This morning, on the Eve of Imbolc, I sat at my little altar admiring the way the branches of pussy willow I had placed there a couple of weeks ago, had begun to sprout leaves. A common place miracle, and a wonder to watch that unfolding and linger before its nascent greenery on this day.
Through my mother, I have a mix of English, Irish and Welsh. My father’s ancestry is Scots-Irish all the way (with a little Norse, most likely from Viking incursions), and through those relatives I am connected to a long line of shepherds, who eventually settled here on this land that is known by some who are native to this place as “Turtle Island.” My ancestors came to the rich foothills of the Appalachians in the 1700s because they yearned for land that they could never have in their own homeland1. My grandfather broke the chain of shepherding tradition in the 1930’s by going to college and becoming an architect. But then, one of his children, my dear Aunt Nancy picked up the baton, and I am sure that the spirit hearts of our ancestors were singing. My sweet cousin, her daughter, is carrying on.
When I was growing up, Nancy tended a large flock of sheep that she raised for their wool. I remember her stories of being up all night tending to her laboring ewes in the frigid barn as they gave birth. Lambing would begin sometimes as early as late January, but more often the lambs came throughout February.
In Ireland and Scotland, the time of birthing lambs is deeply connected with Brigid, an ancient goddess2, who was eventually translated into a Saint after Christian conversion. Either way you view her, she is a sacred persona whose patronage oversees pregnancy, birth, lambs, calves, babies, milk and lactation, hearth, fire, metal crafts and poetry. She is celebrated in a traditional cross-quarter celebration called Imbolc—old Irish for “in the belly”—a holiday that is observed from the evening of February 1st through the evening of the 2nd. This is the halfway point between Winter Solstice and the Spring Equinox and it signifies the official beginning of spring in Ireland—here in Michigan we have small signs of early quickening, but I wouldn’t call it spring yet. However, if we pay attention, we can discern the incipient whispers all around that spring is coming.
The beautiful poetry of a sacred time called “in the belly” calls to me each year. I feel its meaning in the vibrant promise for the eventual springing forth of green; in fire’s warmth and light; in inspiration and the creative response; in the wonder of simply being alive and watching a new year sprout into being; and in the slowly swelling pregnant belly of earth in late winter/early spring, a living body beginning to fill with milk for thriving and growth.
Yesterday evening, I carried this expectancy with me when I went for a walk just before dusk. The sky had been cloudy for several days, first issuing snow, then rain and fog, and a little more rain and then just gray. The weather banished any view of the sun setting. The sky just darkened from bright gray to dark gray as I made my way on the path through the park.
There weren’t many people. I imagine the fair-weather walkers were all in their homes getting ready for their suppers. The park was very quiet and that enables more opportunities for encounters with those living their lives in that place. I was walking quietly and as I rounded a bend in the path I saw the swift streak of a Red-tailed Hawk diving from the sky, heard it hit the ground with a thud and then raise its head with a fresh vole hanging out of its beak. The hawk looked warily around and then deftly dropped the vole and caught it in its talon before it flew away with its warm dinner dangling over the world below. I imagined for a moment that small, furry self, foraging for a few dinner bits in the tall, snow-weighted grasses of the wetland, and felt a little sorrow for its tiny little light darkening forever in those seconds as I watched. At the same time, I admired the stealthy hawk and was glad it would eat. As it landed in a nearby tree to eat its meal, its red tailfeathers seemed brilliant against the grays, whites and dark browns around me.
As I looked upward, I saw the slender branch of a maple against the gray of the sky. The tight buds that had formed on it throughout the summer last year, were just beginning to swell. All the branches on the tree were upturned as if in supplication. I thought of the sap within its body, thinning soon in the warmth of sunny early spring days, and the sweet water that would run like rivers through its woody interior vessels. Maple water is full of essential minerals and is very healthy and hydrating for us. Perhaps it wouldn’t be a stretch to connect this to Brigid’s bond with nursing and lactation. The watery sap is also the elixir that can become Maple syrup with fire and human labor and merry making.3
I walked on and stepped onto a boardwalk that courses into the heart of a wetland. Halfway through, the brief honk of one goose overhead invited me to stop and look up again to see a perfect V flying toward the northwest. In the windless silence, I could hear every whooshing wingbeat, perfectly synchronized.
I continued on and back to the lot where I had parked my car. It was getting dark and time to go home.
Several years ago, at a winter gathering with friends near the shore of Lake Michigan, I was given a flame to “tend.” One friend brought a candle with her that had been kindled by the candle of another person she knows. That candle had been kindled by the perpetual flame of St. Brigid in Kildare, Ireland.4 My friend relit her own Brigid candle from our bonfire that night, and then came to each of us holding an unlit candle, igniting them as she passed. Each of us now had a kindled Brigid’s flame to hold. Once a wick has been kindled by a Brigid candle, it can be blown out and relit and still symbolically retain that fiery connection to its moment of kindling.
That way of receiving Brigid’s fire felt meaningful, but it isn’t necessary. In my way of thinking about the sovereignty and beauty of homemade ritual, a candle that is kindled by any hearth fire, including your stove top, carries Brigid’s flame just as well—maybe even more, so because it is part of your hearth and home. I also feel deeply that any candle that is set aflame as an invocation on Imbolc can now be used to pass the flame to someone else. This is a simple and wonderful thing to share with others! It’s symbolic and beautiful to kindle someone else’s flame and then share its warmth and light.
Today, I have had a fire going all afternoon. I have sat here by the hearthside, writing this to you. I lit my candle from the fire in the woodstove and used it to light all the others that are near me now. As they burn low this evening, we’ll kindle new candles and keep the fires going. We’ll have a simple supper of soup and bread and greens.
Blessings and wishes to you for a warm and cozy Imbolc in glowing fire light. May it be full of the dreams of what may be born in you as the greening of the year unfolds. You might not have pregnant ewes that you’re tending, but keep an eye out for lambs. They are on their way . . . somewhere!
Note: Some portions of my writing in this piece were originally published in Merry Old Soul, Issue #9, January 2024. “Merry Old Soul is an anti-fascist zine of seasonal culture for all people. We stand against the weaponization of folklore. Folklore is the tool of the people, and we wield it with love.” If you are interested in knowing more or subscribing to this homemade publication, let me know.
Of course, the land that my ancestors eventually settled on was and is the ancestral home of native peoples—the Monongahela, Delaware, Seneca and others—who died from disease, or were murdered or driven west to clear the way for people like my ancestors to send roots down. My 5-greats grandparents arrived in Philadelphia in 1777 to fight the British in the Revolutionary War and in exchange were issued a deed for property by George Washington.
Brigid has likely been celebrated since neolithic times in Ireland, and she shows up throughout north, western Europe as an ancient tutelary goddess, a goddess of the land. Other names she is known by are Brigantia (England), Bride (Scotland), Bridget (Sweden), Brigit, Brighide, Bríg, etc . . .
I love the way maples have significantly more sap than they can ever use or need, and how human are one kind of creature that is connected to it, collecting its ample sweet water and festively boiling it down to make delicious maple syrup. I will actively attend to this and love maple syrup as long as it lasts in these years of changing patterns. It only works if the Maple trees are in a climate that freezes and thaws.
“Kildare” means “church of the oaks” an old connection to ancient druidic ways. In 1993, a group of Brigidine Sisters officially rekindled a perpetual flame for Brigid in Kildare for the first time since the original flame there was extinguished during the reformation.
Beautiful writing and I love the connections you make