Sleet chitters against the panes as I write this. Our all-too-brief Bridey's Spring is, it would seem, well and gone, alas. Cold air masses are sailing down from the north towards us (they call them “Alberta Clippers” here), driving snow before them, with deep cold in their wake. Today they're predicting Thundersnow.

Thunder-and-lightning snowstorms aren't something that we see here very often. To hear the very Voice of Summer in Winter's cold midst cannot fail to feel uncanny. Thunder and snow just don't keep company much.

We last heard Thunder's voice on October 6^th. Perhaps, like other birds, the Thunderbirds fly south in the winter. The First Thunder of the year is always a sure sign of spring. In Russia they say that Perún is breaking up the ice with his hammer. Snorri, no doubt, would have it that þórr is smiting the Frost Giants.* According to our local folk wisdom, spring's First Thunder is a sure predictor of future weather: six months later comes First Frost. Apparently the climatological evidence (here in Minnesota, anyway) actually bears out this correlation. Today is February 10. Oh dear.

First Thunder last year was March 16, in the evening. I remember being rather caught out by it. At the very moment of that first, ground-shaking peal, I was fully engaged in offering to Another. Suddenly Thunder made Himself known. What to do? You're talking with a friend, and another friend shows up unexpectedly. Do you finish the conversation first and then greet the new arrival, or greet and assume the first friend will understand?

At the time, I chose to complete the offering and pour to Thunder later, on the principle that it would be rude to interrupt an offering already begun. In retrospect, this was the wrong decision, and I'll know better next time. One can face West** and pray to Thunder at any time, of course—there's always, at any given moment of the day or night, a Thunderstorm underway somewhere on planet Earth—but in my experience it's generally best to offer to present gods.

Well, this year, at least, I'll be prepared. So help me, I'll make that pouring whenever I hear the spring's First Thunder, later today or whenever.

August 10^th, though. Oi.

*With all due deference to the Master of Hvammur, I tell a different story. The dual or divided self is a central concept in Old Craft thought, and it seems to me that in Thunder and Frost we see Storm's twin natures, the young and the old respectively.

**In this landscape, at least, Thunder lives in the west and moves to the east, unlike Sun who lives in the east and moves to the west; and that's very much the nature of Their relationship. The daughter and sealing of Their concord, though, is the Rainbow.