Imbolc: welcome Spirit, welcome Brigid

I wanted to write a little something for Imbolc the way I have for the other festival days, but I’m finding I don’t have much to say. Not that I’m not thinking and feeling a lot, because I am. But while my feelings for the other days were the kinds of feelings I felt compelled to get out there, this feels a bit different. Everything seems quieter and more focused inward, which makes a degree of sense given what this festival is about: the breathless hush between winter and spring, when the darkness is receding but the coming burst of life has yet to arrive.

We’ve gotten a ton of snow in the last few days, which actually seems perfect for the first festival of the spring season. Imbolc, for those who don’t know, marks the time that pregnant ewes would begin to lactate, which was an important sign that the start of spring was imminent. There’s some debate about what the entomology of the word “Imbolc”; one theory is that it comes from the Old Irish “i mbolc” which means “in the belly”. Another idea is that it has its origins in “imb-fholc”, which means to wash or cleanse oneself—and Imbolc is indeed commonly celebrated with ritual baths (I did one last night and it was fantastic). But whatever the derivation, its association with the arrival of spring is unambiguous.

And yet we got a ton of snow. Which, again, seems perfect. We haven’t had a good snow yet this season, and it feels like a last hurrah, a big finale before it starts to warm up in earnest (who knows, though; the weather around this time of year can be capricious).

One thing I think I can say is that I continue to find ways to braid Christianity with Druidry in these festivals. Imbolc is usually a festival associated the goddess Brigid. I’ve said before that I feel that I want to explore some kind of relationship with other gods in addition to the Triune God, and I discovered inspiration—not for the first time—in the Christian mystic Julian of Norwich. Her writing is somewhat revolutionary in that it explicitly refers to God as a mother in addition to a father, possessing the kind of unconditional, nurturing love we tend to associate with motherhood, a mother who cares for and takes delight in her children. Julian refers repeatedly to the Christian God as “she” as well as “he”, and in fact switches back and forth with joyous abandon.

I envision the Creator aspect of God as both beyond and encompassing all gender. Christ has mostly masculine energy for me. The Holy Spirit, on the other hand, is decidedly feminine. She’s also connected to baptism—in water and in fire. John the Baptist himself said that Jesus would come to baptize not with water but “with the Holy Spirit and with fire” (Matthew 3:11), and the Holy Spirit baptized the Apostles with tongues of flame at Pentecost.

I also connect the Holy Spirit with inspiration and the joy taken in skill and craft, in a particularly human and yet wholly divine kind of creation.

The goddess Brigid is a goddess of poets and smiths and fertility, and also of fire and water.

You see what I’m gesturing at?

The figure on my altar was originally bought (years ago) as Hestia; a robed woman carrying a flame in her hand, which is outstretched as if she’s offering it. As I’ve started down this path, she’s taken on the image of the Holy Spirit for me. More and more, she’s also Brigid. She’s a single being with many faces, and which one I address comes down to my needs at the time.

So once again, I discover that there’s no real conflict between these traditions, at least not for me. The divine is wonderfully, beautifully flexible. It invites me with an outstretched hand, and it’s far greater than any single aspect.

Today I honor both the Spirit and Brigid with the approach of spring; I invite her into my home and ask her blessing. And all I feel, instead of the discord that many people would probably expect, is harmony.