It is the best of times, it is the worst of times. February. Its my birthday month and, apart from the obvious birthday cheer, I didn’t used to find much else to like about it. Even when some friends made a tropical fruit banquet and insisted we went to the beach for a picnic, we only lasted half an hour outdoors.
But latterly, I’ve invested in a better coat and looked a little closer at February. I have changed my mind. There’s plenty to like if we look for it.
In her excellent book The Wilderness Cure, Mo Wilde (born to be a foraging teacher) lives on foraged food for a year an is looking really closely at seasonal change. She advocates for shoe-horning in a fifth season: early spring, because it is so different from late spring. There are plenty of ancient traditions giving February “new year” status. Imbolc became St Brigid’s day in Ireland which warrants a bank holiday. Its half way between the winter solstice (day length change at its slowest) and the vernal equinox (day length change top speed). If nature were a sprinter, it would be in the “set” position at the start of a race. Teetering and anticipating what’s to come.
The sun rising a whole hour earlier by the end of the month is a very welcome addition to the mornings for those up early. And it only takes a few minutes of morning exposure to the sky to spark our physiology into peak performance. Andrew Huberman does a nice job of explaining our bodies’ mechanisms – how to harness them and avoid damaging them. He recommends 5 minutes of bright sky scaled to 20 minutes for dull sky and, importantly, we need this energy rush in our eyes within the first hour of waking if we want to set everything in motion for a good night of restorative sleep. He is very insistent that we mustn’t cheat: we must be outdoors unless physically impossible.
February, in the high-ish latitudes, with it’s palpably earlier dawn, increased birdsong and glimpses of blue sky makes this a pleasure. Who needs pineapples.