Signs of Spring – ImbolcSigns of Spring – Imbolc

The 2nd February was Imbolc, a date marked across various cultures, approximately an 1/8 of the way though the solar year, and half way between the winter solstice and the spring equinox.

As my hedgewitch friends were watching the dawn and leaving offerings, I finally refound my motivation that had seemed to seep away along with our daylight hours in the last weeks of December and I set my year’s resolutions. I wrote some clear achievable targets and celebrated being able to walk outside after 5pm without a head torch by taking a dusk walk though the woods. 

On my celebratory walk I enjoyed seeing the rich carpet of bluebells pushing though the leaf litter like an unstoppable green army. The snowdrops bobbing their white heads on the verge after a fly tipping incident years ago and seeing the buds on the hazel that catch the morning sun starting to swell. 

As my eyes took in these wonderful signs of the seasons turning, my ears heard the new depth to the range of bird calls. Out of the growing chorus I first identified the great tits, calling their repetitive squeaky bike pump call. The blackbirds’ song has a new urgency and depth to it, and is being sung right into the dying embers of dusk, competing with the tawny owls and the screaming vixens. 

After a few months of dormancy the woods really feel like they are coming back alive again, and I can feel that heavy blanket of winter, increased this year by repeated lockdowns and continuing uncertainty, shedding itself off my back too.

One of the resolutions that I made is that each and every day will have an outside element to it. Whether this is just a quick dash to the woods to collect in a track trap or a full day’s walk around the North Downs that I’m very grateful to be living on at this moment, each day will have an outside moment. And a moment to pause and enjoy the changes that this time of year brings in such profusion.