Imbolc Hare Moon
Back in the early 90’s I spent a week plus in a residential library in Hawarden, Wales. I took a side trip or two, one to Holywell where I visited the Holy Well of St. Winifred, site of the ancient healing of a Celtic woman named Winifred by her uncle Bueno. Her head had been cut off by a suitor from Hawarden named Caradoc.
While I was there I met a short, thick Welshman. When he discovered (immediately) that I was an American, he asked me, “Da ya know any stars?” At first I didn’t get it, then I realized he was talking about Hollywood stars. “No,” I explained, “I’m about 1,500 miles from Los Angeles.” “Yes, yes,” he said, “But do ya know any stars?”
The old world experience of distance is different from ours and it’s easy to forget that. This trip to Tucson will pass from gardening zone 4 to gardening zone 9. It will go south of the line, the 37th latitude boundary, above which we get no vitamin D in the winter months. It will pass even further, down below latitude 35, a full 10 degrees from the home world here in Minnesota, to 32 degrees latitude. I’ll drive, too, from 93 degrees longitude to Tucson’s 111.
In Europe, driving south from Holywell, Wales you would have to go on past Naples by another 150 miles to achieve the same distance. That means going through England, across the Chunnel, then across France, all of Switzerland and penetrating almost to the boot of Italy. That sounds like an epic journey, crossing cultures and history as well as distance.
Yet I will drive the same distance to get to Tucson, 1650 miles. No wonder the Welshman wondered if I knew any stars.
