February–as a month it leaves a little something to be desired for those of us in the Northern Hemisphere. Rainy, snowy, cloudy, dark, bleak and generally rather unpleasant, for those of us born in this month it seems like a cruel joke. Others get to celebrate their birthdays sunning on the beach or smelling spring flowers or enjoying the crisp air of fall–we get slush, dirty remains of snowbanks and a generally chilly miasma of “Who gives a shit?” The anticipation and disappointments of the holiday season are over and there’s not much in the way of holidays to look forward to–it’s a shortchanged month in many ways, even its very length seems to indicate that nobody really wants it to hang around long.
Quite often, though, appearances can be deceiving. A gnarled, dried up bulb doesn’t resemble in the least the lush flower it will one day be. Dried up seeds show no hint of the giant trees they could one day be. Muddy trampled ground will be a meadow in a few months. February, in stark contrast to its appearance is actually quite the sexy month–the month in which we first begin to see the beginnings of spring to come.
The Celts celebrated Imbolc at the very beginning of February–a fire feast sacred to Brigid. The word “Imbolc” means “in the belly of the mother” and is sometimes referred to as the feast of ewe’s milk–since this is the time of year when lambs begin to be born. One of the oldest and commonest rituals of the festival are the spring cleaning where all the dirt and clutter and remnants of the old year are cleansed away in preparation for the new year to come. It’s a common time for new Wiccans to begin their initiations into the craft. Christians celebrate Imbolc as Candlemas, the time when Mary returned after the ritual forty days of uncleanness following the birth of Jesus. Hmmm, wonder where they got the idea for that? So, February is a time of cleansing, a time for making ready for what is to come.
Later on in the month things get a little dirty again as we begin to celebrate Valentine’s Day–coincidentally set on the same days as the Roman feast of Lupercalia. During the Lupercalia, naked youths would run through the streets whipping at the women with small thong whips called februa, in the belief that such whippings would make pregnant women deliver easily and that barren women would be made pregnant. The februa were made of strips of skin from sacrificed goats and dogs–can you imagine the mess that must have made? There was also a feast of Februa, held on the fifteenth of the month–the name derives from februum, which means “purification.”
As for the titular St Valentine, there are two martyrs of that name but one is believed to have been martyred for aiding Christians, especially in performing marriages. Again with the fertility rituals, although covered over with a veneer of respectability, what with the marriages and all.
The Anglo-Saxons called February Solmonath (mud month) and Kale-monath (cabbage month) since cabbage was probably the only vegetable that would keep over the winter in the store houses and I bet they were getting pretty damned sick of it by then. The Finns were a bit more lyrical, calling the month helmikuu, meaning “month of the pearl,” as the snow on the trees would melt in the warmer temperatures and then refreeze into pearls of ice.
In spite of the fact that February is raw and cold, it’s actually the time when Earth passes closest to the sun, and it’s the only month that can pass without a full moon.
So when it seems like this month will never pass, or that you’ll never see the sun again or that you’ll never really be warm, just snuggle up under a nice wool blanket, enact a private fertility ritual with someone you love (or just like a lot, I don’t judge) and maybe go clean out that scary junk room you’ve been trying to forget about. It might not seem so at first glance, but the shy beginnings of spring are sneaking peeks at you from around every blob of mud on the floor or slushy snow puddle in the street. Take heart, warmer days are coming!
