rites and routines 7: celebrating Imbolc, Brighid’s Day

[Written in 2024, so the days and dates will align differently in fiuture years]

Monday 5 February 2024 is a Bank Holday in the Republic of Ireland, Eire. it celebrates the life and influence of a woman whose existence and origins are both historic and mythic, and who is closely connected to the health of the land, the Earth, and her peoples.

Ahead of the politicians, and aware of my inclinations, my college friend Alison (Stewart) Mood gifted me a green glass ‘Bridget cross’ in 2022.

Herself a Celtic-sensitive dweller in “thin places” (she lives not far from Lindisfarne), Alison used to attend St Columba’s United Reformed Church in Cambridge when we were students – and I went to dance sessions with Filipa Pereira-Stubbs there a decade ago.

St Columba, St Patrick and now St Brighid are Ireland’s three national saints, and I believe that Brighe, the Celtic Triple Goddess with whom the saint seems to share characteristics, has been around far longer that the other two.

Hilary Crystal (Norman; one of 25 girlswho joined form IM of Hatfield Girls’ Grammar with me in 1964) kindly sent me this link to The Guardian just before Saint Brighid’s Day, which is also Imbolc, one of the “cross-quarters” in the Celtic Wheel of the Year.

Imbolc occurs midway between Yule (Winter Solstice) and Ostara (Vernal Equinox).

It’s the time when the unborn lambs are “in the belly” (Im -bolc) and the snowdrops show their milk-white faces to the increasing golden sunlight, and reveal their nectar to the queen bumble-bees.

Imbolc was later assimilated to the Christian festival of Candlemas.

And on 2 February I was chatting to someone on the late bus, as I wended my weary happy way back after a luminous Cambsdance session. He’d just been with a ex-chorister friend to a sung Candlemas service at St John’s College, Cambridge.

Synchronicities happen around special days – or perhaps it’s the synchronicity that gives them their special serendipity… All I know is that four years ago I was granted the role of Brighid at an Imbolc ceremony in the woods.

On a rainy afternoon took off my boots and trod barefoot in the mud, alongside the bearer of the hazel wand. I recited the following script in a Circle of Council.

The words thrill me still.

Since then, the wisdom and compassion of Brighe – Triple Goddess, Muse of poets and smiths; healer; Bright Fire Goddess of Home and Hearth, while also the blesser of holy wells and waters; midwife carer for ewes and cows; cultivator of corn – has helped to guide my own emergence and growth in the intervening years. As “maiden”; mother; elder (or virgin/whore/hag, as some would have it).

She is benign and kind, a conciliator, a teacher and inspiration, and these qualities were personified in St Brighid of Kildare, and in all those who choose to honour her guidance. 

You can explore more of the Brighe myth-story here, this time from an academic in Austin, Texas.

And there is a wonderful seven minute film by Grace Wells, called Imbolc/Vision, which I have shared before with some of you. I can’t recommend it highly enough!

You can explore more of the Brighe myth-story here, this time from an academic in Austin, Texas.

My best friend and fellow alto from Hatfield Girls Grammar, musician Pauline (Mobey) Brooks, sent me pictures of Brighid Crosses from harvest time, displayed in Cambridge Museum of Life, from her 2023 visit.

Thanks also to Pauline for the stained glass window depicting Brighid from St Bride”s Church, St Bride’s Bay in Cornwall, just. across the water from southern Irelatnd.

Yet another spelling of Brighid’s name! You can add any variants in the Comments section

To end on a lyrical note:

Brighid, Muse also to musicians, is saluted in this traditional Irish children’s song (click for a performance here with harpsichord and xylophone)

Lyrics

We sing a song to Brigid,
Brigid brings the spring
Awakens all the fields and the flowers
And calls the birds to sing.

All were welcome at her door,
no one was turned away.
She loved the poor, the sick and the sore,
She helped them on their way.

She laid her cloak out on the ground
And watched it grow and grow,
In wells and streams and fields of green
St. Brigid’s blessings flow.

https://www.godsongs.net/2012/11/we-sing-song-to-brigid-bridget.html