W-wa Jeziorki: Lent 2026: day 11

Saturday, 28 February 2026

Lent 2026: day 11 – revel in joy!

Despite Easter being a moveable feast (it can fall anywhere between 22 March and 25 April) Lent usually starts in the cold of winter and ends in glorious spring. This year's Lent began amid an unusually long, cold and snowy winter; last Saturday still saw flurries of fresh snow; over the past week ,the temperature returned into positive figures... and today is glorious. One week from snow on the ground to being able to stroll outside without the need for a coat or even jacket.

This has profound implications for mood. The sun, which could and did shine brightly despite the intense recent frosts, now brings warmth as well as light. Much as I love days when the sun reflects off virgin snow cover, the feeling of warmth on the face for the first time since mid-autumn is wonderful.

This morning, for the first time in two months, I started the car and drove to down to Warka to do some big shopping. (After shopping locally with a rucksack for all that time, the ability to buy bulky or heavy items without worrying about how much I could physically carry home, was welcome.)

My early-morning drive to Warka, through the orchards of south Mazovia, was full of enchantment and joy. Qualia flashbacks came one after the other, some from this life. and one or two feeling like those familiar past-life experience. This is a regular phenomenon – the frequency of exomnesia events peak with the changing of the seasons.

In the garden, there are still patches of snow in shady parts, but I can see butterflies and bees for the first time this year, and hear birdsong, great tits and woodpeckers. The digital thermometer says it's 15.8°C outside in the early afternoon. Meteorological spring starts tomorrow; I feel it in the air.

Joy. I feel joy.

Joy, as distinct from pleasure or fun. Joys are profound and spiritual; the others superficial and physical.

Should we seek a life filled with material goodies, or live for moments of joy?

For me, it's clearly the latter. Joy outweighs here-today-gone-tomorrow fragments of fun. Memories of joyous qualia will resurface again and again in your consciousness throughout your life. Childhood joys come back, rich and familiar. But what pleasures I can I still recall?

The repeatability of moments of joy has been on my mind for several years; my way to this is through enhanced sensitivity to joy(s) whatever the source, appreciation – and gratitude.

I know what I need to do now – the sun sets a little before quarter past five this evening; a second walk to catch it is in order. The magic hour, the twilit afterglow.