Tomorrow February 1st, is celebrated as St. Brigid’s day in Ireland. It is the first Celtic fire festival of 2024, Imbolc derives from the Irish i bolg, in the belly, and in the fields and hedgerows birds are moving towards nesting and new life is being conceived. 

I watched a fox slink across our neighbour’s field most likely hunting for a lamb yesterday. All I could do was marvel at the beauty of its red coat and hope the lambs were still in the belly, while accepting the divine design inherent in the interrelated web of life. 

It was pitch black when I got up this morning, the deepest dark is always just before dawn, reminding me of how so very often things tend to get very bad, just before change for the better. It is through this lens that I am viewing the wars that are ongoing on the planet. Hence while I am gutted at the inhumanity of 5th generation weapons and insanity and heartbreak of Earth’s war zones, I am holding more strongly than ever that the absolute horror of our current war zones will be the catalyst for humanity to come together as a people and say No to War – Forever.

I do not believe the majority of humans want or are even capable of generating the levels of hate necessary to keep fuelling war, it is my understanding that it is our governments/military industrial complex/media and those behind them who are perpetuating this cycle.

And so tomorrow’s fire festival is a chance to add our energy to the many indigenous peoples who are in ceremony at this cross quarter point, as the first shoots of this year’s growth emerge and we sense Mother Earth’s energy rising.

Imbolc traditionally honours the potency of the Sacred Feminine and is celebrated as a national holiday - Saint Brigid’s Day in Ireland. And so we will be remembering Brigid in our homes tomorrow, Brigid the keeper of the perpetual flame. We will celebrate her passion, her healing skills, her miracles and draw her cloak of protection close around as we renew our Brigid’s crosses that serve as a protection for our hearth and homes.

The beginning of Spring is a time when our energy naturally looks inwards as we emerge from the deepest dreaming time of the year, it’s a time to listen to our intuition, our feminine side, and to sow the seeds of our dreams for the year ahead. We come into alignment with the energetic cycle of the wheel of the year as we walk the land outside, barefoot is best to deeply ground our beings, experiencing the potential of new beginnings already sprouting beneath our feet and the energy of the Sacred Feminine rising. 

The indigenous cultures of South America say that humanity has been like a Condor flying with one wing for millennia. Our masculine side has been dominant and hence we forged ahead with progress regardless of the cost to the web of life, now however, we have moved into a time when the sacred feminine is rising. They say that when the Condor fledges with two wings, masculine and feminine in balance, within us all,  humanity will take the next leap of flight. 

Ireland is named after the Goddess Éiriú and Ireland’s connection with the Sacred Feminine continued throughout our 800 year occupation, albeit much muted. Imbolc was first associated with the Goddess Brigid ‘Exalted One’ in the ancient cycles, She was the  Goddess of Healing, Poetry, Smithscraft, and Childbirth and daughter of the Dagda, Chief of the Gods of the Tuatha De Danann.

Many of her aspects were incorporated by Celtic Christianity into Saint Brigid, who founded a monastery in County Kildare in the 5th century, and is said to have performed numerous miracles including turning water into wine. The sisters who were followers of Saint Brigid tended a perpetual flame that she lit, and this perpetual flame is being tended today. 

And so tomorrow we will light our Imbolc Fire on the land, we welcome the energy of the sacred feminine rising and hold for the restoration of balance and right relationship on this and all lands. 

The sacred feminine is associated with the waters, the healing that happens as we allow our emotions to flow through us without attachment or judgment, surrendering to the flow of life as the waves ebb and flow with the tides, and a mother births her child. 

Many holy wells in Ireland are named after Saint Brigid, and these holy wells continue to be tended to this day, especially on February 1st where the tradition of pilgrim walks to local wells continues.   When we kneel at the edge of a sacred well drawing from her clear waters, the beauty of the Goddess touches us and opens us to her beauty all around. 

It is my prayer this Imbolc that we open to the energy of the sacred feminine rising all around us, as the grass starts to grow with the lengthening of each day, and buds begin to burst open, opening to our intuition, our creativity, our capacity to birth new life, new beginnings and nurture,  that humanity returns to right relationship between the sacred masculine and feminine within and without, so that we realise the dream our souls incarnated into these bodies and this life to fulfil, that we honour the sacred law that nothing is done to harm the children or the generations to come.