Imbolc

Linda Reith ( February 3, 2006)

Imbolc: In the belly. What a wonderful term, especially when it's snowy and dark, when the world is a little frightening. For the Celtic pagans Imbolc was a promise. They were struggling with illness and hunger, with cold and darkness hard to imagine in this world of electricity and natural gas. In fact, that hardship is part of why they are our teachers. They lived closer to the natural world and that helped them find the awe that lifts spirits and inspires life. We are too often jaded, cut off from the spectacular miracle of life on this planet by our comforts and our ideas. We badly need reconnection. We breathe differently; hold our bodies with a different energy, think more clearly and powerfully, when we are grounded in our experience of nature. Our choices improve when they are influenced by affirmation of the cycle of life.

With the Celts as our guide, let us explore midwinter. Imbolc is one of the eight hinges of the year, one of the major fire festivals luring back the sun, this one at a cross quarter. The quarters are at the most dramatic times of the year, when the sun is either completely in balance with night (the equinoxes) or completely out of balance (the solstices). Imbolc is halfway in between. It is a fire festival more concerned with light than heat, as the February sun shines more generously than the shorter days after winter solstice. It is Candlemas, bringer of light. The light turns our thoughts to Spring and reprieve from the hardships of winter. At Imbolc the maiden goddess breaks free from the death crone and invites renewal. The maiden goddess draws our attention to the birds who are already mating (owls), to the baby lambs and the beginning of lactation in the ewes, to fertility. Bridget, the goddess most associated with Imbolc, was Christianized, "the old heathen goddess of fertility disguised in a threadbare Christian cloak" according to Fraser in the Golden Bough.

What in you feels fertile? What seed, buried in the clay of your being, could become a full grown plant, given warmth and water? The Celts knew we are directly and immediately reflected in nature. It's not just metaphor; it's us. We are renewed each year. If we bring consciousness to our process, we can be more of our potential. The pagan sabbats celebrate the moon, acknowledging waxing and waning. The more linear images current in society fail to honour our rhythms, suggesting failure when we begin to slack off, inspiring fear when we are not able to go full force fulltime. As a therapist, I know my counseling space will throb with introspective searchers from November to March. Come Spring, I'm more likely to meet with people surprised by crisis in their lives. If we help ourselves be more aware of our inbuilt flow, we'll be more compassionate, more successful. So now is the time to look for the first inklings of next steps for you, for seeds.

On your chair, when you arrived, you found a kernel of corn and a scrap of white cloth. Turn your attention to the kernel now. Feel its hardness, how closed it is. Then imagine it in earth, locked in frost with the first faint warmth of the February sun barely felt. The first hint of possibility that it might be about to transform. Let the kernel hold the promise of some reality you could make real. If only you let yourself. If only you tried. If only you opened to support. Now follow your breath in and out. Let yourself be aware that your breath comes whether you bid it or not. You are part of something and you don't have to know how it works. You are part of something and it may seem full of contradiction and dysfunction, but you are asked to trust. You are asked to stop thinking and let yourself play. Let your creative juices flow, because they alone can unlock the seed. Bridget is the goddess of creativity, of poetry and dance, of all the muses. Listen to this pagan poem inspired by Psalm 98 in the Christian bible and then in the quiet to follow, notice what surfaces in you. Pause?.

Now find a word, a phrase that captures just some glimpse of your seed and say it out loud. Pause? You have been heard. Make it a prayer asking for support and clearly stating your intention and it will grow. Maybe it's a prayer already.

Turn now to the scrap of white cloth. It is a fragment of Breed's veil. Traditionally Celts set the scrap of white cloth outside their home on Imbolc eve hoping it would be wet with dew in the morning. For the dew would be Breed's blessing and it would bring healing. For healing was another of Bridget's powers and people went to the many many wells associated with her name to seek healing for themselves. Again we consider the hardship of winter and the strain on everyone's system, more obvious when people heated their homes with peat, but still true in our light deprived selves. Me, I'm asking Bridget to take me to Cuba, but I'm a very modern pagan. All of us can allow ourselves to know that winter is stressful and care and compassion for ourselves is a way of being humble, of being a child of the goddess. The healing is like a form of purification and that is another theme deeply connected to this festival. February is the month of fresh starts and spring cleaning. In some traditions the greenery of Yule was kept till Imbolc and then cleared away to make room for a new beginning. What would you like to have healed? What do you need to clear away to make room for the new intention symbolized by the seed?

Always the turning of the wheel of the year, was an opportunity for people to be more focused on their lives, to be more intentional, to know they were part of something greater. Earth based spirituality draws us back to awareness of the powerful influences we experience as creatures of nature. It also touches us with the awe that opens us to the power to do and be all that we can be. It reassures us that we are not alone and that we can be well if we stay in touch with our best nature. And then there's always luck. Why groundhog day? Well people were yearning for Spring, so the superstition of predicting a longer winter if the groundhog saw his shadow on February 2nd, reigned in the grabbing onto Spring before it could really arrive.