How I Spent My Imbolc

Note: I actually wrote this post very late Friday night, hoping to get it posted before I was just too tired to do so. Unfortunately, that didn’t happen, but I’m still posting it. It’s important to know that not every sabbat has to be done with a formal ritual – celebrate how you choose and in a manner that feels right to you. You have permission to not only do ritual how you choose, but to also be creative in not doing ritual. That said, I hope you all had a very blessed Imbolc.

How I’m Spent My Imbolc

Here in a few hours I’ll get up and start a pot of chili in the cast iron dutch oven that my mother gave me for Christmas. Chili’s best when it gets to simmer for a few hours. It’s also one of the best ways to celebrate this cold polar vortex that’s been keeping our area on ice for a past few days. A pot of chili seems like a way to appreciate that cold and what such weather meant to those in the past, heading into perhaps the coldest month of the year with their winter stores having dwindled over the past two or three months.

In the afternoon, to help enjoy that chili, we’ll have some family over, gather around the big table in our game room, and enjoy some board and card games. A few new ones were added to the closet over the holidays that we’re looking forward to trying out. Heck, there are even a few from the year before that still need played for the first time. It will be a good way to pass a cold, wet, snowy day – in the company of friends and family.

Toss in the fun and aggravation of me trying to convince my sister that it really is the start of Spring, at least according to the ancient Gaelic folk, along with my daughter, Rowan, and I perhaps arguing over where to put the herb garden at our new house, and it should be a near perfect way to celebrate the passage of Winter and the beginning of Spring.

Later on, I may write a short list of things I wish to accomplish, from a pagan and magical perspective, in the coming year. Perhaps – okay, probably, some candles will be lit and enjoyed. And that will be my Imbolc. This holiday and I have a troubled relationship, although I think I may finally have come to terms with it. That will be written about in later blog posts. The intent of this one was to give you an idea of perhaps a different way of celebrating a sabbat without casting a circle and having a more formal ritual. We can’t always manage to do ritual, for a whole wheelbarrow variety of reasons. And sometimes a formal ritual just doesn’t seem the way to go. That’s how this Imbolc is for me – I want to spend it with my immediate family enjoying each other’s company…and add in a few extra people just for the fun of it. The whole thing has been rather impromptu and spontaneous, which makes me think of Spring even more.

So, whatever you’re doing this weekend, make it mindful. And do it with a grateful heart. There are probably some more harsh weather days ahead of us, but the sun and warmth are coming.