The balance is weighted to April
Today. These are Ecliptic Winds
From the Tilt of the Earth.
I can feel them here,
And watch them on my Scales of Late Winter,
And on the Needle of my Gnomon,
riding the Solar Storm.

BF

EPHEMERIS

The Bedding Plant Moon becomes the Singing Cardinal Moon at 2:55 a.m. on January 26. Rising in the morning and setting late in the day, the new moon moves overhead at noon.

PASSAGE TO LATE WINTER

The sun has been rising higher in the sky ever since the 26th of December. It reaches a declination of 19 degrees on January 25, putting it at its mid-November noontime height and marking more than a fifth of the way to spring equinox. We are a month into the new solar year, and the day will soon be 40 minutes longer than it was four weeks ago, surpassing 10 hours for the first time since November 13.
While today’s weather may or may not reflect these changes, cumulative records reveal a climatic shift in which all of the events of January’s final week unbalance the historical course of winter, weighting it toward spring in spite of deceptive winds and weather.
Birds are often more attuned to the phases of cyclical natural history than they are to the weather. Cardinals begin their mating calls at around 7:30 a.m. this week, no matter if temperatures are mild or harsh. Many years, doves are cooing at the same time. Blue jays give their bell calls, and juncos start flocking for migration.
By the 27th, the first dandelions can be flowering, snow crocus and henbit budding. Sometimes moss is growing on logs, and pussy willows are popping from their hulls. Sometimes tulip and grape hyacinth leaves are pushing out of the ground. Sometimes day lily foliage is up three inches, daffodil spears four to eight inches.
When the sun is strong enough for all of that to happen, then flies hatch to warm themselves on the south side of your house, and multicolored Asian ladybeetles crawl out from hibernation in search of early prey, their soft presence on the delicate scales of time tipping the balance to spring.