The fire within - fanning your flames on Brigid’s day

February 1st marks St. Brigid’s day, Imbolc,  the first of spring – where we celebrate the coming of light, spring, fertility and new growth. In the current climate any opportunity to connect with bright possibilities is welcome in my book!

Brigid was a pre-Christian goddess later adopted by the church. Her roots go back a long way, to the days of honouring the cycles of life with the passage of the moon and the sun. In some accounts she is described as balancing compassion and strength. Stories of her involve the need to be able to stand ones ground as well as having an open and kind heart. We associate her with forging ahead, creating new opportunities and standing in our power. She is also known as a triple fire goddess using the flames to purify and increase fertility, creativity and promote healing.

It is becoming increasingly popular to acknowledge Brigid’s day, with a revival of old traditions in a holistic way, outside of the former religious context. The shame of the past, particularly in relation to women’s bodies, unplanned pregnancy and sexual shame continues to be brought to the surface and released. Here in Ireland, most recently, we bear witness to the stories of women and children incarcerated in laundries and homes for the crime of becoming pregnant and giving life.

Women are looking for ways to rekindle their fire, to honour their bodies, embrace their power and connect with the cyclical nature of their being. For many women, connecting to the seasonal passage of time mirrors the journey of their bodies each month and provides an opportunity for regeneration, reflection and letting go in order to move into a new cycle.

 Brigid’s day is a doorway into this cycle, offering us an opportunity to reflect and shine a light on the darkness. It reminds us of the fertility of our bodies, making new life, new growth in the creative, entrepreneurial, or literal sense.

It reminds us of our endless capacity to reinvent ourselves, to strengthen boundaries and nurture new projects, to water a seed of hope, a seed of potential in whatever new ventures we are bringing forth into the world.

It reminds us of our place within the community, women supporting women, women raising the next generation of seekers and dreamers, women fighting for truth, justice and equality in relation to their skin colour, their social class, their race, their beliefs or sexual orientation.

It reminds us of the fight to preserve the earth, the green mother on whom we all find nurture and sustenance.

To mark this day you might like to stand barefoot on the grass for a moment and feel yourself rooted to the earth, connected to all the women who have gone before you and all who will follow you…

 Or to light a candle and sit quietly imagining those women standing behind you

 You might like to visit a local well, to make a Brigid’s cross for over your door or to sit in the sunset with paper and pen.

Ask yourself:

What flame do I nurture within?

What new life is longing to be birthed?

“You do not have to be good.

You do not have to walk for a hundred miles, repenting.

You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves.”

Mary Oliver

Image by Andriyko Podilnyk on unsplash - Thank you