Midwinter Festivals

Midwinter is coming! Do you know what that means? End of Winter is coming!!!!! Praise be to Maude!

Tomorrow is Vasant Panchami, which is the Hindu celebration of Saraswati. Saraswati is the goddess of Knowledge and Art. The day is celebrated with offerings of yellow sweets and honey to statues of the goddess that are draped in yellow fabric. Many Hindus also mark this day as the start of formal education of young children. This is the day they will begin to teach reading and writing to preschool-aged children. This festival also marks the coming of spring and the Hindu festival of colors, Holi. According to this site, the traditional prayer to Saraswati ends with "Oh Mother Sarasvati remove the darkness (ignorance) of my mind and bless me with the eternal knowledge." That sounds like a prayer for Spring and the return of the sun to me.

Here's a lovely chant for Sarasvati:

It's interesting how the holidays and holy days of so many cultures and religions follow the earth. The pagan festival of Imbolc is coming up. Our family marks that with a pretty traditional ritual of drinking cold milk and sweeping out the house (back corner to the front door---symbolizing Spring cleaning in its many forms). Imbolc is, I think, the same day as the Catholic holiday of Candelmas, or the Feast of the Presentation of Jesus at the Temple. And then there's Groundhog Day, where we put a lot of social pressure on a poor little rodent to save us all from seasonal depression. So, lots of way to welcome the last half of winter and start looking forward to spring.

I'm so ready.