Imbolc, harbinger of Spring, part 3

Today I stood on bare earth, crows cawed.
Woke to a mourning dove call.

It’s going to get cold again, but, as promised,
Spring will come
sometime.

Now another week of more cold and just enough snow 
only on our road to make late night driving scary.

One last winter storm maybe,
and still some slick roads ahead,
but the trees are coloring faintly with imperceptible buds and there will be no holding back.

Thank you Goddess Bridget for watching over us.
Thank you Bridget for your sage advice and care.
Thank you Bridget for your keening and your light and your ever expanding girdle, like our hearts and lungs, enough to include all our laughter, prayers and dreams.

Thank you Earth Mother for being so strong.
Thanks for supporting me and all life.
Thanks for giving of yourself always.

Our ritual was after days of snow and before the big snow. After sub-zero temps and before the polar vortex became a household phrase. After our buddy was sick and I was injured and while we were all on the mend.
After Pete had passed and before the memorial to his life.
Grateful for the daily gift of good health and life.

No wood to spare, nothing that would really burn, we started the fire with Clementine and egg cartons, recycling and reusing, and there was barely enough warmth to keep us not completely cold in the faint icy drizzle.
The warmth was in our minds and our eyes.

 

Some of the biggest flames before we begin,
or maybe there is no beginning just a present,
a constancy of cold or ice or light or fire.
I see she is here already.

Our well of ice, moving and solid, changing and rigid.
Water in many forms, all mysterious, all essential.  

our humble fire, our simple sacrifice,
honoring the directions fanning the flames,
centering ourselves here in the damp cold,
in our heart and with our breath and from our guts.

Oh Bridget, thank you for your ever present flame,
spark of life.

Lots of eggs, lots of dairy, lots of snow.

women give prayers.
the moms tend the families, speak what is felt by all.
crying for loss, asking for support, giving seeds, food, love.
Bridget watches.

   
   
 

   

then the final sacrifice.
aromatic herbs from our garden from the summer,
so long ago, so forgotten.
Sweet scents waft over and around us.

Omens from my rune set:From the Ancestors: Uruz the Primordial Ox, the strength and urge of life that is within all things
From the Spirits of Nature & Place: Sowelu the Sun, the sun’s order and regularity
From the Gods & Goddesses: Isa or Ice, the frozen and rigid inflexible often transparent, shiny and slippery
For the Season: Ehwaz the Horse, empowered partnership

Our ice cold waters, our chilly backs, our laughter through the magic work, Bridget’s expanding girdle thrice danced around the circle, each time different, helping each other through.

Closing quickly, grounding silently, gentle sleet pushing us in. 

 

Our candle at the Bridget altar by the stream faintly gurgling under the snow burned late into the night,
past the memorial, past the rain, direct to the source.