The story of the groundhog has never quite made sense to me. As I understand it, if he sees his shadow, he runs back into his hole in the ground to wait out another six weeks of winter. But if he doesn't see it, he reckons that winter has run its course.
I've always thought that if it's sunny outside, it might well mean that spring has arrived early. But no, legend tells us the opposite. Maybe his shadow frightens him into going back inside.
Although I'm not sure whether groundhogs even live here. Marmots do, but that's a different critter--still, it seems to be the one we rely upon to predict the end of winter.
I've been thinking about shadows, how they grow or shrink according to the angle of the light, and of course, how they follow us, tagging along faithfully, as long as there's light to be had. Robert Louis Stevenson probably said this best in his poem, "My Shadow". Whether we're looking back or ahead, that shadow is bound to be near, just as mine is in the photo above.
