Groundhog Day: Looking and Living in the Light

Rev. Peter Edward Lanzillotta, Ph.D.

Today is Groundhog Day. It is the day when the latest descendent of Puxatawny Phil, the Pennsylvania woodchuck, boldly gives his weather forecast to the Northern states.

As with most totems, taboos, and folk traditions, they find their origin in much earlier times, yet can still have some modern, symbolic value for us today.

While the origin of this day is ancient, it relates to certain psychological and spiritual truths relating to facing one’s fears, overcoming denial, and moving toward the courage necessary to develop new insights and foster greater enlightenment in ourselves, and our community.

The origins of Groundhog day can be generally traced to the Germans and/or the Dutch, in the Middle Ages. The popular belief was that special, mysterious qualities and powers were to be attributed to any hibernating animal.

As the folk story goes, all hibernating animals awaken briefly on February 2nd, somehow acknowledging a subtle shift in the earth’s increasing light. These special animals were equipped with an internal biological clock that assisted them in discerning the signs of the Spring. They would awaken and venture out of their lair, cave, stump, or hole and look around – checking to see whether Spring was close; sniffing and sensing when it was that the warmth would return to the Earth.

As a rule, these deep sleeping animals were skittish, wary, hesitant by nature. They would act cautiously, being ever on guard against anything abnormal, anything that might upset their security or routine. If anything did startle them, anything they were afraid of, they would rapidly scamper back to their homes for safety.

As this legend goes, as every schoolchild knows, the ideal weather forecast would be when the hibernating animal opened their eyes, look around and find that it was a normal, cloudy winter’s day. This safe, expected and comfortable result. When the animal was not spooked, there will be only six more weeks of Winter. What a relief! However, when the animal emerged and saw bright sunlight, and when they looked around and saw shadows, they would be startled, upset, and would run to safety. This fear reaction would predict that the Winter would be prolonged, harsh, and that the people’s problems would persist for at least another month and a half!

As with many customs, the European immigrants brought their beliefs with them to our country. The German and Dutch, who settled in Amish country, brought us the legend of the groundhog. Along with the Farmer’s Almanac, this day remains a part of Americana, and for some it remains a natural meteorological marvel – a kind of biological timing or cyclical correspondence where animals attest to certain rhythmic truths that science has yet to disprove, and from a more spiritual and

open minded perspective, I would say would say, that science has yet to learn fully from its nature’s wisdom that states that all life is an interconnected and interdependent living whole.

However, today, however, the theme for my talk will not be ethnobiology, sleep and hibernation cycles, or any other such celestial correspondences concerning the weather.

Instead, it will focus on the emotional weather and spiritual climate in our lives. …

Using the story of the groundhog, I will explore possible lessons in awareness and growth that can be gained from looking at our shadows and learning to live in the light.

One of the early pioneers in depth psychology and spirituality was Carl Jung. An analyst by training, after breaking with Freud, he began to explore religion, symbols, and myths. Among his valuable or lasting contributions to human understanding has been his theory concerning the dynamics of personal change. Using the metaphorical process called psycho alchemy, after the ancient, and mystical teachings, he outlined the stages of change we can go through in personal and spiritual maturity.

Jung states that we proceed down hard-won steps from a focus on an unenlightened egotism and a a general lack of awareness of God or the Higher Self, towards a realization that each of us contains a holy light and sacred darkness within us.

Jung believed, and it is commonly held by most of today’s “physicians of the soul”, that every human being has to go through courageous and unavoidable steps or stages of self knowledge or internal recognition. Each of us has to discover and become aware of the light and the dark found within our innermost thoughts, feelings, attitudes, and ideals. Furthermore, we have to be willing to discover, explore, and admit to our negative tendencies, our shortcomings, our so called sins, or personality flaws. These places in our thinking, feeling, and acting are often hard for us to identify, or accept. Jung decided to call that repressed or unacknowledged part of us, the shadow. … This shadow walks behind and within us, as our hidden selves which we do not necessarily see, or admit readily to oneself or to others.

Like the groundhog, the most common response to the negative shadowy experiences we have, or to whatever threatens or plagues us, is to run and hide. Yet, this is not a shadow that can be fully hidden or outrun, for what we resist, persists.

Additionally, what remains unknown or unidentified, can become powerful feelings, attitudes, perceptions that can dictate or exert control over us. The shadow side of humanity exists as a part of all of us – it is a compilation of all our unresolved fears, worries, and egotistical tendencies.

5 One of the goals in Jungian analysis, and allied to my work of interfaith spiritual direction, is to be willing to identify and to openly recognize these traits and tendencies. Furthermore, since these shady parts are all a universal part of the human condition, no one is exempt from having a darker side to their personalities. Therefore, we can all readily admit that there is personal and spiritual work to be done, and be willing to do it without engaging in any nasty personal judgments or harsh demoralizing conclusions.

This shadow-self represents our defense mechanisms, our ego strategies, our emotional dysfunctions – any and all ways of thought, emotion, and action that keep us anxious, alienated, stressed, or depressed. As we work to identify these qualities about us and admit that they are a portion of the whole self, in the language of Jung, “befriend” our shadow material. Jung postulates that rather than run away from our fears, the goal of individuation or wholeness hinges on our willingness to befriend our poison and pain, fears and anxieties and like the alchemist, we are to transform those negative energies and experiences into stronger personal growth, clear motives, and greater personal maturity.

While I might have some difference of opinion with this approach, I can appreciate its value in gaining a stronger sense of who and what a person contains within them.

Where it principally breaks down for me, is in the passive state of befriending. While identification and knowledge of our psychological states and accepting those traits is important, there is another level is also needed.

I feel that it is not enough to admit that certain negative traits are a part of us, but that true alchemy involves the transformation of most, if not all, these shadow elements in one’s life. Also, I realize that it is an evolving and never ending lifetime of work comprise the tasks of wholeness and integrity that constitute the acute challenges of mid-life and beyond.

We change our minds and hearts as we honestly face them, and then, like the alchemist, we take the next step of substantial change or spiritual redemption where these steps can release and transform that energy into a larger, more constant sense of our whole lives in God or if you prefer, in the personal process of learning equipoise, balance, harmony, compassion and love.

The way of the groundhog is a way that is ultimately self-defeating. We cannot continue to run from one panic to another and expect to accomplish any inner peace, serenity, justice, or self-acceptance. Nothing replaces the work that we all have to do, the exalting and liberating work of change, growth, and wholeness.

It can be said that many parts or dimensions of our world have a shadow side to them. …. As quick examples, the shadow side of capitalism is poverty, the shadow side of business is greed, the shadow side of pleasure can be addiction. …

As I see it, this community is to become a beacon of light… And that the real, foundational purpose of being together as a spiritual community is learn how best to live in the light, learning to work together, and to move through any shadows that loom, and any of the threats that lurk.

Light is the universal, spiritual remedy, for there is no darkness a spiritual community’s desire to live in the light cannot pierce. Our task is to grow into the light, as individuals, as a congregation.

As Jesus told his followers when they asked how they could be disciples and witnesses to the spiritual reality they could share, he said, “You are the light of the world.”

May we be so filled with that light, that we shine radiantly, dispelling the shadows of the past, and walking together into the new light of hope and growth. AMEN