That day is upon us, Valentine’s Day.  A girlfriend and I have referred to it as “Happy V.D.” for years, followed by much giggling.   Valentine’s Day is  quite a conundrum.  I like the idea of celebrating love, but find the whole day, kind of a set up for failure.

If I chose to say I am above that “kind of manufactured display of love” and not participate, certainly I’m unhappy.  Where are my chocolates?  Thank God, I no longer work in an office where the relentless parade of delivered flowers consumed me.  I can honestly say, what I dislike the most, is the exclusionary aspect of the celebration.  You don’t have a Valentine?

I did a little research on the origins of Valentine’s Day using the Wikipedia encyclopedia, only to discover its beginnings had little to do with “romantic love”…

The feast of St. Valentine was first decreed in 496 by Pope Gelasius, possibly as an attempt to supersede the pagan holiday of Lupercalia that was still being celebrated in fifth-century Rome.  Valentine was the name of one or more martyred Christian Saints.  Nothing is known about them except “their feats were known to God”  - a dubious beginning to be sure.

It was in the 14th century that author Geoffrey Chaucer first associated the feast with the notion of “romantic love.”   Ummmm, so we can thank an author with a knack for refined “fart” jokes for this celebration…There is a certain kind of symmetry to that I think.

As you can guess, I do like to participate in Valentine’s Day.  However, I have modified it to fit me.  I send Valentines to my girlfriends.  I give my husband instructions, “Chocolate and lingerie.”    (“Lingerie” can easily be exchanged for “shiny baubles” depending how I feel about my dress size that year.)  I buy my husband and my kids something small with homemade cards attached.  And, I buy myself flowers.   Pretty, pretty flowers.  Happy V.D.

Today, February 1st, is the first day of Imbolc, the Feast of Brigit, pagan Goddess and Christian Saint.  I like Brigit.  She’s a Goddess of action and focus.   The fiery goddess of inner strength and will.  A redhead after my own heart.

Imbolc is the first day of Spring in the Celtic Calendar, February 1st.   I look out my window and I see snowflakes falling, one after another, tumbling down.  The ground has been hidden by two feet of hard, half-melted snow for five weeks now.

I haven’t seen a bird at my feeders for two whole days.  They are hiding too.  Deep, within the branches of the pine trees.  Trees that poke and prick at us is where they find refuge—these are their warm places.

A week or so ago, I was with a friend and we were discussing his garden.  He couldn’t wait to show me this big vegetable he had just picked.  Mind you, this was January 18th and there had been snow on the ground for weeks along with frighteningly cold temperatures.  I just nodded my head and smiled at this crazy comment.

Off to the fridge he ran and returned with a grin from ear to ear  holding this massive, gorgeous purple turnip.  This had been growing in his garden since last Spring.  Underneath the snow, this had been growing still.  Thriving in fact.

I could not ignore the message.  The reminder that sometimes we can’t see the change.  The shifting beneath the surface.  We see the snow on top.  Still there, not melting completely.

Looking at that turnip, I felt a leap of excitement.  I heard in my mind one of my favorite quotes by Kahlil Gibran, “In every Winter’s Heart there is a Quivering Spring…”

Maybe I couldn’t see Springtime out my window between the falling snowflakes, but I know it is there.  Quivering and thriving beneath the snow on Brigit’s day, Springtime is borning.

There’s a plumber in my kitchen right now.  Trying to clear our kitchen sink.  I keep hearing rumblings of, “I have never seen this before,” and “Well, I’ll be.”  Frankly, I’m a little nervous about the impending bill.

This is the second time he has been here in four days.  The problem had been getting worse and worse.  The water would just not drain.  Dirty water, sitting in my sink, slowly, ever so slowly draining away. Leaving a ring of slime around the bottom.  I called the plumber after many vain attempts with maximum strength Draino and a plunger.

I am grateful the plumber is here, the expert.  The first time he came, we had thought it was fixed, but after a day, we realized the problem was still there.  It was better, but not fixed.  So back he is today.

As I hear him working and rumbling,  I can not help but look at the symbolism.  I do not believe anything happens in isolation.  As Wayne Dyer says, “There is a valid reason for everything.”

I believe the Universe is conspiring to make us whole, guiding us to our best self.  We receive information and/or signs all the time.  Much of our intuition is seeing/reading the signs all around us and gleaning the most insight to make the best decisions.

Water has many different meanings for me, one being emotions.  For the past few weeks my husband and I have been, shall we say, “discussing an issue.”  Needless to say, without resolution.  Thus it is  not surprising to me that my sink has been all clogged up.  Dirty, water, old stuff mixed with the new, sitting in my kitchen sink.  Truly in the center of my home, in the center of my life.

I was thrilled last week when the plumber came and seemed to fix the problem so easily and quickly.  My husband let me know the sink was still not working the next day.  I went to where we all seek refuge –denial.  “Dear, it’s fine.  You don’t know.  What did you put down there?”  Later too, I discovered he was right, the problem was still not fixed.  The next day I called the expert again, the plumber.

He came with much bigger equipment this time,  but today, happily, he fixed it.  The clog was very deep.  He had needed to go further down the pipe last time.  He was even baffled at times today before he finally completely cleared the problem.

As I watched the plumber drive away, I smiled and was gratefully  reminded that sometimes the clogs are very deep and with the right equipment, the right support they can be cleared away.

My husband and I resolved our “issue of discontent” later that day.  We had found the support we needed to make the best decision and the problem was cleared away.