Thawing
Spiracle Publisher, Leigh Wilson, on Imbolc, thawing and what the month of February brings
Thawing, like much that relates to what the natural world is doing now, has taken on a malevolent hue. It’s hard, when thinking about thawing, not to see glaciers melting, not to picture unbelievably huge chunks of ice detaching themselves and crashing into the sea.
February reminds me, though, that the thawing of things other than glaciers and sea ice can be good. The first day of February is Imbolc, the Gaelic festival which marks the moment of preparation for the coming spring. Christianised as St Brigid’s Day, it celebrates the movement from the dark, frozen half of the year into the light and vibrant one.
For the festivals, pagan and Christian, at this time, the day marks a coming back to life in contrast to the deathly associations of the thawing of glaciers and ice caps.
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Without losing sight of the significance of these kinds of thawing, then, it is possible to reclaim other kinds of thawing, to think of February as a time to warm up, to come back to life.
It’s true, though, that good thawing, even while revitalising, can be painful too, as feelings return. As the speaker at the beginning T.S. Eliot’s The Waste Land says, in contrast to April’s cruelty, ‘Winter kept us warm, covering/earth in forgetful snow’. Thawing is not all snow drops and spring green; it is also remembering difficult things, waking up to what is going on around us, what is painfully true. (Ted Hughes’ reading of the Waste Land is available from Spiracle.)
New and older titles in the Spiracle Collection can wake us up, warm us, bring us back to life. Sally Rooney’s Intermezzo, about the effects of grief, but also about love in all its varieties.
In her essay collection, Writing Landscape, Linda Cracknell recounts a hike in winter snow, and encourages us to wake up to nature, notice what is around us, and learn attentive looking. Activating our own awakening is not a new thing. Ralph Waldo Emerson’s Self-Reliance, from 1841, was written in response to financial collapse in the US experienced 4 years before, and his call to independent thinking and living is as relevant and energizing as ever. Hawa Abdi, in Keeping Hope Alive, her account of running, with her daughters, a refugee camp near Mogadishu, shows what can be done by being awake and alive to the suffering of others.
One last thing — we are forming an important focus group and would be glad of your involvement. Please write to Nicci Praça community@spiracleaudiobooks.com.
Leigh Wilson, Publisher.
