The stark endless quiet whiteness of Winter erases all memory of Spring

Is it each winter that we declare the worst? Do we always say “but this winter was really brutal”?  It must be a trick of springtime that we are so beaten, so numbed by winter that the sight of the earth and green things coming back fills us with confusion and wonder. Like we had never seen the earth or felt the moss or heard birds sing.

Since our Imbolc it seems that the world has turned upside down. Changes, personal and planetary have erupted shifting our balance and forcing a re-focus. It has become even more imperative to make energetic progress in the good. Taking the high road, walking with compassion and in truth and with solidarity for each other. As the days imperceptibly lengthen, so too does our energy.

We have had snow and sleet and flooding rains. The earth has alternately been mud and frozen solid. But today we followed vole trails like ley lines and suddenly robins filled the yard. Bulbs are poking through the leaf mulch and all the bare branches carry a  faint cast of color.

I am looking forward to the equinox, to plant seeds and plan the garden, to let go and start fresh.

Come celebrate the balance of day and night with us. Sunday March 20th, gathering & rant at 4ish, ritual at 5ish, family style pot luck afterward. 

Open the Door, Let Bridget Come In

Dreaming many times of coffee, I woke up. There was a small dusting of snow and tiny flakes fell. Went to hang with the boy and cat, then suddenly “snowstorm!”

Raging large flakes pouring down and around. But by the time I got downstairs to make coffee, it had subsided to invisible dusting once again. Up like a tempest and sudden stops. Must be Bridget’s energy at work.

We looked for candles and set up lights on a Bridget idol in the center of the fire circle, on the old xmas trunk that is our tree there (now buried in the snow) and at the Bridget that lives always by the stream. The stream gurgles even where it lies under the snow and all around the birds talk and sing.

If its Imbolc you know we are either out of dry wood or out of wood altogether. Our fires struggle to temperature or even to light and though it is not that cold outside it is hard to get warm. The faintest of precipitation colored the air as we sat to eat, stumbling with the weather changes. Many cheeses and smoked salmon and fresh dill and three kinds of crackers and Irish soda bread and tea filled the table. We used Anna’s plate, left here last Imbolc, the last time we saw her alive. Somehow this holiday will always be connected with her spirit, her dynamism, and her strength

You have to keep open and aware directly to the urges that motivate you.

Where to make fire, where to do ritual, how to keep a fire going? Bryan shovels the deck and I make food for the boy, and for later, cooking our pumpkin- the only one that grew from our many vines last year. Rain, ice and snow everywhere- a faint fog in the woods. Talking about what has changed since last season. More daylight, more life, more sounds outside, more hours in a week above freezing temperatures- and yet the silent monotone of winter still dominates. By next holiday we will be talking gardens and sprouting.

Bryan worried about fire, and having created tinder preparation in the kitchen hearth, went outside to try to rekindle the candles and the few sticks getting wet there.

The boy suited up and was ready when things were not but we got together as family to help create sacred space and fire.

I had gathered offerings of sage and flowers and milk for Bridget. It was raining gently but steadily and all the burnables were getting wet. I remembered the stalks and sticks in Urth Arts and got those as hope. Bryan and boy were digging down into the ice and snow and unearthed our fire pit, exposing logs buried for a season.

Suddenly we are a team-getting, breaking and laying sticks and Bryan lights first one candle then then next and with Bridget as his torch he lights our fire. WE HAVE FIRE. We get more branches and vines and feed our fire, small but true. It is exciting and we get ready. I get one more armload of sticks, bigger ones still, and Bryan comes out with his headress of reeds made and danced last year this time.

We are here to honor the Gods.

We had a threshold, a passageway dug in the snow to crossover into sacred space. Above it was the silver bowl of water for lustration perched in a bank of waist high snow. The water was warm, though the boy thought it cold and was distinct in both temperature and texture of the rain now beating our faces.

Inside the carved out space not quite a circle, we held hands and arms laying heads on hearts and breathed. We felt the air around us and the ground beneath us and each other together. Breathing to the sound of your heart. Feeling our love for each other. Something very special about family only rituals.

The boys glasses fogged and we opened, returning to tend our fire. Beginning with our earth mother, sprinkling a spiral of pumpkin seeds, home grown from our earth to our earth in gratitude and prayer.

The directions with rice and the red cardinal in the south, and the sun rising slightly more east, and the west place of our neighbors and the north of this season and healing and the center where we are.

The smoke takes me away through the gates and I need to go inside to get the outsiders offering and Bryan takes it out and brings inside a big box which he wonders if it is an omen.

Offerings for insider Bridget and honoring our dear kindred with sage and last month’s flowers (“the ones that smelled so sweet”). Keeping the fire alive.

Dancing thrice through Bridget's girdle. Keeping the beat. Fire blazing at the mention of her name. Pouring Elizabeth’s mead in a circle around the fire. The rest of the dry harvested grasses flaming as final sacrifice. Full on rain filling our glasses before the waters.

Bryan pulled Ogham and Runes as omen

Ogham

from our Ancestors: Ngetal or Reed- it has to do with healing, lots of associations with bending and the life inside- related to Bridget and this holiday

from the Spirits of Nature and Place: Beith or Birch- new beginnings, birth – also related to Bridget

from the Gods & Goddesses: Huath or Hawthorne- chastity and purity, purification

for the season: Dair or Oak- the one who knows, the way, the door, also relates to Bridget

Runes

from our Ancestors: Nathuz or need, the friction fire or the drill fire- sometimes made with reeds

from the Spirits of Nature and Place: Ehwaz –the horse- the vehicle and facilitator of action, very similar to Birch

from the Gods & Goddesses: Elwaz – an elk sedge- a sharp and pointy be careful thing, it is about attention and being on guard-very similar to Hawthorne

for the season: Wunjo or joy- the joy of good company, merriment, simple joy

vortex of smoke carrying me away through the stinging tears that would not stop. I put ice on my eyes and still could not staunch the water pouring from them.

Drinking it all in we gather and hug and give thanks and process indoors, inviting Bridget in to light and alight above our kitchen hearth.

we feast and bring in our cloth frozen with the touch of Bridget and precipitation, our healing talisman for the year.

Candle burns on the hearth all night, vigil for spirit.

fog food flowers fire

Imbolc morning snow and quiet, working to get the fire going

THERE IS A VITALITY,

A LIFE FORCE, THAT IS TRANSLATED

THROUGH YOU INTO ACTION.

AND BECAUSE THERE IS ONLY ONE OF YOU

IN ALL TIME, THIS EXPRESSION IS UNIQUE.

AND IF YOU BLOCK IT,

IT WILL NEVER EXSIST THROUGH ANY OTHER MEDIUM

AND WILL BE LOST.

THE WORLD WILL NOT HAVE IT.

IT IS NOT YOUR BUSINESS TO DETERMINE HOW GOOD IT IS;

NOR HOW VALUABLE IT IS;

NOR HOW IT COMPARES WITH OTHER EXPRESSIONS.

IT IS YOUR BUSINESS TO KEEP IT YOURS,

CLEARLY AND DIRECTLY,

TO KEEP THE CHANNEL OPEN.

YOU DO NOT EVEN HAVE TO BELIEVE IN YOURSELF

OR YOUR WORK.

YOU HAVE TO KEEP OPEN AND AWARE DIRECTLY TO THE URGES

THAT MOTIVATE YOU. KEEP THE CHANNEL OPEN.

NO ARTIST IS PLEASED.

THERE IS NO SATISFACTION WHATEVER AT ANY TIME.

THERE IS ONLY A QUEER, DIVINE

DISSATISFACTION,

A BLESSED UNREST THAT KEEPS US MARCHING

AND MAKES US MORE ALIVE

THAN THE OTHERS.

Martha Graham to Agnes B. DeMille

everywhere, under the ice, branches are budding

day 2 of a month of much snow and wintry weather.

day 2 of at home tending the hearth, honoring our inner fire.

Today is Bridget’s day and Chinese New Year’s Eve with the groundhog promising us an early spring after this deep winter.

Digging and digging and clearing paths, Bryan endlessly making way.

We walk in the late afternoon fog to the Bridget by the stream and even with the mounds of snow and the stillness the stream runs free and dark.

Gurgling life arises.

After carrying wood and setting dinner in the oven, I stomp knee-deep through the snow with the compost bucket. I pour the decaying scraps, which will be summer’s earth, onto the untouched snow, and the steam from their rot rises hot and dank.  

Turning to go back, I see the house surrounded with mist and glowing with the lights and warmth of our home.    

Suddenly, the snow does not seem so deep, I feel strengthened by activity, and am willing to allow for spring.

 
Celebrate Imbolc with us here Saturday Feb.5th noonish. 

Solstice continued- closing the season and starting anew

The moon disappeared and came back just like the long days will return. Isaac’s widow Phaedra made the analogy that the light returns even if we do not see it. The days now grow imperceptibly longer, aggregating over these next weeks to real time.

  Memory and recall. Bringing it back and moving it forward. It was an intense year and it was interesting that  as we came to our Winter Solstice  we hadn’t really yet resolved Samhain. And while Samhain is always a bit strange,  this Samhain, was particularly so, planned with very specific sacrifice and without a specific answer. There was no clear omen because of the way things worked out, the comings and goings and passing of time.  Our omens were sensed from the earth and felt deep within but putting them down concretely- our record of recollection, is still as elusive as our Samhain closing.

Scryed from the earth- there was a deep rumbling in the North representing a disturbance or challenge yet to come and with the reminder not to shrink from it. Our boundaries were tested and we were told to stay true. The bird singing in the West spoke of the afterlife, sounding so joyful and pure.  And we offered prayers to our dead friends, to our honored dead, asking for them to remain our allies.

But everything was vague or elusive and remained thus-  not because we didn’t know but because things were not the way we usually think or think about them. It was more like how we feel or sense, deep in the earth or in the ethers. Whether the milk weed flying to the directions, the soaring embers from the dried flowers, the spirits of the great grandfathers in a single leaf, or the warmth of the fire in the cold- it came to us and left and maybe took something in its passing. It was about the connections.

And coming out of that, even though it was a cool ritual and all that, we felt strange and unfinished. But there was a definite feeling. We knew it hadn’t been closed but it was so full that we settled.

So in dealing with issues just before Solstice and reaching out to others in the organization, other kin or kindred people as opposed to the Kindred Spirits, we were able to put a lid on all that and let it go, with good faith, like the moon or the sun.

Always not yet ready we begin. We are here to honor the gods, gods who give meaning to life.

  

Washing our hands in the warm clear water, to purify and focus,we circle the fire in a triangle of 3, echoing the fire itself. Our family together honoring this cycle of the year.

       

Let this fire be a good fire.

We had all sorts of spirits as libations for the Kindred- bringing out the good stuff to ignite and inspire.

 

The last of the pumpkins from Samhain to the outsiders.

Letting go of, moving on from with gratitude, and moving toward with good vision, direction and more gratitude.

We are thankful to be here now, together and warm by this fire, with clear intent from our heart.

It is amazing how a small fire can burn so brightly and how its heat can surround us. 

Cookies, and herbs, and oils, and liquor and prayers as sacrifice.

 

the brightness of the flame, allowing us to feed it, to sacrifice and give unto that we which need to let go of with gratitude. the brightness of the first star, in the East, with the promise of wishes and dreams come true. And there is always a bird calling, even in the early dark of midwinter solstice. 

First the boy pulled runes:

from the Ancestors: Othala or Odul meaning sacred enclosure – think about what we treasure and protect and hold dear

from the Spirits of Nature and Place: Laguz or lake or a well or drawing up energy- what do we draw from and channel through us to bring back out

from the Gods and Goddesses: Raido or communication- wha we put out into the world and the return back

for the Holiday: Gibor or giving-the reciprocity of the gift

then I pull Ogham:

Rowan- meaning enchantment

Willow- which relates a lot to water and the moon and flexible change, intuition

Apple- which often has to do with choice and things of beauty and love, otherworldy apples

Birch- new beginnings.

All rapid growers, all joyful and appropriate to the season.

 

Drinking the cold waters in large wine glasses, as a gift from the Earth Mother, shared as family as the first star shone in the darkening sky.

We close with the fire burning to embers, offering the last of all our gifts with gratitude. Together we enter the warm house for dinner.