A Day to Bless the Sun

Somehow along the path this morning I ran across this reference (link) to a tradition called The Blessing of the Sun and somehow it fit with my mood today. Although we got five inches of snow on Sunday night, it just feels like Spring is coming... Is it because there is the sound of birds calling now instead of the quiet of winter, or other obvious signs of of the season, or just the noticeable change in the length of day and the noticeable warmth coming from my old friend, the Sun.
So for a while before I kept my movie date at the Flint Institute of Arts, I amused myself a bit by reading up on The Blessing of the Sun.
(Don't you love Google (link)?)
So, God created the Sun on a Wednesday, and this is a special one.

After the movie, my friend and I sit around a while and talk about the film, and our worlds, and sometimes, like today, about our creative lives. What a joy to have someone to talk to. Friends are like blessed sunshine.


Along that train of thought, about creativity, here's my latest stepping stone. (I threw it on the melting snow outside the back door to get a photo of it in the blessed sunshine. Isn't that poor croaked crocus, the one of the bunch that had the strength to stick up out of the snow, pathetic?)
Can you guess what the flower on my stone is? Herb had a hard time. I guess I need to learn more about cutting glass to achieve more botanically correct leaves. It's been so long since he saw a dandelion, I'm sure that's it.

Here is a line from Wikipedia about The Blessing of the Sun:
"Birkat Hachama (ברכת החמה, "Blessing of the Sun") refers to a Jewish blessing that is recited in appreciation of the Sun once every 28 years, when the vernal equinox, as calculated by tradition, falls on a Tuesday at sundown. Jewish tradition says that when the Sun completes this cycle, it has returned to its position when the world was created."