Imbolc

In this moon cycle, starting Saturday January 21, we’ll be coming to the cross-quarter day of Imbolc, half way between the winter solstice and the spring equinox. I welcome Imbolc with relief to have made it through the darkest part of the winter, and Imbolc begins a time of quickening, planting intentions for this year's growing cycle. If you’ve been in winter’s hibernation cave, Imbolc signals that it’s time to get up for a big stretch and poke your head out into the world, feeling the sun on your face again.

Imbolc is the time of the goddess Brigid, later absorbed into Christianity as St. Brigid and so important to the identity of Ireland, that she is the Patron Saint of the country alongside St. Patrick, thereby becoming a sort of Great Celtic Mother. There is a wealth of lore and information on Brigid and here we’ll look primarily at her connection with specific plants. Note that Brigid has many name variations such as, Brigit, Brig, Brighid, and Bride.

Brigid is a goddess of fire and water. It’s noteworthy that Imbolc falls at the celebration of Iemanja, Queen of the Sea, another elemental powerful mother figure with a great capacity for healing and consolation. At this turn of the seasonal wheel, the element of water clears winter’s stagnancy, opening the path for revitalization and new beginnings. Fire represents the elimination of impediments to start again, the life force in all living beings, and the warm rays of the sun.

The timing of Imbolc is parallel to other ancient celebrations like the Aztec new year, Chinese new year, Roman Lupercalia, and the sacred day was adapted into the Christian calendar as Candlemas. Pagan Imbolc traditions included torchlit processions on fields to ensure an abundant growing season ahead.

Celtic pagans lit a sacred fire in Brigid’s honor. Romans had a torchlit procession honoring Juno Februata/Regina that would be enveloped into Christian ceremonies by the 7th century CE. Candlemas ceremonies in the 11th centurry CE included lighting and blessing of candles, a holdover of recognizing the connection to fire at this time of year.

According to folklore, Brigid was descended from the Tuatha Dé Danann, the daughter of the Dagda and wife of Bres, with whom she had a son named Ruadán. The Tuatha Dé Danann are part of Ireland’s mythic past, an ancient tribe of gods, Ireland’s first inhabitants, that over time became interlaced with the many-storied origins of the fae, sidhe, or faery folk. Brigid’s reach into the collective memory is very long, and she is correlated with the Greek goddess Athena and the Roman goddess Minerva.

Brigid as a Triple Goddess, portrayed as three sisters, or sometimes three mothers, is a very old archetype that illustrates the fluidity of time. Sometimes the Triple Goddess archetype is Maiden-Mother-Crone and when it is three sisters or mothers, the same idea applies, cycles beget cycles, what is old is born again to the next cycle. Brigid’s counterparts as the Triple Goddess are also called Brigid, unlike other Triple Goddesses. Brigid in her triplicity rules poetry, smithcraft, and healing.

She is a goddess of inspiration, herbal healing, midwifery and fertility, protection of mothers and children, augury and divination. Her symbols include: fire, flames, anvils and blacksmith tools, hearths, home, water, cauldrons, springs, wells, grain, Brigid wheels, white cows (especially those with red ears), wolves, snakes, swans, hibernating animals (groundhog, bear, badger), vultures, and ravens, the first annual bird to nest in Scottish Highlands in February.

*The Coming of Bríde* by John Duncan, 1917.

Imbolc, means “in the belly” and refers to the breeding season of livestock, especially ewes. As well as being a wielder of regenerative power in bringing forth the spring, Brigid is a guardian of mothers, human and animal. Dairy products, milk, and the color white are connected with Brigid and used for Imbolc celebrations and offerings. That cattle and livestock would make noise to warn of danger, shows Brigid’s close relationship of protection with the animal realm.

Brigid’s church at Kildare was built in an oak grove sacred to the Druids, and Brigid is aligned with oak’s associations of strength, vitality, navigating liminal spaces and portals. Irish duir has linguistic roots to “door,” leadership, as in Old Irish law that held the oak as the primary tree. Oak is linked to an even older Celtic deity, the Dagda, the good god, often symbolized as a stag with large antlers and a cauldron of plenty. Dagda is able to provide for the earthly needs of the people because he follows the natural law of living in harmony with nature, thus the imagery of abundance. The stag symbolism goes back to the Sumerian god Enki and a worship of stags and stag gods is prevalent across early Celtic Europe, moving more into a green man stag artistic expression in Celtic Ireland and Britain.

The Gundestrup cauldron, La Tène Celtic Art, c.100 BCE

As Dagda’s daughter, Brigid is a female counterpart of much of the same energy, and perhaps preserves memories of the oldest Celtic traditions from what is now Eastern Europe within the living Celtic traditions of Ireland. It is her strength and magic that brings each growing season alive, abiding by the natural order’s cycles, and with oak, she shares imagery of the abundant cauldron, Brigid as the divine feminine generative force that directs earthly manifestation, including the weather.

Imbolc has a long tradition of predicting the weather that would be crucial for prosperous husbandry. If the weather at Imbolc was poor, the Old Woman of Winter, the Cailleach, wouldn’t be able to gather lots of firewood to continue to keep warm in the cold weather, so it was a positive omen for good weather ahead. These weather divination practices continued in the Christian celebration of Candlemas and today in Groundhog Day.

“If Candlemas day be fair and bright, Winter will have another flight.
If Candlemas day be shower and rain, Winter is gone and will not come again.”

At Imbolc, Brigid carries a white willow wand with an acorn tip that controls the weather. She defeats the Cailleach, the Old Woman of Winter. Willow has a strong life force and can regenerate itself from a twig in the soil, bringing the energy of vitality, and the speedy growth of spring. As emerging from the winter cave, moving from a space of dream time to directed action, can feel uncomfortable, willow eases the discomfort of moving through change, mourning loss, welcoming the new, and accepting the flow of life. Additionally, willow comforts by relieving physical pain. Like willow, Brigid is expert in liminal spaces, and the need for certain boundaries.

Willow is linked with feminine energy and the lunar cycle, and is a shapeshifter of consciousness and emotions. Its branches are flexible, expressing movement and change rather than resistance. It’s a tree of enchantment and dreaming, enhancing the confidence to follow one’s intuition, inspiring leaps of imagination, easily flowing with Brigid’s creative inspiration. Trees like willow or hawthorn, often growing near springs and water, would be decorated with clooties, strips of cloth infused with prayer or intention, sometimes written, and tied to the tree branches as an offering. Clootie offerings can be made especially on any the cross quarter days (Imbolc, Beltane, Lughnasa, Samhain) and are thought to be an evolution of ancient Celtic votive offerings made in wells and water sources for healing and to honor the nature spirits.

Hawthorn trees were another tree that can be associated with Brigid through the traditions of offerings at the water. Hawthorn tends the fires of the circulatory system as a cardiac tonic and blood pressure regulator. Hawthorn helps to reorient to having the heart as inner compass, in line with the Chinese concept of shen, the spirit that integrates western concepts of mind, emotion, and spirit residing in the heart.

When shen is in balance, we feel connected to our authentic self, our sense of power, vitality, joy. For shen to thrive, balance and boundaries must be honored, following the natural law that Brigid follows to bring forth the spring’s fiery spark of life. As a valuable winter medicine, hawthorn is a delicious plant to connect with at Imbolc, either the berries for circulation, nourishing the quickening movement that will happen from late winter to spring, or the flowers, to connect with lust for life in its floral alluring aspect, also aiding flow of connection in relationships. I connect with hawthorn berry as a modulator of fire and water in a watery season, so it’s intuitively a match for Brigid’s fire and water elemental action.

Brigid’s wand is sometimes said to be made of birch. In Celtic traditions, birch is more often associated with Beltane spring and autumn Samhain celebrations. This association with Brigid’s wand as birch makes a lot of sense as birch is helpful in clearing out stagnant energies, cleansing to release in preparation for coming change. Birch is a tree of light, clarifying, purifying, helping us to move toward goals with gentle persistence, aligning us with inner authority, self discipline, clarification of motivation and purpose. For Imbolc, fallen birch bark can make a wonderful ritual offering. Write on it, or infuse it with your intention, and offer it to fire, water, bury it in the earth, or gift it to a tree.

Blackberry is sacred to Brigid, and the leaves and berries are used to attract prosperity and healing. Blackberry is said to be a goddess plant, belonging to the planetary sphere of Venus. It nourishes with a high mineral content, acts as a tonic for reproductive organs, and its astringency tones tissues. This rose family plant protects small animals in its bushes and thickets, creating boundaries with thorns. It's known for its strong life force, able to flower and berry at the same time. Blackberry represents the pleasure of sweet fruits, the satisfaction of nourishment, the importance of living in harmony with nature to have access to nutrient dense fruits and leaves.

For all its sweetness, blackberry has tenacity and stamina, is both flexible and tough. As a vine, it’s a mobile plant, able to move across the landscape, a connector and networker of land and plants. Like blackberry’s sheltering abundance, Brigid is a protector of women, mothers, children, and animals, a protector of life force, generously offering her strength to support all the living things of spring, and the force of spring itself. Blackberry as an ogham also speaks to the circular patterns of life and the lessons to be learned. If it's not learned this time round, vine returns to earth and sprouts up in a new spot with a renewed chance to learn and dance this spiral life. The Catholic tradition associates Brigid with the wider category of vine.

A few other plants are commonly associated with Brigid: heather, gooseberry, hazel, and apples. Heather is associated with earth goddesses like Brigid, Isis, Aphrodite, Venus, Gaea, good luck, protection of women, open portals to the fairy world, and bees. Gooseberry was used in relation to menstrual cycles to slow bleeding and as a tonic, and with Brigid, childbirth and women’s cycles. Hazel is a plant spirit energy that’s open to connection, and is sacred to poets and seekers. In the battle of Moytura in which Brigid’s son Ruada was killed, and Brigid invented a whistling sound to communicate in the air, hazel helped communication between the realms of life and death. Brigid tended an apple orchard in the Celtic Otherworld, thus tending the wisdom, healing, magic of apples. With all these plant connections, it’s not surprising that bees, bringing healing nectar to the earth, are sacred to Brigid.

There are other, likely more modern, associations of plants with Brigid, like ginger, angelica, basil, myrrh, celandine, and dandelion. For ritual purpose and ease of sourcing, ginger is my favorite of these, revitalizing and stimulating the fire within. Once one connects with the archetype of Brigid, all growth of plants and flowers could be in her domain. Whichever plant is chosen for focus, where Brigid goes, flowers grow where she steps, marking a fertile path forward.

How was Imbolc celebrated?

Februa, Latin for February, was the Roman month to clean. Cleaning clears winter’s stagnant energies and makes space for a new season. Februalia was a month-long period of purification, in which atonements, sacrifices, and offerings were made. Over time the Februalia festival became associated with Vesta as keeper of the sacred fire. Celts would also completely clear any remaining Yuletide decorative greens, offering them to the Brigid’s Imbolc fires, and it was a time to clean the house and ready the fields and farms. It’s easy to see how clearing space for new growth and feeding the fire with what is no longer needed would be a natural inclination at this turn of the seasonal wheel. The Celtic ritual fires at Imbolc marked the return of the sun, kindling clarity, warmth, and abundance in the home.

In balance with the fire element, offerings were made at wells and water spots from ancient times on.

"Visiting wells was another important custom for Imbolc, particularly holy wells. Visitors would walk around the well in the same direction as the sun traversed the sky at that point on the land, praying for health and wealth for the year. Offerings were left at the well once this was done; usually coins or ‘clooties’ (pieces of cloth). Special foods were also part of the festivities, usually consisting of bannock - a flatbread cut into wedges - as well as dairy products and meat.”

In Medieval times, it was thought Brigid would visit the homes of the most worthy, blessing them for the year ahead, so people left clothing, food or tokens on their doorsteps for Brigid. Ashes would be allowed to burn out to check for the mark of Brigid’s visit. Sometimes a bed was made next to the fire for Brigid to take some rest. In some areas across Ireland and Scotland, women played a very important part in the festivities:

“They would make a doll figure from rushes known as a ‘Brideog’, dress it in white and with flowers, and carry it in a procession while singing hymns and poems in honour of Bridget. At every home they passed, they would receive more pieces of cloth or small bits of food for the Brideog. Once the procession was finished, they would place the Brideog in a seat of honour and have a feast with all of the food, before placing it in a bed for the night while they began celebrations.”

How to celebrate Imbolc today

Imbolc was a time to clean and purify, a time for offerings, and a time for Dianic and other initiations. Now Imbolc can be a time for a reset of your choice, releasing on the material realm or letting go of habits, behaviors, thoughts. Imbolc season is time for an inner journey of inspiration, when creative work is energized. Make time for laughter, sleep, appreciating sweetness, quieting the mind and spirit.

Purify and cleanse, refresh and renew.
Clean the house, get rid of what’s ready to go,
Clean the body with salt- earth.
Clear thoughts with incense smudge- air.
Move emotions with water.
Ignite spirit with fire, intention, crystals.
Consider what you are dedicated to and how to rededicate yourself.
Burn lavender or rosemary as incense.
Clean your crystals.
Bless yourself. Bless.
Set an intention for the next growing season, how do you want to grow in the sun this spring and summer?
Brigid’s number is 19, so consider continuing a ritual for 19 days, like 19 days of burning a candle lit with your intention setting.
Take a candle-lit salt bath.
Brigid’s colors: white for purity, sacred milk, snowy landscape; red for fire, sun, and life force; blue for Brigid’s blue mantle in the Christian tradition; and green for her sometimes green mantle, representing her faery connection and the land of Ireland.
Make an offering for Brigid of early greens and flowers, like snowdrops.
Make an offering at the water- a leaf or other object of nature infused with intention and gratitude.
Make an offering to the fire (carefully!) or light a candle in Brigid’s honor.
Use birch bark (never pull from the tree- use only what has already been freely given on the ground) to make an offering or intention.
Eat and cook with blackberries.
Offer Brigid bread and cheese, or another food offering.
Make a symbolic bed for Brigid in your home (could be any size- it’s symbolic).
Make a Brigid cross or doll.

In honoring Brigid, there is a remarkably long history of acknowledging the rhythm of the seasons, feeding the fire of purification and life force, embracing the waters of life and of healing. Following these ancient footsteps, it’s possible to find comfort in all the changes and uncertainties. I hope that you take what is useful to you from this exploration of Imbolc, Brigid and her herbs and rituals, and honor whatever your needs are for clearing and reinvigoration. Each turn of the seasonal wheel invites us to release the spent and invite in the good, celebrating this dance of returning to earth again and again, turning, and returning. Wishing you inspired Imbolc blessings!