I had been feeling blue for awhile.  This damn snow just won’t stop.  Early Spring - one of the ugliest times of year, everything is brown and cold.  I have been taunted more then once by a day of blissful warmth and sunshine only to have the temperature drop thirty degrees in 6 hours.  What is that?  Is Mother Nature trying to drive me over the edge? 

 Then I went to the spa – a micropeel facial and a pedicure with that wax thing too.  I always laugh about a facial as you look like hell afterward – pinched and blotchy and this one was no exception.  The micropeel is a diamond encrusted suction tube that they drag across your face/neck to remove the dead skin – slightly painful at times, but I no longer look grayish.  The flush of youth has returned to my face…or maybe that is the slightly raw, red skin they promised as a side effect of the treatment…oh well.  Honestly, my pores have never looked better, even though I lost a layer or two of skin in the process…

 But the pedicure.  First one of the year.  I like to give my toes a break over the winter.  But I now have beautiful, rosy toes and am delightfully happy every time I look at them.  I had forgotten the pleasure of a pedicure.  To me – ultimate decadence.  I mean really, it’s not like I can’t do it myself.  I feel pampered and indulgent during the service.  I have even introduced my husband to this indulgence on a date night.  Needless to say a convert was born that afternoon.

 So, if you are feeling blue – remember the power of the pedicure and go directly to a nail salon.  I don’t care if you are a man or a woman – taking “extra-special” care of ourselves is important.  Give it a try – promise, you’ll be surprised… 

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.