we’re all going to thaw.