April Showers bring May Flowers

 

A little late, but not by much. I am busy getting ready for my niece's coming-of-age ritual this weekend.  More on that later.

This month, and the names assigned to it, are ripe with the happenings of the season.  In the Anglo-Saxon calendar, we have Þrimilcemōnaþ, "Month of Three Milkings."  My hunch is that this refers to the fertility of herds, where the females would be lactating a lot to support their new kids, lambs, and calves.

The Gaulish calendar calls this Cutios, "Rain Month."  So far around here we are down a bit in rainfall, but I imagine that will pick up (hopefully).  And the old saying I put in the title makes the connection between this and the Almanac's name, Flower Moon.

All of this points to the bursting fertility of flora and fauna, as the land basically explodes with emergent life.  I saw the first bees a week or so ago, and now they are busy pollinating. Speaking of.... yes, the spring allergies are here, which are very annoying... even though it too is symbolic of the season.

Kondratiev calls this the Moon of the Hawk, where we are finally breaking free of the bonds of winter.  In central Ohio, we keep alternating between "spring" weather and winter, and we have had flurries and even significant snow here historically up into May.  In his visualization, as the moon grows to full, we approach the boundary between summer and winter (recall the Celts had only the two seasons).  At the full moon, we reach that boundary, and then soar like hawk off the cliff, freeing the spirit (he calls it the maiden) of Summer as the moon wanes.

Lots of imagery to pick from as we travel through this month.  May your lives been full of potential, the rain fall gently upon you, may the flowers bloom brightly at your feet, and may you soar like a hawk through the month.