According to the Wheel of the Year, Imbolc is the time when we can begin looking forward of spring.\u00a0 We have passed the depth of the darkness with Yule, and entered the Waxing Year.\u00a0 Fires are lit, beer is brewed, and Brigit \u2013 however you choose to spell Her Name \u2013 is invoked for her blessings of warmth, health, fertility, and artifice.<\/p>\n
In Kansas City, however, early February is the coldest, darkest part of the year.\u00a0 This year more so than usual, with an straight-from-the-ice-of-Hel<\/a> blizzard starting the evening of Monday 1 February and lasting through Wednesday 3 February.\u00a0 The roads had barely even been cleared after the first round of foot-deep snow.\u00a0 Aradia had to put off a business trip for two days, waiting for them to clear the I-70 corridor; I lost another two and a half days of classes.<\/p>\n Somehow, Aradia and I just weren\u2019t feeling that Imbolc Fire.\u00a0 We sat around the house watching bad TV and trying not to think about how cold it was outside.\u00a0 We still haven\u2019t changed over our altar from Yule, and I haven\u2019t yet started the Imbolc batch of mead.<\/p>\n For the last week I\u2019ve been living on leftovers and takeout.\u00a0 The house gets dirtier.\u00a0 My mind gets more and more scattered.\u00a0 I didn\u2019t really sleep last night.\u00a0 I should be doing more homework, using the snow days to ahead in my classes; working harder on my admission essays, due the first of March; and studying for my ACT, which is this coming Saturday.\u00a0 I\u2019m keeping up with my classes, and working again, and making progress on the essays \u2026 but the ACT scares me so bad that it hurts \u2013 an almost physical pain \u2013 to think about it.\u00a0 It\u2019s hard to say which of these things is \u201ccause\u201d and which are \u201ceffect\u201d.<\/p>\n Aradia comes back from St.Louis tomorrow, and I need to get the house clean enough for us to change out the altar and celebrate Imbolc.\u00a0 Hell, I need to get the house clean enough that I don\u2019t feel like a fucking bum.\u00a0 I need to get my head screwed on straight so I can sleep and get done what I need to get done. The ritual will make me feel better.\u00a0 Having another gallon of mead bubbling away under the altar will make me feel better.\u00a0 Having my shit together will make me feel better, and feeling better will make it easier to keep my shit together.<\/p>\n This semester could easily define me for the rest of my life.\u00a0 I need to not fuck it up.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" According to the Wheel of the Year, Imbolc is the time when we can begin looking forward of spring.\u00a0 We have passed the depth of the darkness with Yule, and entered the Waxing Year.\u00a0 Fires are lit, beer is brewed, and Brigit \u2013 however you choose to spell Her Name \u2013 is invoked for her … Read More<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[5],"tags":[122,225,237,238],"class_list":["post-140","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-witchcraft","tag-imbolc","tag-sabbats","tag-school","tag-seasons"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8kUcm-2g","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/journeythroughtheobsidiandream.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/140","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/journeythroughtheobsidiandream.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/journeythroughtheobsidiandream.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journeythroughtheobsidiandream.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journeythroughtheobsidiandream.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=140"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/journeythroughtheobsidiandream.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/140\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/journeythroughtheobsidiandream.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=140"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journeythroughtheobsidiandream.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=140"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journeythroughtheobsidiandream.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=140"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}