The earth is awakening. Buds are clearly visible on the trees. There are flashes of red roaring through the branches of some plants. The air feels more open and the deep hibernation feeling of January is beginning to lift.
How January has been a month of feeling like a mole, examining the roots. The last two Januarys have been snow covered in Scotland, it has felt quite a shock to be with the bareness of the land this year. But in a way everything which has happened to me has felt more intimate and open. The rawness has taken me to some amazing relisations.
And now it is Imbolc. We held our Imbolc manifestation day last Sunday, and had a fire at the end of it to journey with the fire to receive vision for our paths on the year ahead. We talked about Brigitte, the tri-fold Goddess of this time of year, and how we felt the energy of Brigitte working through us and through everything on this planet. We owned this energy.
I love myths and stories and the way that this whole dream in which we are dreaming has come into form through stories. The creations of characters and archetypes keep the dreams flowing and help them to be graspable for human comprehension. As co-creators of our reality, we really need to understand and have safe and true forms and mapping systems to work with. I love how simple it is with the medicine wheel and how nature shows us the way.
So who is Brigitte really? She’s a beautiful powerful Goddess of fire. She is water flowing from the well of inspiration. She’s a mid-wife and helps to bring dreams into creation and physical form. She’s the Goddess of poets and smiths who work with the fire of the forge. That is how we bring her to life and read her. She’s gentle and nurturing. She’s passionate and strong. She is guardian to what is pure and true. She can’t help but keep the cycle of life flowing. She is an inevitable force of creation. She is also an inevitable force of destruction and letting go. The archetype of Brigitte is a crystallisation of the forces of nature which are at work at this time of year. We use the information to help us to be this energy.
Keening is the word given to the activity of the fairy folk as they cry and weep and wail and let go of their sadness for what is lost, in order to allow the creation of the new to come into being. I think at this time of year of the tears which Demeter cried for the loss of her daughter Persephone to the underworld, in the Mediterranean myth. I think of the importance of mourning for what we have lost in order to allow the growth of what is ready to come to us.
The last month, I have noticed myself struggling to accept certain processes which have needed to happen in me in order to move into the new. Kindness and diligence in listening to what my body and emotions have been telling me have been the way to cross this territory I have found. Daily reiki, a careful diet and taking the tme to listen and talk through what I have found difficult has been essestial. The keening and the allowing is bringing a new dance through. My friends who I work alongside in the therapy co-op, talk of people bringing similar symptoms and problems to their sessions at this time of year.
The force of Brigitte is relentless. It is the force of the cycle – the wheel turnng. This force brings things into being. It’s the sense of being alive, having fire and passion, and having ideas for what stirs the passion. It is the will to live each of us can feel, and that we feel and witness coming through with such tremendous power at this time of year. It is also the fact that the new is ready to come back into being. We have absolutley no choice but to move forwards. It is the song of life which does not go backwards. But it is also the stories of the past which can bring inspiration or express sadness and lessons, which we put into words through ballads and song.
The power of the wheel turning at this time of year is immense. I remember after a miscarriage a few years ago, having my periods keep on coming back around. It almost felt like a rude interruption. I couldn’t believe that my body could just keep on relentlesly releasing and creating the conditions to create again. There was no capacity to be empathic or lenient with me shown by my body. My reproductive cycle was an incredible machine which carried on regardless. I was really struck by the pragmatic force of the programme we live within and had to find spaces to care for my sadness which acknowledged and appreciated the strength of the continuum.
Sometimes I sit on the earth and just imagine and attune to what is going on under the earth right now in all of these seeds and bulbs. I feel that energy of encouragement and support which is our birth-right on this wheel of time and which activates growth and new life right now. I rmember how supported we are being in this dream, and how we can either acceopt this support and run with it, use it for healing projects, share it with our families and communities, or we can hold on tight to fixed ideas and notice that we don’t really feel very good.
Imbolc means ewe’s milk. It is the flow of nourishment and life. It is the blessing of the mother who gives and supports life.
I am about to go and post some birthday presents and cards to my mum who gave me life and then go for a walk to see the buds and life in the gardens down to the beach. Counting blessings and feeling supported. These are the messages of Imbolc for me. In this blessed contented space I can allow the flow of inspiration to awaken the fire within and see what is truly ready for me in my life these months to come. The only way to really get that is to feel the holding of life around me. The keening is over, the new blessing is begun.
littlereddrummedicinewheel 