Imbolc | St. Brigid’s Day

  Imbolc is a Celtic pagan holiday which takes place on February 1st and celebrates the hearth and home, and a time when the days slowly start growing longer and is often associated with the first whisperings of spring or when nature is in the womb phase of the cycle. Celebrated usually with fire and sweeping away the old, it can also be associated with the Goddess Brigid or St. Brigid who is the Goddess of the hearth and home. 

Some ways to celebrate Imbolc could be:

• Use candles or a small fire in the garden to honour the returning of light and the growing Sun.
• Craft a Brigid’s cross using reeds, straw, or rope.
• Take a walk in nature and see if you can find the first signs of new growth.
• Take time to plant personal seeds of intention by writing down what you wish to manifest. You can also plant literal sees in your garden depending on where you live…especially bulbs!
• Host a candlelight dinner with traditional foods.
• Make your own Brigid doll to celebrate the maiden Goddess of the Triple Goddess (Maiden, Mother, and Crone) and her later Sainthood.
• Find a place in your home to craft an altar with things found and made, Amethyst, Bloodstones, Candles, Chalice, Daffodils and snowdrops, and leave baked offerings for Brigid to bless your hearth and home.

Ultimately, I feel like Imbolc is a quiet celebration of the first notions of renewal, rebirth, and revitalisation. A celebration of surviving the quiet and cold of winter, and sometimes the grief that it brings. Be gentle with yourself and allow yourself the time to do a bit more of nothing. Stare out the window and meditate on the frost that clings to what was and what will be.

Lastly, scroll down to read this stunning poem I came across!

Add this hand woodburned Imbolc wheel of the year to your home, office, or altar space.  

Hand woodburned by Smokecraft Hollow in 6 hours and shipped in 3-5 days. 

Imbolc

by Caroline Mellor

I am the dream of awakening.I am the returning of the night. I am the tough green shoot pushing up through the paper stones. I am the first case of sunlight on the unfurling petals of the snowdrop. I am the wind which whispers the gentle pull of home to the migratory bird. I am the drop of ice melting on the mountainside with its great dream of the ocean. I am the sap rising in the blossom tree just before it reveals its sticky buns to the sky; I am the riotous celebration humming away beneath the earths mantle of frozen sleep. I am the rousing of the beer from its winter slumber, and the soft pad of the mother wolf's paw on the snow as she prepares to both her pups. I am hope, potential, rebirth and promise. I am the kindling beneath which transforms the flicker of inspiration in your creative core into a blazing torch. Give me the silent crescent moon rising over the sea and I will build you a bridge of silver light so you can walk up and lie in it. Give me the frost-hardened wilderness and I will breathe radiant green life over it. Give me the healer, the writer, the crafts person in the storyteller and I will replenish her essence and make her new again. I am Brigid, Bast, Inanna and Hestia. I am the fierce protectress in the sacred fire. Tonight I bestow my gifts of power encourage at the hearth of your soul: power to step out of the shadows of self-doubt and negativity which I've held you in darkness for too long, power to shed all that would no longer serves you, and crude to clear your heart in mind for the dawn of that awaits you. I am the time to honor your unique gifts for their true worth it to protect and nurture your true self as you would a child. I am the deep longing of the spirit which refuses to be deemed by narrative of fear and choose instead to place itself vivaciously on the side of love. I am stirring in your belly which knows exactly what you are capable - and that it's time the world found out. I am the fire within which will not be contained any longer. I am the quickening, I am the serpent uncoiling, I am Imbolc. I am the dream of awakening. 

Originally found, here.