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Imbolc, Candlemas
"In
a world lit only by fire the snow, cold and ice of this season literally
holds you in its grip..."
-- Winter Cymres
To understand the significance of Imbolc, it's essential to imagine a different time and place. Can you imagine the cold snows of January? Can you imagine how long the nights must seem months and months after the last harvest, when there's no more food to replenish the stores you and your family have been eating from? Perhaps you live with your tribe in a cave...and perhaps you live in a clan holding or farmstead. There has been nothing but overcast skies and snows for days and weeks, and all you can do is pray for spring, pray for that first harvest when there will be more food available for you and your family.
"Imbolc
or Oimelc means ‘first milk’ or ‘new milk’. It
was a festival centered on an agricultural event, the birth of the spring
lambs and the first milk of the ewes. Along with the new milk: butter,
whey and cheese are once more available, foods that build up the old and
the young and the weak. Winter loosens her freezing grip. Hope is born."
--Tira Brandon-Evans
It's hard to imagine a time when the birth of lambs was a sign from the gods that spring would come again, that you and your tribe would survive. It's hard to imagine that time when we need not wait for harvests to eat, where a feast is as far away as the nearest supermarket.
But can you imagine that time? Imagine what that might mean, to feel the land beginning to stir, the light beginning to return? What might that mean for you?
"The
celebration of Imbolc expressed two themes: the reawakening of fertility
in the Land, and the inception of a new cycle of agricultural activity
in the life of the Tribe, with the figure of Brigantia—the creative
force in both Tribe and Land—uniting the two as one."
--Alexei Kondratiev, The Apple Branch
Brigantia, Brighid, Brigit...this was the goddess who represented that vital life force in the land, in the tribe, and within people's hearts. Imbolc is a festival not just of the returning fertility of the land, but also of our own creative energies.
Can you step, for a moment, into that timeless place, where your own rhythms matched the rhythms of the land? Where your sap rises from the roots beneath the earth just as the sap rises in the trees outside of the clan house?
Whether you believe in the gods and myths or not, can you believe for a moment in a time when your life force rose as light returned to the land?
Learn more about
Brigid>>
Learn about the Astrological sign and season
of Aquarius>>
Links/Resources:
http://www.druidry.org/obod/deities/brigid.html
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