The Wheel of the Year

As most of you know, I tend to follow the ancient calendar of my Celtic ancestors as far as seasons and holidays go. The Celts were very fond of dividing things into twos, then fours, then eights... So besides the "light' and "dark" halves of the solar year, there are the quarters, marked by the equinoxes which are major festivals as are the two solstices. Then we cut each of those 90 day blocks in half and get Imbolc, Beltain, Lughnasa and Samhain. Two of those are more noted in modern times--as "May Day" and Halloween.

I have two favorite blocks of those eight, the one from Imbolc to the Spring Equinox and the one from Lughnasa  until the Fall Equinox or Mabon. To me Imbolc is the start of spring. Yes, at first only a hint off and on and a shy peak around the trailing cloak of winter but those glimpses are encouraging. Here in the sun belt, we do get nice days--highs in the 70s and a rare 80 and few to no hard frost mornings. Life begins to stir with the early weeds and birds hunting for nest sites and beginning their courtship rituals.

On my daily walks I am seeing flowers now. This morning I spied a few orange-gold blooms. I think

they may be the Arizona version of California poppies. They were in some dirt pushed up into rows where someone had bladed off sand that ran into the road in some of our rains so they were a bit crumpled and half buried! At times the hills over to the east around Wilcox and up toward Safford and down to Duncan, the last place my parents lived, are covered with the blazing carpet of  'sun drops' to where they simply glow fire-gold. I am not sure if this will be a good spring flower year in the desert or not. Much depends on the exact timing of winter rains. They were spread out fairly well this season so I am sure at least some areas will be gorgeous.

Around here the ubiquitous mustard weed is in bloom, small unobtrusive yellow flowers but the bees find and enjoy them. We also have the filaree, an early weed that spreads deep green 'doilies' of fern like leaves and then sends up small purple or lavender blooms. It's too early for the mesquites to start leafing out but the bumpy pre-leaf buds are  beginning to appear.  You would never recognize them if you were not familiar with them since they do not resemble new green at all. So for me, it is spring. The desert, even the high desert, is said to only have two seasons, summer and not-summer but there is both spring and fall. You just have to be alert and look for their signs!

Of course the Lughnasa to Mabon period is the gradual phase down of summer and edge into fall which h as always been my most favorite time of the year. The next block from Mabon to Samhain is a favorite too but when I lived in Colorado and dreaded the coming of real winter with zero temps and s**w and all that, I was already seeing signs of its approach and felt the beginning of that dread and SAD creeping up. Here not so much as fall often lingers into November--another great benefit of the sun belt high desert, so I'd call that the sub-favorite!

So for 2020, Imbolc has come and gone and the Equinox approaches in a few more weeks, less than half of that 45 day block. By then it will be spring although we will have wind and possibly even a storm or two but it will be time for planting and enjoying the outdoors. This new home is a perfect place for that as we will see early green in the valley to the north and watch our local flora don its spring finery. Yuccas will shoot up their stalks to fill with the lily-white blooms, mesquites will spread their spring-green leaves and then their fuzzy yellow 'cat tail' blooms and grass and weeds will spring up everywhere. "Spring up"--isn't that a neat double meaning sort of description? Autumn may fall but spring does spring out/up in a burst of enthusiasm! Of course I love it!

Most of these pix were from NM but the plants are much the same here; I have just not been able to capture them yet!

Filaree

Mesquite budding

Mesquite in bloom

Yucca in bloom

Ocotillo in bloom

Desert Willow--there is
one in my courtyard