Winter has felt long and cold here.  Freezing temperatures, snow that lingers, grey days that melt into cold nights and six inches of ice in all the shady parts of the street.  Pots of simmering vegetable soups have been made in copious amounts and friends and clients have been in the midst of some deep, hard transformations.

Imbolc arrives none too soon.  The half way point between the winter solstice and the spring equinox. I often feel a sense of relief and anticipation at this time. Soon the brighter and warmer days of spring will arrive.

Mid January often feels like a 'between' time.  We are in the center of the winter. Square to it.  Brave faces and cold cheeks.  

The holidays are over, kids are back in school and the days are getting longer. We begin to day dream about Spring and our gardens, about a time when there is more sunlight and increasingly warm days.  Yet, there are weeks of snow and ice between ourselves and Spring's glossy green stems.

Still, we wake to frosty mornings and cold houses. Bed seems a more rational choice.  Now more than ever, it is time to bolster and nourish ourselves, to dig deep into our inner coffers and embrace afresh the opportunities winter holds.

The cold comes in, it presses in.  Mornings are frozen and white. Icicles drip with the orange glow of the rising sun. 

Down coats and hats and mittens and extra layers wrap around our fragile flesh.  We retreat inward to the warmth in our bones, at our center. 

Going out into the cold days and even colder evenings begins to feel more like a devotional practice. The sacred, snowy weather vestments are applied in layers one by one. Often with a prayer of some sort for divine heat.