talk about the weather

     Welcome welcome!  Good to see you, come on in!  Help yourself to tea, hot chocolate, soup!  Warm yourself up!

     Yes, it is the middle of April, and we are having an ice storm.  Freezing rain, ice pellets, snow.  Rare times indeed!

     Not long ago I would get very angry and upset with the people around me for not having a problem with the weather being ‘wrong’.  Summer temperatures in February, I would overhear someone nearby saying how ‘beautiful’ it is outside.  I wanted to shake them! 

     (I didn’t of course.  But you know how it is.)

     But then one day I kept seeing squirrels – I had dreamed of squirrels that morning, and then I saw squirrels outside first thing in the day, and then even as I walked through the underground path to my workplace, there were new chocolate squirrels on the shelf at the store. 

     This is how they call, when they call, they just put their picture everywhere until you notice.  So at my first opportunity, I went to see Ratatosk on the Tree.

     One thing about gods and other mythic figures is that on one level they’re all about access – when you deal with them, you are dealing with them through that aspect of your self that is them.  For me, because I live in Toronto and most of our squirrels are black, Ratatosk appears to me as a black squirrel about the size of a very large groundhog. 

     Your Ratatosk May Vary.

     After the initial hellos and how-have-you-beens, the gentle smell of the mud-flecked bark of the Tree delicately filling my nostrils, the great Squirrel got down to business with me.

     “Listen,” he said, in that busy, clipped way he has of speaking, “Things are different now.  It's a new dance.  You may not get the Seasons you expect.  You know this..."

     “I know this…” I sighed.

     "Don't be mad at the others.” He went on, “Unthinking, they adapt more easily.  Your thinking has claws.  You're dragging through the changes.  Let it flow.  Flow WITH it.  Learn the new dance!"

     I had to agree.  This tied in neatly with the work I’d been doing with Loki as well, learning to dance amidst the chaos, learning not to shut down when things got crazy around me.  I still have all I am, wherever I am, whatever I’m going through.  I’m still me. 

     So after that I’ve been better about it.

     But this ice storm in April – I suspect even the ones who love hot February days so much might balk at this.

     That’s another thing that bothers me, actually, this general attitude that sunny and hot weather is ‘beautiful’ and everything else is ‘horrible’.  I more than partly blame the way they present it on the news – gushing over hot and sunshiny days no matter what month they’re happening in, and apologizing for so much as a cloud appearing, as though a day that has clouds or mist or rain could not possibly be ‘beautiful’.  I have known many beautiful misty days, many beautiful rainy days, many beautiful snowy days.  To perpetuate the mindset that one must only love days that are sunny and hot, and that one must hate everything else, just worries me on so many levels.  I’ve seen beautiful Summers where the temperature never stayed long above where it was comfortable, where there was enough rain, where the trees and grass stayed green and never turned brown or got black spots, where you could walk outside and breathe easily, and yet all around me I would hear the people saying things like, “We didn’t have a Summer this year!” Why? Because it rained, because we didn’t have weeks of scalding temperatures and unbreathable humidity, because everything didn’t dry up and turn black.  People, please!  Rain keeps you alive!  Please love the weather that keeps you alive!

     But I digress.  We are having an ice storm in the middle of April.  Weeks after the Equinox.

     I think of the Cailleach in Midwinter, the deepest source I’ve found for the Groundhog Day mythos (speaking of groundhogs), turning on the Sun for a day so she could gather more firewood if the Winter was going to be a little longer, and then turning the Winter back on when she got back to her bed.

     I am thinking about her now, having whipped up this – hopefully last – song of Winter, and I envision a meme to go with it:

(Picture of Freezing Rain in the middle of April)

(caption): CAILLEACH, WAT R U DOING??!

(Picture of Freezing Rain intensifying, with whipping wind)

(caption): CAILLEACH, STAHP!!!1!

(Picture of the Cailleach cackling merrily)

     I love the Cailleach so much.

     So then I was thinking: why would the Cailleach bring Winter back like this?  What is Winter for, that we needed this extra little coda of it, now, even as the grass is starting to green up and the tiny flowers are starting to poke up their tiny purple heads? 

     And then I thought: introspection.  Turning inward.  Listening to the deep, inner songs.  Clearly we need to introspect just a little bit more, and Nature is making sure we have the chance to do it, like, “Oh-no-you-don’t go out right now, you need to turn inward and inhabit that inner world for a bit longer.  Something is waiting there for you, something you missed before.  Go now, go in, you’ll see.”

     And there we are.  So what do we do?

     For me, I find doing purge-writing helps clear the clutter – I get a notebook and just write out all the stuff that’s cluttering my head at the moment.  I start with point form until I’ve gotten down the main peaks of the clutterpiles, and then keep writing out the junk until I feel better.  It really does help in letting things go. 

     Otherwise, do the Winter turning-inward stuff.  Journey-work.  Nap.  Dream.  Enjoy quietness.  Enjoy the sounds of the weather outside while you’re safe and warm inside.

     Speaking of which, I should let you get back to it!  Thank you for dropping by!  Take care!  See you again soon!

     Be safe out there!