Imbolc

Spring is Brigit’s time. Her festival is celebrated, traditionally, on the 1st of February, but fire-work associated with Spring, spans a number of weeks. Imbolc is a celebration of the awakening earth when plants begin to grow and the crone of winter becomes the virgin once more. Spring vortices become active, bringing in new energies and clearing out the old. Becoming attuned to Brigit you will feel this impulse strongly at the beginning of each new year.

Winter has been a time of quiet, or rest, the death of the year. In the past, Winter was seen as an old woman coming to the end of her life. She had grown from the young girl in spring, became the Mother of Summer and now is the old woman, the crone of winter. She is associated with places of death and with vortices active during the Winter season.

But spring sees renewal and fresh beginnings. Life has never really died, it has just been sleeping. During Brigit’s time, it is reawakened with the fire of life. After the Winter Solstice, the sun is channelled into the womb of the earth, fertilising the Mother, so that crops will grow and feed the community. Brigit is a Spring Goddess, an aspect of Sovereignty. (Sovereignty is the feminine consciousness of the earth). The fire festivals brought hope and the promise of abundance. After a long dark winter of eating food they had stored throughout the year, they looked forward to eating green plants and planting their fields with corn. It was a celebration of survival, of having lived through yet another long, cold season, and emerging into the light and increasing warmth of the sun. It was a time of joy and celebration and, I imagine, a certain amount of relief.

The festivals were not purely symbolic. They were energetic practices designed to assist the physical earth and to keep her vitality flowing. A healthy earth means healthy people. In becoming attuned to the Brigit energy, through the mantle and the flame, you become aligned to the spring focus of fertility and become custodian of sites flowing with the energy of the Mother Goddess that you resonate with, and hold in care.

The Flame of Brigit is the light that warms the soil in Spring. The fire is the earthly representative of the Sun, allowing the seeds to germinate beneath the ground. Above ground, she is Grainne, Goddess of the Sun, the feminine aspect of solar energy.

Grainne too, as a Solar Goddess, is the transition between Winter and Spring. She is quiet in Winter, pale and wan but still shining. When Spring comes, she grows stronger, her light warmer. Together Brigit and Grainne bring light and warmth to the world. One from below and one from above. Grainne’s flame is white, a flame of renewal. Her flames awaken sites that have lain dormant and unused for centuries. She is the Divine Feminine light and warmth of the world.

Once these flames is are anchored in your energy field you can light these fires energetically, at sites where this was once done. That light then travels through the network of energy lines, bringing with it the promise of new life and allowing the seeds to grow and to reach for the light and warmth of the nurturing Solar Goddess. The seeds that you plant are not only physical, such as when you work at sacred sites, but also energetic. They are anchored at religious places too, such as churches etc. and illumine that which has become stagnant. Bringing new life and new inspiration.

Today is St. Brigit’s day, in the Christian tradition, or Imbolc in the Celtic. She was originally a pre-Celtic goddess, of fire, of healing and of fertility.

As the dark winter days brighten and lengthen, fresh shoots appear. Snowdrops give colour to muddy ground and sparse grass. Bluebell spears emerge from cold soil and energy grows. This is the time when the fertility of the land awakens. The sun’s energy is drawn, deep into the earth, to warm the sleeping seeds and bulbs, to fertilise the land itself with its life-giving rays.

The ancestors celebrated this process. Every few years, in settlements, such as at Danebury, in Hampshire, or Fosbury, in Wiltshire – embodiments of the Mother’s womb – , a priestess would stand on the highest point of the settlement, the belly of the Mother, and bring down, through her body, the solar energy, channelling it into the waiting womb of the earth. The Sheelagh Na Gig, the Crone of Winter, became youthful Virgin once more.

These ‘Mother’ sites were part of a vast network of energies, through which the fertilising light of the sun travelled, even before its physical warmth could be felt. Once the symbolic egg had been made fertile, this energy fed many smaller settlements, some as small as single farmsteads, but all radiating the light into the soil, into the trees, into the hearts and minds of the people.

Giant Sheelagh Na Gig. Danebury Hillfort. Hampshire.

The serpent will come from the hole
On the brown Day of Bríde,
Though there should be three feet of snow
On the flat surface of the ground

One tradition on Brigit’s day was to clean the home, to sweep out the energy of the past and to welcome in the new energy that would bring newness and fertility to its inhabitants. It was all done with intent. The past year was gone, and a new one begins. Clear out old dreams; dream new ones.

This is the time when new pathways are forged and plans for the coming year can be put in motion.

There are many well-known traditions, and all accessible on the internet if you search. The most important aspect, in terms of energywork is the solar fertilising of the earth and the lighting/maintenance of the Flames.

As a planetary healer, part of your work is to maintain these energetic flames. Planting one in your home, if it is connected to this energetic grid, keeps the energy flowing. I have one in my home and have anchored them in the homes of my daughters and friends – other Gaia Method Earthways healers – when I am impulsed to do so. For two weeks before today, the energies rise and the flames are tended. Sometimes, they change colour, sometimes other energies are added. I can see them changing, in colour and number, sometimes becoming three, sometimes reverting to one. Each flame is a frequency of creation, a creative fire that inspires and keeps abundance flowing.

There are ‘Keepers of the Flame’ all over the world, carrying out these ancient tasks, and there have been for millennia. Now we are re-learning their ways so that the earth can be fruitful and abundant. We can change our old ways and learn how to live in communion with the Mother. Learn to channel the light into her pathways once more.

St. Catherine’s Hillfort, here in Winchester — the view from my house — has a flame. This year it has become a white flame, rising from the hilltop into the sky, spreading a disc of silver around the surrounding landscape; the abundance of the Mother. A necessary thing, in these times of fear and confusion. The White feels pure, and light, bringing awareness and a feeling of spiritual power. The power of Light, not might.

The more we work with the ancient energies and ways of life, the better will be both our lives and those of others around us.

In searching for fertility sites, look for the signs, both through intuition and physical evidence. Where the stone-carved Sheelagh na Gig’s are, nearby you will find a site, waiting to be reawakened. Early Christian churches often use them, as they signified a place where the energy of Imbolc was activated, albeit in a different form. There are places all over the British Isles, and Ireland, that hold these energies. All it needs is for you to find them.

“Now is the time to tend the fires. To create anew your dreams for the future. Go into the landscape. Connect to the Mother, Brigit, Goddess of life, and bring fertility and life back into your lives.”