Posted January 27, Reviewed by Michelle Quirk. I first appreciated the groundhog from aloft the 20th floor of Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, glancing at a newspaper and noticing the date.
Why rely on a lowly woodland creature for the weather when you can just ask Siri or Alexa? Is there anything sillier than a grown man in a top hat holding Punxsutawney Phil or Staten Island Chuck over his head like a newly minted king and savior? Brought to the United States by the Pennsylvania Dutch, Groundhog Day emerged from a Germanic religious tradition and superstition that coincided with Candlemas. Commemorating the 40th day after his birth, when Jesus was brought to the Temple by Joseph and Mary to perform the redemption of the firstborn, the holiday features a procession of candles.
Christ as the "light of the world" is a harbinger of the longer days ahead as winter makes its way into spring. Today, the candles of yesteryear—which served as protectors from storms, sickness, and evil—are echoed in the way we eagerly await the light and shadow of the groundhog himself. No matter how many times it takes.
And most of all, in this world where we can hardly agree on anything, this comic ritual reminds us of our shared humanity. It's as if filmmaker Wes Anderson devised this eccentric spectacle of a holiday to mark the fumbling ambivalence of our modern condition, one that pokes fun at and glorifies us in one fell swoop. But, even as we wish to be above it all, sometimes—at least once a year!
I suspect Carl Jung would agree. New traditions and technologies have nothing on our most elemental and primal needs. A testament to piety and pomp, dumb luck, and sheer vanity, Groundhog Day is a conglomeration of many registers, a tragicomic lottery that for one brief moment, holds us captive to the whims of a most ordinary and homely creature. Human and animal rely on each other to confront a new, unpredictable season together. Michael Alcee, Ph.
