Musings on the things to do before the festival.
(Image description: A photo of a white, lit candle on a wooden table. Some small, dried white flowers are near it. In the background, the sun rises over the horizon, as seen through a window.) Credit: Photo by Sixteen Miles Out on Unsplash
Surprisingly, Imbolc/La Féill Bríd is three and a half weeks away. It feels like it was just the winter solstice, but time flies more and more. Winter is here in full stride, while the days are incrementally lengthening.
As a note, I’m in a transition period and will be using a couple terms for festivals for the time being. It’s a slow weaning off of a strictly Irish perspective and toward a more cross-cultural one. Eventually, I will probably use mainly Scottish terms. We’ll see how this develops. It’s something specific to my practice, and it works for me.
During the last Imbolc/La Féill Bríd, the mood was very different. My father was in the last few months of his life, so there was a heaviness to the previous season. A joyous celebration of Brighid’s return was considerably lessened. It’s difficult to embrace spring when Brighid the Keener is your Companion.
However, things have been slowly improving. Grief is still felt, but dawn still manages to shine through in bringing joy into my life.
With that shift, my religious focus has been broadened beyond a Gaelic influence. As I have researched, I find more Brythonic influences seeping in my practice, due to Scotland having other cultural connections. I’m embracing Brigantia and Nodens into it. It’s an interesting balance of incorporating similar, yet distinct influences and seeing what works for me.
Now, that influence is sure to affect how I decorate my altar for the coming festival. I can’t say with any certainty how my more ancient ancestors would have celebrated the changes between winter and spring, especially with shifts in time and continental climates.
There are modern sources for how this holiday can be observed, since older ones didn’t survive from Brythonic-speaking cultures in Scotland. Some searching around Sepânioi Rotî’s website shows some commonalities that can seamlessly be practiced in my personal festivities, such as candles, meditating, crafting, poetry, and other hearth-based activities.
With the festival’s approach, I feel the need to finish up the contemplative tasks asked of me during Samhain/Samhuinn. Some of that involves Self-work, and I also need to finish reading A Celtic Book of Dying, both as a resource for myself and Clann Bhríde. You can expect a book review for that later this month.
The finer details of food and ritual will be hammered out (pun intended) over the next few weeks. They’ll still be simple, as that’s a continuous cornerstone within my religious routine. I will discuss those in the future entries on the blog.
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