Imbolc                                                                          Settling Moon II

Our first full day on Shadow Mountain was the Winter Solstice on December 21st. Now the earth has moved further along its orbit, the Great Wheel come round to Imbolc. Longtime readers of Ancientrails will know that Imbolc=in the belly, a phrase focused on the quickening of ewes around this time and the reintroduction of milk to the Celtic diet. The fallow season, begun on Samhain, October 31st, continues for another six weeks, but the pregnancy of the sheep is a clear and visible sign of the coming spring.

Imbolc also celebrates the triple-goddess Bridgit, who rules the hearth, the smithy and poetry. It is, therefore, a fire festival-the domestic fire, the craftsperson’s fire and the fire of creative inspiration. At Kildare 19 nuns kept a perpetual flame going in honor of St. Brigid, the Roman Catholic appropriation of the Celtic goddess. The assumption is that the 19 nuns continued a practice already in existence, women of the Auld Faith maintaining a perpetual flame for the goddess.

Though in Ireland Imbolc would come as temperatures were in the 40’s and rising (fahrenheit), here in the continental mid-latitudes it often comes in the coldest part of winter. We had about 6 inches of new powder here in Conifer last night and the temperature was 9 degrees, for example.

The message of Imbolc has two basic levels. The pregnant ewe represents earth’s fertility, the natural world’s ongoing creative force. Imbolc sends a declaration that the natural world will not be denied, not by cold nor by a time of barrenness.

In the same way Bridgit’s domains: hearth, smithy and poetry underwrite the human aspect of this natural creative impulse. In our homes we have and raise children, feeding them from the fire of our hearths and hearts. In our work we use the fire of our crafts to adapt to and be part of the natural order. (Yes, we can also use the fire of our crafts to burn fossil fuels, clear cut forests and poison the oceans. But this is not the way we celebrate on Imbolc.) Finally, we can use the fire in our souls to bring poetry, song, painting, literature into the world, manifestations of the human that delight us all.

Imbolc then is a time for considering garden and agricultural plans, planning how you might co-operate with the earth’s creativity. It is, too, a time for considering the new at home, at work and in your own poetry, your own music, your own art. This Imbolc is a time for finding those small seeds that will grow, over the coming growing season, into something substantial.