Faces of February

...as beheld in the Pikes Peak region of Colorado, late Imbolc 2016

The second of February is best known as Groundhog Day in the U.S., but it is also a “cross quarter” marker on the Pagan calendar, representing the midway point between major observances. Christmas (Yule) was six weeks ago, and we’re still six weeks out from the Spring Equinox (Ostara). Naturally optimistic people would look at Imbolc, adopted by the Catholics as “Candlemas,” as a celebration of making it halfway out of the worst of winter.

Here in 2016 on the north side of Colorado Springs, we got heavy snow, so much so that we were glad to see the clouds begin to break in time for sunset. The larger photos were marred by a streak in my picture window, but the cropped versions still retain something of that gorgeously pale light in the sky.

I’m barely competent as a photographer, but these faces of February can’t help making me look good. Keep in mind these views are from a south-facing picture window in a tiny house in a crumbling neighborhood we have to leave sometime, probably this year.

As for leaving Colorado...I don’t know. The winters are much too long for my taste (it doesn’t really warm up here until the U.S. secular culture’s start of summer, Memorial Day), but to go where you barely get a winter, and the heat and rain are unrelenting...yeah, I don’t know about moving back to my native South anymore. I miss my people. I wonder, though, if I’m going to see enough of them throughout the year to justify living in such an ungodly climate.

For now, I will continue to work towards the conclusion of the SAGA of the DEAD SILENCER while prepping the house for sale—which, in my case, means throwing out all the stuff I’ve got in boxes I’m keeping for the dumbest of sentimental reasons. There’s so much to do, I’m grateful I’ve got six more weeks of winter ahead.

Hell, they’ll be gone before I know it.

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