Alas! must it ever be so?
Do we stand in our own light, wherever we go,
And fight our own shadows forever? ~Edward Robert Bulwer Lytton
Well Happy Groundhog Day! This is the day each year that we gaze towards a nervous rodent in a hole to predict the future. According to Wikipedia, the holiday began as a Pennsylvania German custom in southeastern and central Pennsylvania in the 18th and 19th centuries. But before that it has origins in ancient European weather lore, wherein a badger or sacred bear is the prognosticator as opposed to a groundhog.
- Can I go back to bed now?
If you haven’t already heard, here’s the news that Punxsutawney Phil delivered this morning….
I don’t know about you, but I’m not sure if I buy into the weather prediction by rodent approach. But the more I think about it, how can I deny the puffy prophet his credit when sometimes, we all live our lives like Punxsutawney Phil?
Life gets cold, and we retreat into our little havens, where we feel safe and can control our circumstances, because we have limited many of the pressures of the outside world. Then, when we finally decide to venture outside, and leave our comfort zone, the first sign of a shadow, and we retreat, retreat, retreat. We run back into our safe place, to sit and wait out what we perceive to be the ongoing and extended winter in our life.
But what if we’re wrong? What if it is only our shadow? What would happen if we stretched ourselves a little, stayed out in the less than perfect weather? Would we find ourselves stuck in a storm or would we find that we could happily survive outside of our cave living a happy life even if the weather was not completely sunny?
It’s hard to say, but the way I see it, if there is a higher power watching us today as we are watching Punxsutawney Phil, I think he would hope that we see the upcoming spring. There’s life to live, and we only have today once, no matter what the weather.
Phil decided it was six more weeks of winter for us. How about you? What are you deciding?
I will leave you with a proverb that I just love.
Turn your face to the sun and the shadows fall behind you. ~Maori Proverb
Have a shadow free kind of day,
Kelly
