Hag Stone Journal

Imbolc

Imbolc

019
January 27 to February 2
In This Issue: Journal Prompt, Exercise, Home, Outdoors, Community, Body, Magic, Poem, Craft, Cookery, Moon Phases, Activism, Recommendations, Next Week

Imbolc, pronounced EM-bolgk, is an ancient Irish festival marking the midpoint between the winter solstice and the spring equinox. Imbolc was celebrated in Ireland, Scotland, and the Isle of Man on February 1st and 2nd, or when the ewes were lambing. It is one of the four Gaelic festivals: Samhain in autumn, Imbolc in winter, Beltaine in spring, and Lughnasadh in summer. An inner chamber in the neolithic Irish monument Mounds of Hostages is aligned with the rising sun on Imbolc and Samhain, pointing to the importance of this date since ancient times.

In Ireland, St. Brigid’s Day coincides with Imbolc. St. Brigid is one of Ireland’s most beloved figures, and is linked in Irish folklore with the goddess Brigid, whose festival, in pagan times, was also on Imbolc. St. Brigid is said to visit all the homes in the village and bring them her blessing of fertility, healing, and peace. Various folk traditions invite Brigid into the home and into a special bed by the hearth made of rushes and reeds. On Imbolc, little girls carry a homemade St. Brigid doll, called a Brídeóg, from house to house and are given tokens and charms with which to decorate the doll. They may also be given food to carry on to the St. Brigid’s Feast.

Brigid arrives with a promise of light, warmth, fertility, and growth, and heralds the departure of the Cailleach, the storm hag of winter. Many Imbolc traditions blend the elemental powers of water and fire. Brigid was the patron of smithing and poetry (both associated with the generative powers of fire) and with healing and holy wells (both connected to the sacred properties inherent in water).

I have always felt the cold of winter most intensely in February. February typically has the coldest days of the year in many regions of the United States. It may also seem colder because we have spent so long in winter. We are worn down and missing the sun. Imbolc, halfway between the start of winter and the start of spring, is a much-needed celebration of the returning sun. After the celebration of Imbolc, we will be closer to the spring equinox than to the winter solstice.

Just as I was finishing this issue of Hag Stone Journal, I found this lovely video on the folklore and traditions of St. Brigid’s Day. I really recommend viewing it to learn more about Irish customs on Imbolc and to see some very charming historic photographs.


By Heather Gray

Journal Prompt

What do you want to awaken within you and grow in your life right now?

Exercise

This week we can try a form of meditative breathing called pelvic floor breathing. Your pelvic floor is the area of muscles and tissue that connects through your pubic bone to your tailbone. When we have to pee but hold it in, we are pulling up our pelvic floor. When we bear down like we are trying to have bowel movement, we are pushing down on our pelvic floor.

Sit cross legged on the floor, a ball, or a chair. Wiggle around to get grounded and in alignment. Place your hand on your lower belly, well below your belly button. Bear down with your pelvic floor muscles. You should feel your abdominal muscles engage.

Now breathe in and exhale, slowly and gently, and, while exhaling, push down your pelvic floor. Release when you are out of breath, and inhale. Do that two more times.

Now breathe three times normally. Keep your hand on your belly and pay attention to what you are feeling.

Finish with three more slow deep breaths that engage and push down your pelvic floor.

Pelvic floor breathing is an exercise that both singers and yoga practitioners do.

Cookery

Imbolc was celebrated when the ewes began to lamb. Sheep milk, and milk in general, were considered ritual foods to be eaten during Imbolc. Butter was an important food, especially in Ireland,  and the stick used to churn butter, called a churn dash, was often used to make the Brídeóg doll.

If you haven’t made your own butter before, this easy recipe may inspire you to try.

Ingredients:

  • A clean mason jar – any size will do, but smaller jars are easier to shake
  • Heavy cream
  • 1/4 teaspoon salt (optional)

 

Fill your mason jar up halfway with heavy cream. Use Irish cream if you can find it– it is nearly 40% butterfat– but, if not, American cream, which is 35%, will do as well. You could also add salt at this point. Close the jar tightly and shake, really vigorously, for 8 minutes.

cream in 8 oz mason jar

After about 8 minutes check the cream; it should have separated into solid butter and liquid buttermilk. If not, shake again for another 3-5 minutes and check again.

whipped cream stage

 

butter stage

When you have your separated butter and buttermilk in the mason jar, pour the buttermilk out (you could use the buttermilk to make pancakes). Decant the solid butter out into a bowl.

Pour cold water over the butter and squeeze the butter into a ball with your hands. Discard the liquid in the bowl and pour more cold water over the ball of butter, then squeeze and shape it again. Repeat this process until the water is clear; that will mean the buttermilk is all gone and now you have butter.

Eat your butter within two weeks, or longer if you store it in a butter bell. Consider leaving a pat of your homemade butter outside for Brigid on Imbolc.

butter and buttermilk

Craft

In Ireland, during the days leading up to St Brigid’s Day, children learn how to make a Brigid’s Cross. Also called a fire wheel, these crosses may have a pagan origin. A Brigid’s Cross is made from rushes woven into an equilateral cross. They are hung over doors and windows and in kitchens.

This website shows very clearly how to weave a St. Brigid’s Cross. Even still, it took me three times to get it right.

This Irish website also has a video with someone, very quickly and capably, weaving a St. Brigid’s Cross out of reeds.

 

Home

Imbolc celebrations included bonfires, merrymaking, and parading the Brídeóg doll through the village. But, at its heart, Imbolc is observed in the home. Fires or candles were lit in every room, the home was cleaned, the stores were checked, a feast was made for the family, and a bed was made near the fireplace for Brigid to sleep in when she blessed the home and its inhabitants.

Next week, on February 1st, try this ritual to invite Brigid and the warmth and fertility of Spring into your home:

Turn off all the lights. Light a candle and visit each room of your house, inviting Brigid, and the warmth and light she represents, into your home. End at your altar, adding the candle you brought through the house to your regular display.

You can add more things representing Brigid, Imbolc, or the coming spring, like your Brigid’s Cross, to your altar. White flowers, chalices, cauldrons, small anvils or hammers (for smithcraft), books of poetry, figurines of farm animals (lambs or cows especially), snakes, healing herbs, and candles are all also associated with Brigid and will give your altar an exciting spring vibe.

Body

It was custom for people to leave clothing, especially their mantle or cloak, outside or on their hearth for Brigid to bless on the night of Imbolc. The clothes blessed by Brigid were thought to have powers of healing and protection. People also believed that if they set out the same cloth year after year its healing powers would grow. Folks would wrap women in labor, newborn babies, and sick people in the Brigid-blessed cloth to soothe and heal them.

To make your own Brigid’s mantle, take a wrap, sweater, or some other cloth you wear around your shoulders, and leave it on your doorstep, or folded nicely just inside your doorway, for a healing blessing from Brigid.

Outdoors

Brigid was a goddess of healing and a patron saint of healers, and is associated with holy wells throughout the lands of Gaelic people. Pilgrims would visit holy wells on Imbolc for blessings and healing rituals. They would also bring the water from those holy wells home to bless their dwelling, livestock, fields, and family. Folks would walk sunwise around a holy well, praying for health, and leave offerings of coins or clooties (a strip of rag) tied to the branch of the nearest tree.

What are the closest sources of water to your home? A lake, a stream, a river, or even an ocean? We explored the concept of finding our ritual landscape in the Winter Solstice issue of Hag Stone Journal. This week, let’s add our version of a “holy well” to our landscape.

My second closest public access water is a small pond in Mermaid Park (it is off Mermaid Lane, named after the Mermaid Inn and Tavern built in 1734. The opposite direction up Mermaid Lane is Baleroy Mansion, one of the most haunted houses in Pennsylvania). The pond at Mermaid Park has a small bridge over the back end of the pond, and a family of ducks that weave in and out of the shoreline reeds.

The pond at Pastorius Park is closer to me than the one at Mermaid Park. Pastorius is my favorite park. It is 16 acres and heavily treed around its perimeter. It is a popular park with dog owners throughout the year and hosts weekly concerts in the summer in the park’s amphitheater.

Pastorius Park is named after Francis Daniel Pastorius, who founded Germantown, Pennsylvania in 1683. Pastorius was a well regarded writer and poet as well as an anti-slavery advocate. Pastorius’s writing about the beauty of the woods and William Penn’s commitment to religious freedom inspired many Germans to immigrate and settle Germantown. Pastorius also wrote the first school book printed in Pennsylvania, called “Beehive”– a commonplace book that included poetry, proverbs, notes on science, herbology, and quotes. Pastorius also wrote the 1688 Germantown Quaker Petition Against Slavery, the first anti-slavery tract.

 

Pastorius Park was inspired by Hyde Park in London, and has a reflection pond (no longer used for ice skating in the winter), a stone warming hut, a moat crossed by several stone bridges, and a stone amphitheater, which hosts the longest running outdoor concert series in Philadelphia.

The ponds at Mermaid and Pastorius, and, of course, the river in the Wissahickon Woods, are the “holy wells” in my ritual landscape. The pond at Mermaid Park is small, and the park itself is almost always deserted. Pastorius is very picturesque and a hub of the neighborhood. The Wissahickon feels ancient, connected to the history of the land and the people; as it winds through the woods it runs the gamut from wild to calm and popular to deserted. And while I can’t walk three times “sunwise” around the river like I can around the ponds, when I visit I always commune with it in someway and, I am sure, bring its blessing home with me.

This week, find your local sources of water and visit them on Imbolc. You can leave a coin or tie a clootie to a nearby tree in offering. Commune with the water. Feel the spirit of the place.

 

Magic

Imbolc was a time when folks practiced weather divination, like the tradition of watching for serpents or badgers coming out of their winter dens (much like our Groundhog Day). Bad weather on Imbolc was a good sign for the coming year, and perfect weather was a bad sign. The story was that if the weather was good on Imbolc, the Cailleach was out gathering more firewood and would stay awake, creating cold throughout the land for longer. But if the weather was cold and wet, the Cailleach had already gone to sleep until the next year.

Imbolc and St. Brigid are also associated with fire and fire divination. In pre-Christian times, fire-based rituals to the goddess Brigid would take place on the hill of Kildare in Ireland. Later, St. Brigid built her monastery and church on the same site, and she and her nuns kept the fires burning. A sacred fire continued to burn in Kildare until the 16th century, when the monasteries were suppressed. The sacred fire was re-lit in 1988 in Kildare by a Brigidine Sister. Every year since then, on February 1st, the fire is relit from a flame tended by the Sisters at the centre, Solas Bhride.

Brigid is associated with fire through her connection to the hearth, and because she is the patron goddess of smithing. In smithing, her connection to both fire and water come together to forge tools. Brigid is also the goddess of healing, childbirth, and poetry. The energy of Brigid is creative and generative. She symbolizes the body’s ability to create new life, to heal itself, to create tools, and create poetry– the powers of fire and water entwined.

For Imbolc, try some fire-based magic. On a slip of paper, write an intention for what you want to generate and grow in the near future. Burn it with the sacred flame of a candle or in a bonfire outside.

Moon Phases

January 27 is the second quarter moon.

In February – Alice Meynell

 

Rich meanings of the prophet-Spring adorn,

Unseen, this colorless sky of folded showers,

And folded winds; no blossom in the bowers;

A poet’s face asleep in this grey morn.

Now in the midst of the old world forlorn

A mystic child is set in these still house.

I keep this time, even before the flowers,

Sacred to all the young and the unborn.

 

Community

See if there are any St. Brigid’s festivals in your community happening around February 1st. You may get a chance to eat some traditional Irish foods and make more St. Brigid’s crosses at your local parish.

Activism

Find out who is protecting your local waterways. Do they have an event coming up that needs volunteers?

The pond at Pastorius Park needs to be cleaned of debris every spring. Volunteers wade into the pond, after it has been drawn down by Parks and Rec and the turtles temporarily relocated to the moat, then rake and shovel out the last year’s worth of leaves, branches, and other debris. This keeps the neighborhood pond, and the wildlife that depend on it, healthy and sustainable.

Recommendations

If you would like to see some beautiful artistic representations of St. Brigid and learn about her in a Catholic context, check out this video.

Next Week

Next week we will explore magic words for love.