The Daily: 11 February 2026

Last week we celebrated the Purification of the Virgin, otherwise known as Candlemas or Imbolg. Next week Mardi Gras ushers in the Lenten fast, a time of reconciliation and cleansing. This weekend we celebrate the ancient Roman fertility festival of Lupercalia which has been recast and shifted slightly to Valentine’s Day. This too is a time of cleansing and purification. We are in the last days of the spring cleaning that precedes the Spring Festival in Asia, known in the West as Chinese New Year. And we are in the middle of February, which name is derived from februa, a Sabine word meaning “purifications” or “expiatory rites”, a month presided over by Juno Februata, the queen of the gods in her role as cleanser or purifier, she who removes the stains on the world and makes all holy and renewed.

All this vigorous cleaning is part of a very old human tradition — removing the old year, especially in the fields and orchards, in preparation for the coming growing season, for the Spring. Though, most human cultures didn’t observe a season of spring as we know it. They were preparing for Summer, the season of growth.

Those cultures that began to keep calendars largely began the annual count with the spring renewal. However, some seasons of renewal arrived much later in the year with what we now call the summer rains, and some urbanized or pastoral cultures in equatorial regions, where horticulture is less immediately relevant, did not tie their calendar to seasons. However, even in these cultures, the time preceding the new year is a time of purification. The weeks leading to Rosh Hashanah in September, the Jewish New Year, are a time of furious cleaning; and the New Year festival itself is capped by Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, the day to make yourself right with the world. Similarly, there are records of purification in Mayan calendars preceding their new year, which, for them, commemorated the formation of this current world cycle, on or about 11 August 3114 BCE, the day their world was renewed.

As we can see, there are holidays and festivals welcoming in the season of renewal all across the globe. And all of them are associated with cleaning.

Over time, the beginning of the growing season, in its guise as the beginning of the calendar year, took on bureaucratic as well as religious overtones. This led to much ritualized reconciliation. Taxes and bills were posted due in Egypt and Sumer ahead of their respective new years, Sumer around the vernal equinox and Egypt with the heliacal rising of Sirius which preceded the Nile floods and therefore the agricultural year. In Rome, taxes were assessed to be paid with the March new year, and the mighty Babylonians collected state taxes and closed mercantile books on New Year’s Eve, the night before the vernal equinox. As these were all “hard copy” cultures (very hard in the case of clay tablets), there was a good deal of organization and ordering of “the books” which might consist of a ten foot tall stack of cuneiform tablets for each account. Clerks and accountants were likely involved in cleaning much more so than the actual math of year-end reconciliation. This is still largely true for US citizens who pay taxes in the spring but who must spend a month or two before that, painstakingly gathering receipts and forms, ordering their economic lives.

The most prominent cleansing ahead of the spring renewal is actual cleaning. Back in the days before machine washing, when people had far fewer clothes, maybe just one suit of daily clothes and a fancy outfit for Easter and weddings and funerals, laundry was not washed for most of the winter. (In some climates, people were sewn into their shifts and could not take them off frequently…) Spring cleaning was the only time some things, including clothing, were washed all year. Even those items that received more than annual attention were often unwashed throughout the winter months for the simple reason that it was too cold. Rivers, where most washing took place, were frozen, and being undressed for several hours could prove fatal. (This is why aprons were an absolute necessity…)

In Rome, clothing, rugs, tapestries, curtains, leathers, and linens were all scooped up in February and beaten, scrubbed, and cleansed of dirt, soot, food remains, and body odors. Holes were patched and darned. Faded colors and stains were refreshed with new dyes, bleaching, and fulling with human urine (which was collected in public jars). Irreparable or incurably worn items were refashioned and repurposed. (Rome was a culture of extensive making-do. Textiles were rarely discarded but passed through a long trail of downcycling, often lasting generations.) And while all the textiles were being cleaned by the slaves, the patricians spent extra time in the baths so that they could be thoroughly clean when they donned their fresh clothing.

This was also a time for refreshing the home. Plaster was patched and painted. Wood was sanded and oiled. Stone was abraded with grit and then scrubbed with lye and vinegar until it glowed. The strewing herbs, laid down in autumn to protect dirt floors and scent the home, were gathered up, burned, and replaced with fresh rushes. This was of such importance in Irish traditions that the strewing rushes became integral to the celebration of St Brigid. The rushes were not only laid on floors, but they were woven into crosses and other protective charms that kept home and byre free from infection. (This probably didn’t do much… but the scent of rushes does keep the house smelling decent, despite hearth smoke and human stench… So it feels like infectious airs are banished…)

After all the physical cleaning, there follows the metaphysical… Spring cleaning always includes dispelling spirits. Most traditions involved scenting the spaces. Doors were thrown open to let in fresh air, sometimes for the first time in weeks. Incense or smoldering juniper branches might be carried through rooms to chase away bad airs of all kinds. Salt, sometimes mixed with dried herbs like lavender and thyme, might be sprinkled on windowsills and thresholds to keep the dirt demons outside. (Oddly, this probably did work in the material world as well as the spiritual… salt, lavender and thyme are all powerful antimicrobial agents.) 

And one of the oldest and most widespread traditions of purification and blessing is asperging. You see this in Catholic processionals, in the Ashura customs of Moroccan Muslims, in Hindu puja and house blessings, and in many indigenous traditions throughout Eurasia. Perhaps influenced by European colonists, asperging often accompanies the smudging ceremonies of many Native American cultures. Asperging tools are commonly found in Egyptian tombs and, occasionally, in Bronze Age burials. And modern Neopagans of many stripes have enthusiastically embraced the ritual as a way to cleanse “energies”.

So what is asperging? Basically, it is sprinkling water, usually water of some special provenance, by dipping small flails or wands into a bowl and flicking the droplets in all directions. The tools can be as elaborate as thin jeweled chains attached to a polished wood handle or fancy silver scepters topped with perforated balls. Or the sprinkling tool might be nothing but a bit of brushy herb or evergreen. It is the water that carries the meaning and potential for purification.

You may be wondering why I decided to talk about this today. Well, first of all, asperging was the principal ritual act in the lustratio, the ritual purification ceremony performed at Lupercalia, as well as in many other sacred observances in Rome. The goat boys ran through the streets spraying everyone with water droplets from their goat-skin thongs. Priests and flamens asperged every worshipper as they entered the temple. The patriarch would asperge both hearth and household as the final act in the month of purification, signaling an intention to interact with the ancestors and a readiness to face the new year. Water from the aspergillum conferred everything from fortunate business transactions to a long healthy life. So it is relevant to this time in the ritual calendar.

But look at what this act symbolizes…

Water droplets falling from the sky granting good fortune, protection, and blessings.

What is the essential feature of the annual renewal wherever it is found? What purifies and cleanses and drives away foul airs? What is spring? Rain. All this elaborate ceremony is pointing back to the weather, to the spring rains which will soon draw new growth from the dark earth. I find this a delightful metaphor! 

I don’t much go in for ritual cleansing of energies, but I do asperge the garden. This is nothing but a bit sympathetic magic, a rain dance asking the universe to bring on spring. But I love performing this little ceremony as winter loses its grip on the land. I don’t often do this on Lupercalia… I can’t find the garden under all the snow… But I will usually go out there with an arborvitae branch and a bowl of moon-water some time before the equinox, perambulating and spraying water droplets in all directions, welcoming the allium and asparagus shoots, whispering encouragement to the fruit trees.

Just a little bit longer, I say to them… and myself…

And then… 

The great miracle of renewal!

Make yourselves ready!

The Wednesday Word

for 11 February 2026

asperge

What does asperge mean to you? Think about it. If you’d like, send me a quick poem or story… or just a few thoughts. If you really have something to say, maybe enter my Wednesday Word contest on AllPoetry.

she gazed upon the rising day
expanse of argent under grey
and summer’s sun so far astray
          so far from winter’s morning
 
she mingled hope with salten tears
graced with courage, dispelled fears
and breathed warm wisdom of her years
          into the gathering morning
 
she held the seeds in gnarled hands
numberless as ocean sands
and cast them down on barren lands
          a-sailing through the morning
 
and soft she called to leaf and earth
her spell impelling spring’s rebirth
and sent the rains to banish dearth
          glad blessings on the morning
 
and slumbering life by ice enspelled
awoke in rushing stream upwelled
and winter’s grasp no longer held
         as spring spread o’er the morning

©Elizabeth Anker 2026