September 1st, 2012

The first of September! Where did summer go? Funny how that happens, isn't it? Anyway, today I did my Blue Moon/Esbat ritual. I had hoped to do so yesterday, but just as I'd started, mom and dad called me to do something else.

Today we discovered that we have a new resident in our backyard - a chubby little woodchuck found the abandoned rabbit hole under the shed and seems to have moved in. He's been busy all morning eating the tall grass around the shed.
The word "woodchuck" actually comes from the Native American name for the animal: wuchak. According to the mythology of the Algonquin Native Americans, Grandmother Woodchuck was a very wise creature who adopted Glooskap, an Algonquin equivalent to Hercules, who frequently fought monsters to make the world safe, but ended up getting into trouble from which Grandmother Woodchuck had to save him.
Because the groundhog (another name for the woodchuck) hibernates during the winter, the animal is symbolic of understanding the cycles of life, death, and rebirth. It is further representative of the ability to know when to "go underground", or to back up from a situation.
Do you have a groundhog living in your neighborhood? Consider what he might be trying to tell you.