Returning to Imbolc

Gorgeous pic by Luisclas at pixel.com

I told my family that I was dedicating more time to Imbolc and St. Bridget's day this year, after many years of working hard to keep kids in college and build a new business and raise two new puppies...  all good things.  Yet Bridget puja has been sitting in the back of my life, and I am re-invoking my Bridget contract as I start this new year turn.

When my kids were little we celebrated St. Bridget traditionally - for the folk of Northern Europe and America, winter meant the loss of milk from cows, sheep or goats, the loss of butter making and fresh cream; chickens would quit laying eggs and dishes requiring dairy and eggs had to put up before the solstice, to store for the long months ahead.  During my years in Wales, I can attest that February 1 is lambing, despite cold and snow, and I was blessed to head out to pasture and watch my Welsh cousins search for ewes lambing in the snow (oh it was cold!).

Paul Selling at pixels.com

Yet lambing meant milk and a return to things like cakes and sauces that we now take for granted.  So to celebrate, my kids and I gave up milk and eggs during the weeks of January, to celebrate the return of mothering and milk on St. Bridget's day.  (How long my kids could survive without dairy depended greatly on their age and interest!)

Taking away dairy during the cold month of January is a hard thing to do, even in modern times (and my vegan friends can delete their vegan butter and milk for the same idea...). We live in a culture here in the US that is so removed from farm life and cycles of nature.  I am in a rural state, 87% forested, and most of the families I see have no garden, no chickens, no livestock.  The coal industry and now the gas industry have ripped families from the land where they have lived for generations.  Milk here is mostly imported from China, sold at Walmart.  The sense of our land as a magic place of forests, birthplace of rivers, home to elk and cougars and hellbender salamanders, is lost to most families.

Most families I see also live removed from the cycles of light and dark.  Driving home through forests, I can see the light returning as the year moves into February.  It is still light at 5:30, when at winter solstice the sun went down long before then.  In the morning, the dogs are crawling out of bed earlier and earlier - in this crazy winter of melting arctic and cold then hot weather - cardinals were calling on the holly outside all week long.  I heard wrens the other morning.  I sip tea alone in the morning while my college neighborhood sleeps unaware of returning signs of spring.

There are so many ways to celebrate Imbolc, St. Bridget's day, Candlemas.  The festival of milk, of light, of Bridget, Celtic goddess of smiths, poetry and foster care, the return of spring, all come at the beginning of February.  The list of ways to celebrate are endless:  drink milk, bake cakes, light candles, make candles, clean your hearth, clean your kitchen, make St. Bridget's crosses, rise and pray to the sun, welcome Bridget to your home with Bridy dolls in her honor.  An excellent article for celebrating Imbolc is at Gather Victoria.  Or invent your own method to honor Bridget:  I continue in my ongoing care of so many children and teens, honoring the foster mother guise of Bridget, and I celebrate her feast day working to bring justice to children.  Here in the US, work to end the separation of immigrant children from their parents, of stopping trafficking of children, or help a child in need would all be ways to honor Bride.

For my father, February is the month of seed planting.  In Tennessee, he will be setting out broccoli and kale by the end of the month.  The seed catalogs coming to my door announce that our connection to this planet - to growing things, to pollinators, to clean air and water - all still matter.  Bridget's Fire is a happily eclectic bog about women, religion, faith, action, spirituality, reclaiming women's religious traditions, finding spiritual paths, creating and saving the world.  In that light, Bridget's day, a feast to a Celtic saint and deity, a woman Bishop in the historical church, a representative of welcoming, hospitality, blacksmithing, poetry, women's religious community, women's power, foster mothers, milk, and light, can all be celebrated in any way that connects women to power, the earth, growing things, building a better world.

pic by MarcusSpkiske at pexels.com

I am returning to a dedicated Imbolc this year.  Light is returning.  Ewes in the northern hemisphere are birthing lambs.  Soon, hawks will next.  Seeds will sprout.  Take St. Bridget's day, and commit to whatever you want to grow this year, and commit to nourishing yourself and your handiwork.