The Imbolc in my head

I’m always planning elaborate rituals and complicated things to do for when the major wheel of the year festies come up.  I like the wheel of the year structure, I tend to get mired in wherever I am at any present moment, so the structure forces me to move along, move along, see the changes, say goodbye to past things and look ahead to new things.  It keeps me moving, when I have the world’s largest tendency to inertia and stuckness, mentally and physically.

So despite very little time (as usual), I was thinking toward Imbolc, the Festival of Returning Light, the time of Brigid, and I was feeling happy.  I like this festie a lot.  I love the idea of light returning, I love the idea of lighting little candles all over the place and watching them glow in the dark.  Of dressing the altar in white, and me too.  The white and red flowers put up, the little Brede’s bed I get out every year with the small corn dolly in it.

I was having visions of this grand evening set aside for cooking lots of little white themed foods and drinks.  And looking up all the associations to refamiliarise myself.  Making a proper purpose written ritual, and being uninterrupted while doing it.

See, get the catch there?!  Time to write a ritual, and uninterrupted time to do it.  Hah!  So I contented myself with the dressing of the altar.  It isn’t really an altar anymore, it’s a bit of bookshelf.  Fluffhead became far too interested in everything on the lower down original altar, so I had to find a much higher space.  I can’t do anything much on this new bit of a bookshelf, so technically, its more of a displaying or devotional shrine, than an altar.  But it’s got flowers now, and pictures, and the Brigid’s Cross.

And I read some of her stories, and I looked for snowdrops – the garden has a small throw of them, just outside my window here.  Little spots of perfect whiteness, little spots of light and green. 

And I think about new blog posts to be done, and books to finish reading.  Places to go, things to bake.  Stuff to think about, and do.

I wandered through my own Lands, burning old things, old thoughts, old feelings, old ideas, old relationships, and strewing them out behind me, as compost for the spring, for the new to grow through.  For Brigid is partially made of fire, and will heat anything through to a husk, ready for the regrowth.  It took several days in my head, to reorder my thoughts on some old things, to really clear the space and feel all those new mental snowdrops and crocuses popping up.  But I feel them now, and there’s so much more space than I thought!  Ahead of me there are fields of endless green, and little clumps here and there, of those snowdrops.  Everything is very clean and I can see for miles. 

Far away on the beach, there is my horse, the white one, of course.  Just trotting along the edge of the spray, back and forth, like a game.  I’ll go and ride, in a minute.  This afternoon there’ll be a picnic.  The sun breaks through, and shines so strong.

I start to run.  I start to smile.  The Lands whip past me, the beach glitters.  Running feels so good.  The gulls call overhead, my feet splash wet as I hit the sand.

I can hear my breath, hear my life.  There is joy in the rising sun, in my feet, in the air and its salt.