Tag Archives: Imbolc

February Sunlight

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Bright sun shining on snow with small dark tree on left side, shadows marking places where tracks were made.
Bright February sun shining on bright snow.

We are halfway to Spring! So many cultures celebrate this day, or this change of season. For just a few examples: Imbolc or Brigid’s Day for Celtic people, Apuknajit (the winter spirit) for Mi’kmaq people, Candlemas in Catholic liturgy, Groundhog Day in secular America. They hearken to the coming Spring, and offer courage for getting through the rest of the winter. Here at our home in Maine, I can feel the change in the quality and angle of the sunlight. My heart is lifted by its brightness.

We’ve recently had a triple set of snowstorms, so the ground is finally covered in snow after nothing much in December. It too adds to the brightness. I love how it also reveals the creatures who live here with us. I’ve seen deer tracks going through the orchard all the way back across the frozen pond and into the hedgerow. You can see their traces in the photo above. I was also delighted to find these distinct squirrel prints after a rain on top of the snow a week ago. Like little hands.

Squirrel prints on snow, on a gray day.
Squirrel prints

I’ve been continuing my winter project of sorting, organizing and winnowing old papers in the basement. I had started with my years in Boston 1986-1999, then moved backwards in time. I am now finished with the very earliest files-hurray! So then I moved forward from 1999. I’ve begun to sort through papers from my years on Cape Cod, 1999-2005. That has meant that I’ve also started to incorporate the winnowing of digital files on my laptop for the same years. Some of it is plodding work, comparing documents to put duplicates in the trash, renaming documents so they are easier to organize, stuff like that. But some of it includes moments of sweetness, like finding a letter from a young queer person whose life was helped along by a sermon I preached called “Believing in Fairies.” [A version of which found its way into my book, Finding Our Way Home, and was excerpted in the post The Mystery Seed.]

It does my heart good to think of those seeds of blessing planted in the hearts of people I met along the way. Sometimes we hear about it afterwards, and sometimes we may never know. When the interactions were not so blessed–since I had my share of conflict and trouble along the way–it does my heart good to shred the remnants of those interactions, and let go. Lighten the load.

Imbolc is a time for setting intentions, for shaping our hopes for the future. It is kind of like looking through seed catalogues imagining what we will plant when the next season turns. I’m not ready yet for seed catalogues and intentions. But it is good to remember that the sorting and winnowing of my past life will not go on forever. I don’t know what sort of seed I want to plant for the future. That is still a mystery to me. But I am good with a mystery seed.

I saw a funny story on Facebook about a child who thought that bird seed grew birds. They showed their parents the proof–they planted a big pile of bird seed outside, and the following day, there was a whole flock of birds gathered round the spot. Maybe that is what I will plant today–filling the bird feeder with seed so that they will have nourishment for the deep freeze we are expecting in a couple days. I understand that Mi’kmaq people put out food for Apuknajit so that the winter spirit will be remembered and be kind. Maybe that is part of feeding the birds too–to remember our fellow creatures during these cold winter times, so that all of us might make it through to the spring.

Small brown bird perched on a stick on green bird feeder, with snow on top of it.
Bird on feeder today.
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Finding Inner Wisdom

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Woodstove Fire

Wood stove Fire-Photo by Margy Dowzer

During our ritual celebration yesterday evening for Imbolc/Groundhog Day, we scryed with the magic of the fire in our wood stove.  Scrying is a form of seeking wisdom, by gazing into some sort of medium–such as a crystal ball, tea leaves, a bowl of water, a candle flame.  It gets a bad rap on Wikipedia as “unscientific.”  But as one person mentioned last night, while meditation may sometimes be difficult, there is something about quietly staring into a fire with each other that brings one to a state of stillness within.

When we find that stillness, we have access to our own deeper wisdom, and the wisdom of the deeper mystery. Some people see images in the fire. Others notice whatever thoughts or feelings emerge in the stillness of gazing.

Here is what I noticed on the way to the wisdom in me:  First of all, a sense of deep weariness.  Then, a desire to stop doing so much out there in the world, to pay attention to what is happening within.  Then, a feeling of how difficult it is to say no to invitations to activism on issues that are important.  There is so much hard stuff in our world right now, and so many good people are responding.  How do I know when I should be taking action, and when I should be in stillness?

Then, a fear that if I choose to say no, I will disappoint people, lose their love and acceptance. Then, a realization that that motivation, that fear, is not a source of wisdom, but rather a wound that needs healing.  I sat with the fear for a while, gazing still into the fire, opening my heart to the healing energies of the mystery.  We were celebrating Brigid after all, who is a Celtic goddess of healing. We had brought into the circle a small bottle of water from one of Brigid’s wells in Ireland, and I anointed my forehead and heart and hands with some of that water.

Deeper still, I realized that I am in the midst of a profound change.  I am shifting from one identity, one chapter of my life–as the minister of the Allen Avenue Unitarian Universalist Church, to another identity, another chapter–as yet unknown.  What I most desire is something like a cocoon in which to make that transformation, just as the caterpillar encloses itself for its transition to the butterfly.

This “enclosing myself” is not the same as doing nothing at all.  There are activities that directly relate to this transition–processes of ending, closing down, completing the work. I notice how hard it is to turn my attention away from the usual activities of my current/former self, to pay attention to the transition.  And in understanding this, I realize that I have to be courageous enough to say no to some good and important activities and activism. I have to say no, so that I can be courageous enough to say yes to the transformation.

Groundhog Day

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We’ve made it half-way to the Spring Equinox–Groundhog Day, Candlemas, Imbolc according to the Celts… Whatever we call it, I have always liked this festival. Even the birds seem to know that something is up.  On my walks the last couple days, they have been singing so that I notice it.  The height of the sun? The change in the light?  Even though it’s been cold, and today snow was covering everything, they sing.

Today, in my neighborhood, the groundhog would not have seen his shadow–so that means that spring will come early.  But in fact, groundhogs are still in hibernation here, and since technically, it will still be six weeks until spring no matter what, I don’t actually count on the groundhog to confirm the weather.  But this day still awakens the hope that winter won’t last forever.

I was happy to learn that the Groundhog Day tradition comes from Americans with German ancestry–since that is part of my own heritage.  Back in German-speaking lands, it was instead a badger, and originally a bear, whose emergence would predict the weather on Candlemas Day.  Candlemas was a Catholic feast, but was retained even after Protestant Reforms, likely because it was an even earlier pagan feast that had been Christianized. There are sayings in English, French, and Latin as well that correspond to the myth: “If Candlemas is fair and clear, there’ll be two winters in the year.” This attests to its antiquity as a European tradition.

Imbolc is the feast of Brigid, the goddess of smithcraft, poetry, and healing.  When Margy and I visited Ireland, we visited more than one Brigid’s well where the waters are known for their healing properties.  But I also think of this festival as a celebration of fire–fire is the key component of welding and smithcraft, and it is also a symbol of creativity–the inner fire that inspires poetry and art and music.  It is the fire which inspires social change, transformation, and healing.

Years ago, this came together for me in the poem by Cherrie Moraga, “The Welder,” in the book, This Bridge Called My Back: Writings by Radical Women of Color.  It concludes with these lines:

I am now
coming up for air.
Yes, I am
picking up the torch.

I am the welder.
I understand the capacity of heat
to change the shape of things.
I am suited to work
within the realm of sparks
out of control.

I am the welder.
I am taking the power
into my own hands.

Thank you Cherrie Moraga!  And thank you to the singing birds!  Thank you dear neighborhood groundhog for not eating my kale last summer!  And to all of you reading this, may your day be filled with creativity and healing.