one senses a particular cross-quarterly resonance so essential to ceremonial empowerment when the best of us can do at time of year is to warm our nethers by the blazing fire...

This should read:

one senses a particularly potent cross-quarterly resonance so essential to ceremonial empowerment when the best most of us can do at time of year is to warm our nethers by the blazing fire...

Snow drops? Not yet, but we do get the occasional nocturnal blackbird.

Another fine balled for Imbolc is Child #6, The Witch Mother, aka Willie's Lady, aka Nine Witch Knots, which we call The Wax Baby - which seems ceremonial to the containment of vibrant spring by the hag of winter, and the ordeals we must endure to experience the eventual glory of the birth! As I write I'm uploading a rehearsal demo we made of this song for last years Fylde - so raggy but spirited! It's not the usual Son-Ar-Chistre melody (as set by Ray Fisher, made famous by Martin Carthy) but an old Scandinavian lullaby...

Have a listen at: Venereum Arvum