Brigid’s Day, Candlemas, Imbolc, Groundhog Day – by any of its names, we are in one of the four cross-quarter tides of the year, coming as it does between midwinter and vernal equinox. It is the quickening time, but for me the first stirrings of early spring are more shy and tender than usual.
This is a reverie. I go to walk with myself. To get clear in my mind, the kind of spaciousness that can come to me with an extended stretch of silence. To let memory come in. To lay down some ocean time in my skin. To work, walk, write. To let wonder in.
I thought perhaps by sharing these quotes and photos I might establish some new connections with the fabled writing community on Instagram. Instead I renewed a connection with my younger self, the girl whose loneliness sent her to books in the first place, the young woman whose frustration that her writing dream had to wait was amplified by a dismissive professor who frankly discouraged her from even imagining such a thing.
This is an old nursery rhyme, usually attributed to Mother Goose. Her origins are lost in the mists of time, but it might be that this grandmotherly keeper of old stories, encoded in rhymes and nonsense for children, can be traced all the way back to the great goddess Aphrodite, the deity of love, seduction, desire and beauty.