Today is Imbolc, a festival of my ancestors marking the beginning of Spring, half way between the winter solstice & the spring equinox.
And let me tell you, like my people on that little island for so long, so long, at this moment I’m ready for Spring. This has been a hard winter.
I’m also among that crowd that are pretty sure dealing with Imbolc and the lady at the heart of its celebration is the fairly obvious origin for what has become the Feast of St Brigid, together with that other saint, Patrick, a patron of the Emerald Island.
Now, I believe it was at least likely there was a Christian of the name, a nun and abbess. But it seems hard to avoid the mixing of that good lady with that other good lady of the same name who proceeded her. That Bridget one of those triple goddesses so loved by the ancients in that area.
Me, I like that sort of thing. The old and the new, a great blending, and with that a pointing to the great arc…
As Augusta Gregory writes the goddess Brigid was “a woman of poetry, and poets worshipped her, for her sway was very great and very noble. And she was a woman of healing along with that, and a woman of smith’s work, and it was she first made the whistle for calling one to another through the night. And the one side of her face was ugly, but the other side was very comely. And the meaning of her name was Breo-saighit, a fiery arrow.”
May the firey arrow be with you at this moment of transition and hope.
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