Candlemas eve. Candlemas, a Catholic holiday, is the "Feast of the Purification of the Blessed Virgin Mary." But it co-opted an earlier pagan holiday, Imbolc, and that is the feast that calls to me.
Imbolc is described by Mike Nichols as meaning, "literally, 'in the belly' (of the Mother). For in the womb of Mother Earth, hidden from our mundane sight but sensed by a keener vision, there are stirrings. The seed that was planted in her womb at the solstice is quickening and the new year grows. " It also celebrates Brigit, "the Irish goddess of fire, patroness of smithcraft, poetry and healing."
I think of it as mid-winter's day. In ancient times, fires were lit in Brigit's honor. The Catholics use the day to bless all the candles that will be used for the year. Linda Hoddy writes, "Brighid was virtually fire itself, as she blazed with fire in her heart, fire in her head, and fire in her hands. From the fires of her mind came the gifts of writing and poetry. From her heart came the "warmth of compassion." From her hands came the craft of "bending iron." And from her hearth came gifts of healing. She became famous as a healer as she collected roots and barks and leaves and boiled them in pots on her hearth to make healing teas. When people could not remember her recipes for the healing potions, she took a stick blackened in the fire and "began to make marks with it on a flat piece of bark. . . ‘These are the talking marks,’" She said. "They are a way to remember what you don’t want to forget." Thus we have one version of the origin of writing. Legend says the "fire on Bridget’s head blazed up as she wrote." (http://www.saratoga-uu.org/Transcripts2.cfm?TN=serv0345)
"From her heart came the "warmth of compassion." This morning I had a dream. My mother came back to see me. Tomorrow, on Candlemas, it will be seventeen years since I last saw her, in a hospital room, in a coma. I held her hand as she slipped away. In the dream, she was a spirit, and she didn't look like my mother but it was her. She spoke with Greg and me. I can't even remember what she said, but she left me with that sense of motherlove kindled again in my heart. Deeply. Like she was really there. I woke up with it, warmed.
So, this year, for the first time ever I celebrate Candlemas. At sunset I'll light votives around the house. Candles against the darkness, celebrating the sprouts of new life deep in the earth under the snow, looking toward light, toward spring.
Imbolc is described by Mike Nichols as meaning, "literally, 'in the belly' (of the Mother). For in the womb of Mother Earth, hidden from our mundane sight but sensed by a keener vision, there are stirrings. The seed that was planted in her womb at the solstice is quickening and the new year grows. " It also celebrates Brigit, "the Irish goddess of fire, patroness of smithcraft, poetry and healing."
I think of it as mid-winter's day. In ancient times, fires were lit in Brigit's honor. The Catholics use the day to bless all the candles that will be used for the year. Linda Hoddy writes, "Brighid was virtually fire itself, as she blazed with fire in her heart, fire in her head, and fire in her hands. From the fires of her mind came the gifts of writing and poetry. From her heart came the "warmth of compassion." From her hands came the craft of "bending iron." And from her hearth came gifts of healing. She became famous as a healer as she collected roots and barks and leaves and boiled them in pots on her hearth to make healing teas. When people could not remember her recipes for the healing potions, she took a stick blackened in the fire and "began to make marks with it on a flat piece of bark. . . ‘These are the talking marks,’" She said. "They are a way to remember what you don’t want to forget." Thus we have one version of the origin of writing. Legend says the "fire on Bridget’s head blazed up as she wrote." (http://www.saratoga-uu.org/Transcripts2.cfm?TN=serv0345)
"From her heart came the "warmth of compassion." This morning I had a dream. My mother came back to see me. Tomorrow, on Candlemas, it will be seventeen years since I last saw her, in a hospital room, in a coma. I held her hand as she slipped away. In the dream, she was a spirit, and she didn't look like my mother but it was her. She spoke with Greg and me. I can't even remember what she said, but she left me with that sense of motherlove kindled again in my heart. Deeply. Like she was really there. I woke up with it, warmed.
So, this year, for the first time ever I celebrate Candlemas. At sunset I'll light votives around the house. Candles against the darkness, celebrating the sprouts of new life deep in the earth under the snow, looking toward light, toward spring.
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