Spring Full Bloodroot Moon
The winter solstice came under a full moon and now, so the does the spring equinox. Last night the full Bloodroot moon was a super moon, both full and at its perigee; though here the system bringing rain most of the night, also blocked our view.
In most old religions the equinoxes and the solstices had special meaning, but not for the early Celts. They divided the year between summer and winter, summer beginning on May 1st on Beltane and the new year beginning at summer’s end, Samhain, on October 31st. The Celts did later add Imbolc that celebrated the triple Goddess Brigit and the freshening of the ewes and Lughnasa, on August 1st, which is a first fruits of the harvest festival. At some point they added the equinoxes and solstices, in effect making them cross-quarter holidays to their already established four divisions of the year. This was all before the advent of recorded history so the actual sequence and motivations behind these changes are matters of speculation.
Here in Minnesota the spring season, officially beginning at 6:21 pm today, can go by in a blink as the weather downshifts into a sharp curve from the cold of winter to the heat of summer. Today I’ll get the leeks started in anticipation of getting them in the ground as soon as the soil can be worked. The hydroponics are well underway and we’ll have our first greens from it in the next couple of weeks. We’re using technology to smooth out the curve, make it a bit less violent for our garden.
The rain that beat against our bedroom last night won’t make the river folks happy since it speeds the snow melt, adds more moisture and puts both into motion over still frozen ground. The river may be 10 feet high and risin’ in a couple of weeks, maybe sooner.