Friday Five: Almost Groundhog Day Edition or Candlemas, or the Presentation, or the Meeting, or the Purification of Mary. Go figure

Friday Five: Almost Groundhog Day Edition or Candlemas, or the Presentation, or the Meeting, or the Purification of Mary.  Go figure

I have to admit: I never thought much about Groundhog Day.

Then I saw that movie. And an odd holiday that seems to be a remnant of an obscure Pennsylvania German custom took on all sorts of new meaning.

So, in honor of the movie and the day, I present you with this Almost Groundhog Day Edition of the Friday Five!

1. The Holiday:  On a scale of 1-5 (with 1 representing, "Hey! Stop hating on the most awesome season ever!" and 5 representing, "Green. NOW."), how much are you hankering for spring? And what is, to you, a true sign that it is actually on its way? 

Since I have already had my first real allergy attack and spent the last week down with the snort, sniffle, achoo routine, I think that Spring is just around the corner for those of us in this part of TX.  I need to start thinking about where I am going to put my new herb garden and such.  

2. The Film: Seen it? If yes, Love it? Hate it? Meh?

Meh!  Murray's films often are too frenetic for me to enjoy.  I have seen parts of it but never watched the whole thing.

3. The Meaning: If you could relive one day of your life, what one would it be?

Ordination Day?  Meebe?  The night that the blue tides came into Galveston when I was in my 20's?  

4. The Meaning, Part 2: If you had to relive one day of your life over and over until you got something right (a la the Bill Murray character in the film), what day would that be?

Now THAT is the description of Hell! And if it isn't Hell, then it damned sure is Purgatory!   Life isn't about doing things right, but learning from day to day about what it means to love and forgive the past.  

5. The Meaning, Part 3: If you had to design a life-changing experience for a fairly despicable human being (as is, for example, the Bill Murray character at the film's start), what would it be? How, given all sorts of unlikely powers to bend time and take control of another person's personal growth, would you do it?

Since I don't know the story, I can't really say.  But to take control of another's personal growth is immoral.  I couldn't be a party to it.

It has been interesting to see what kind of pre Christian Celtic antecedents there are to Groundhog Day.  In Ireland there is the tradition of the snake coming out of the ground and returning to claim more days of winter.  But since there were no snakes in Ireland it is interesting that the critter than does this weatherman deed is a snake.  It must be an even older Celtic story from the mainland before the migration of the Celts to Ireland.  

It is also interesting to find that the Presentation was a feast that was quite early in the history of the Church.  The churching of women was still a memory in the RC's when I was young.  The Purification and the Presentation and the stories of Simeon and Anna have a unique understanding in the Eastern Churches.  It is hard to detach them from Groundhog Day.


Happy (Almost) Groundhog Day!