Cold Light of Imbolc

This light rushes toward equal time with a blinding yet calming strength.

Bridget as muse and guidance supports us with love and wisdom.

It's been a frozen then oddly warm then bitterly cold season.

A real Winter is good and the longer until late Spring weather the better.

 This holiday is always special and joyful .
Birds sing, the stream flows through ice and the sun rises higher.
We indulge in gratitude for this life and its renewal.
Gathering in the warmth of the kitchen,
we open champagne and toast each other, Our Whole Grove and our blessed Grove Goddess, Bridget

2 Bridgets in the center as the table fills with food

a yummy and mostly gluten free brunch for Bridget!

 

us 4 adults go outside to begin,
teenager stays inside working on a paper for school,

inspiration calls in many ways.

Sharing ritual tasks is powerful.

Planning ahead spontaneous honoring as a dance of us with spirit.

Our dear long-time grove mate invokes the directions,

 I sit by the center and listen.

Our Whole (proto)Grove.

A good and easy fire burning in the snow.

 Right at the end of the meditation, they appear, all in black and smiling broadly.

"I felt like I was laying flat on the earth."

Young adults grown so much since back then,

she has a small heart drawn under her eye.

  Heartfelt sacrifice for our dear dear Bridget.

burning away Yuletide greens

 

 bacon and salami and smoked trout,
rose petals and tea and spirits and sweet grass and garlic,
last year's calendar and more

 it felt lighthearted and we welcomed an optimism

our Omens:

from the Ancestors: Fehu or fee or Cattle- our mobile wealth and property, whether debt or cost or inheritance.
I reach in my pocket and there is an old worn Bridget's cloth from Imbolc years ago .

from the Spirits of Nature & Place: Ingwaz- the seed growing, expanding, connecting.
Ing- like a verb, like doing or being, like Yngvi, like "Harmony & Unity"

from the Gods & Goddesses: Berkanu or birth, birch, beginnings.

Blessed Bridget, with your midwifery and healing skills, with your keening cry for our dead,
with your kindness and vision and inspiration and craft, lead us forward. 

for the Season: Algiz- posture of attention and caution and alertness and listening and being on guard. Stay alert, the world needs more lerts.

He took a homework break and came down for the waters, 

shuffling on the snow with old friends,
doing the magick work
of passing thru Bridget's girdle thrice.

Bringing Bridget to our Hearth

More food. So much food. Enough food.

 transdimensional resting 

the season of Spring

Things progress more slowly on this mountain and the subtlety of  the season has unfurled daily.

Now we are ready for Beltaine.

There had been early heat that brought the valley to bloom just to freeze in a late snow.

and then we started all over again

rebalanced
into Spring. 

But before all this strong sunshine and dry earth

it was grey.
Marvelously grey, like our spirits,
uncertain and disturbed.

We had gotten it together to go see family, almost mid-way across the country,

and were to leave just after our Vernal Equinox ritual.
It was a tight schedule and a lot of effort but it was the time.
The challenges of travel, family and health colored the holiday for everyone
and fortuitously we ended up just us 3 for ritual.

A family ritual of balance. 

 I remember the lush green moss in the woods as we processed to the Nemeton.
Now the moss is dry with strong sun only slightly filtered
by just budding trees
and little water.

There were few flowers but even without snow, we thrilled at the awakening of the earth.

Bryan and I did a lot of the ritual sacrifice together, maybe not hand-in-hand but 

heart to heart

or side by side.

Our teenage son, silent in the West, but wholly present,
taking photos until the camera battery died.

Strawberries to our directions, a spot of color on the silence of the landscape,

breathing in and out to the water flowing,
the last of his Bailey's to the Earth Mother.

we burned our sweet grass and grain sheaves and poured seeds down the well.

our contained fire was small but alive.

 

 Just giving thanks from deep in the recessed corners of our pockets from the lost winter and for the season to come.

A large smudge for final sacrifice,
throwing the rune sticks in the North,

Our Omens
from the Honored Dead: Ansuz or the Voice-LISTEN you are being spoken to.
from the Spirits of Nature and Place: Wunjo or JOY-camaraderie, fellowship, getting along.
from the Gods and Goddesses: Nathuz or NEED-what you need.
for the Season: Perthro or LUCK- the chance cup.

and one extra just to make sure: Algiz or Protection-, the Elksedge, BE ALERT,
the world needs more lerts.

  balance and flow