Rituals, Community, and the Rhythm of Life

Hello all,

Many of our modern rituals have ancient roots, including the seasonal ones. As someone who loves winter snow but not the bitter wind, when the days start getting longer again I also hope for an early spring. And when the seed catalogs start arriving in my mail—then I'll really be feeling it! But now we know—from the groundhog for 2025...six more weeks of winter.

Even our seemingly silly rituals like Groundhog Day often have deeper meanings. As detailed in this Groundhog Day: Ancient Origins of a Modern Celebration, this midpoint between the solstice and the equinox was an important holiday for some ancient Europeans. They brought this ritual to the Americas, and it evolved over time.

"The best known Groundhog Day ceremony occurs each year in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania. This annual festival traces its origin to 1887, when members of the local Elks Lodge first went to nearby Gobbler’s Knob to consult a groundhog about the weather. The observance developed into an annual tongue-in-cheek ceremony at which the groundhog, given the name “Punxsutawney Phil” in the 1960s, communicates his prediction to the “Inner Circle,” a group of men wearing formal suits and top hats. Though it’s only one of many Groundhog Day ceremonies held all across the United States and /" target="_blank">Canada, the Punxsutawney event is certainly the most well-known, especially since it became the basis of the renowned philosophical comedy film Groundhog Day, which the Library of Congress inducted into the National Film Registry in 2015."

But this feeling of anticipating/yearning for a new season is not only historical/agricultural, it applies to the seasons of our lives and the seasons of our careers. It also calls us to the community. Because these midpoint season rituals aren't things we do alone. In higher education we have seasons too. Most of us just started a new spring semester, with all the semester cycles of library and technology and administrative work. Our higher education seasons don't align perfectly with our agricultural seasons or the seasons of our careers, and that can leave us feeling out of sync/off balance. And when the external world also seems off balance, people and things can start to fray.

The remedy for this - find your community and sustain the rituals and activities that mark time, that offer support and comfort, that celebrate achievements, that bring you peace.

All the best,
Holly