Imbolc marks the Irish pagan start of spring - something is stirring

[Wicked Blue]

Irish Central
By Kathy Scott
Trailblazery
Feb 01, 2022

The Wheel of the Year is a medicine wheel marked and celebrated by most indigenous cultures around the earth in their own ways. In Ireland, the ancient ones measured their cosmos in wheels, spirals, in the movement of the stars, and the rising and setting of the sun and moon.

The ancient Irish were deeply connected to the land, the seasons and the cycles of the natural world and honored these portals with ritual and ceremony. Our ancestors have gifted us with a rich cultural inheritance aligned with the rhythms and patterns of the natural world. This cyclical way of living offers great wisdom that can support and resource our wellbeing today as ‘ancestors-in-training’.

The word Imbolc derives from the Irish, ‘i mbolg’, meaning ‘in the belly’, or "first milk" in the old Irish Neolithic language. It heralds the birthing season, as the soon-to-be-born lambs are growing in their mother’s bellies. Another powerful metaphor to describe this time is ‘winter pregnant with summer’. The seeds of summer are still hidden deep in the earth, in the womb of the goddess and while the worst of the winter darkness is over, Spring has not fully arrived yet.

In the ancient Celtic tradition, there is a celebration of the relationship between the dualistic forces of light and darkness, between what is seen and unseen. These principles move in cycles - day and night, life and death and in every decrease and increase. Nature sleeps during winter and awakens during summer. The Celts saw the interplay between these two states as essential to the continuation of the cycle of life upon the land. The year is divided into two halves, Samos (summer) and Giamos (winter). For our pagan ancestors, the Giamos half of the year has its midpoint at Imbolc, this is the point at which ‘decrease’ turns to ‘increase’.

More at https://www.irishcentral.com/roots/history/imbolc-irish-pagan-spring

[niyad]

1. Thank you for this excellent piece.

[Wicked Blue]

2. Here's some more info on Imbolc

History.com

Imbolc is a pagan holiday celebrated from February 1 through sundown February 2. Based on a Celtic tradition, Imbolc was meant to mark the halfway point between winter solstice and the spring equinox in Neolithic Ireland and Scotland. The holiday is celebrated by Wiccans and other practitioners of neopagan or pagan-influenced religions. Imbolc is just one of several pre-Christian holidays highlighting some aspect of winter and sunlight, and heralding the change of seasons.

The celebration of Imbolc dates back to the pre-Christian era in the British Isles.

The earliest mentions of Imbolc in Irish literature date back to the 10th century. Poetry from that time relates the holiday to ewe’s milk, with the implication of purification.

It’s been speculated that this stems from the breeding cycle of sheep and the beginning of lactation. The holiday was traditionally aligned with the first day of spring and the idea of rebirth.

https://www.history.com/topics/holidays/imbolc

[niyad]

3. As a practicing Wiccan, this is one of the High Holy Days I observe.

[Wicked Blue]

4. Same here

Blessed be

[niyad]

6. Blessed Be.

[dweller]

5. A Song for Imbolc

Now at spring’s awakening, short days are lengthening

and after St. Bridget’s Day. I’ll set my sail.

A blind man, on a stone bridge in Galway

or the road to Loughrea, felt the sun’s rays

in his bones again and praised the sycamore and oak,

crops still drowsy in the seed, wheat, flax and oats.

His song rising, he praised Achill’s eagle, Erne’s hawk

and in beloved Mayo, young lambs, kids, foals,

and little babies turning towards birth.

Blind Raftery invoked Bridget, Ceres of the North,

born into slavery at Faughart, near Dundalk

to an Irish chieftain and a foreign slave.

Why, of all small girls in so distant a century born

is she honoured still, in place-names, constant wells,

new rushes plaited to protect hearth, home, and herd?

Bridget, goddess, druidess of oak, or saint - a girl

who gifted her father’s sword to a beggar for bread,

we, who have wounded the engendering seas and earth,

beg you to teach us again, before it grows too late,

your neglected, painstaking arts of nature and of care.

Moya Cannon’s latest collection is Donegal Tarantella (Carcanet). Her poem was commissioned by Galway 2020 to mark the beginning of spring this St Bridget’s Day.


✌🏻

[niyad]

7. How lovely. Thank you so much for sharing.

[Wicked Blue]

8. beautiful! nt