Nature Journal : Imboloc through my eyes

And so february is here. January has gone in a flurry of projects and ativities. Days are longer, energy is highier, house is much more tidy and things done are more and more lifting my spirit. In this month my youngest doughter will turn 11, she is leaving childhood behind too, but hopefully some of it will stay a little longer for me to enjoy.
This morning I painted an entry in my nature journal. Today for the Celts was the first day of spring or Imboloc. For Christians is Candlemas, actually there is a fun side, I only learned while studying celtic traditions that candlemas is celebrated by Christians. In my family there was just the saying that if today the weather was good it meant the winter was gone but nobody ever mentioned to me that today was the blessing of the candles for the year in honour of the virgin Mary. Another interesting finding of today was about this Scottish rhyme that basically states the opposite of what we used to say in my family : if Candlemas be fair and bright,come winter have another flight ...
But well, here Imboloc has been characterized by snow. A huge amount of it. It's three days that is snowing no-stop and today the snowfall was even heavier. I actually love this. The temperature it's not so low, we're at 0 C , and the world is white and magic. I not even mind the snow job. And the light ! So much of it comparing december, this morning the sunrise was at 8:30 and the sunset at 16:29, so 8 hours and one minute of daylight,five minutes more then yesterday, while the 20 of december the sunrise was at 9:23 and sunset was at 15:06 !!! So little more then 5 hours and 40 minutes. Incredible isn't it ? Our Creator makes wonderful things. But here few pictures ...

Here from my nature journal, this is what I see when I look the horizon from my kitchen window facing south-east. Unfortunately we don't live in the forest, it's just a small road with nice rows of nice wooden houses, but the forest is very close. So when I look outside I try to lift my eyes over the roofs and I focus on the trees and the sky and it feels like if we're in the forest, into the wild ...

This is the actual sight from the window, but I'm so used to my little game, that I hardly notice houses and roofs now ....

And this is how it looks from the north-west window, in my bedroom. Everything is so white out there. It looks like a dream :)

Happy february to all of you !