NB: I wrote another piece before the events of the weekend of 28 January. As a result of the horrors entwining themselves around our government and around our nation, I have rewritten this post to point out that one of the ways Imbolc, the Pagan holiday just past, is often celebrated is with power and politics.

Imbolc is about change. The tone of the piece I originally wrote was delighted, happy, all about celebration and craftiness. And those ways of celebrating are important. They bring hope and beauty, and we need those things. And they bring us closer to early spring and to the goddess-saint Brigid, Someone certainly worth knowing.

But as I said in my previous post, Brigid is the patroness of the Healer, the Bard-Prophet, and Smith-Transformer. Hers are the elements of Fire and Water that come together to create the healing tisane or poultice, the inspired speech or song, and the beaten-bent-malleable iron of the world.

So as you read below, remember this:  The holidays and their importance come and go with the seasons. But they do come, and they come to remind us of hope and beauty. And this holiday in particular, for me, reminds me of change and of our power to create change.

Let us pray:

O Brigid, goddess and saint of Ireland, Britain, Scotland, and Wales, help us in our hour of need!

O Brigid, help us be the Changers that we know You can make us! O Brigid,give us the Fire in the Head, the awen of inspiration, the flow of the preacher, the poet, the bard. Help us speak the difficult truths, the terrifying truths that our government is in danger, our way of life, our very lives are in danger and that WE must rise up and defend one another!

O Brigid, give to us the Hammer and the Anvil and make us into Changers, into the ones who beat swords into ploughshares and wield those ploughshares as symbols of your fertility and love and hope!

O Brigid, give to us the Cauldron and the Hearth, and let us heal one another, hold one another, make community together as we fight this fight, as we defend the oppressed, as we cast the mighty from their thrones!

O Brigid, thank You for all these things, and all that You give to us every day, and especially on Your feast day, the day of freezing and thawing, the day of mud, the day of spring’s first ugliness. Thank You for the snowdrop bursting through the barely-thawed earth, the snowdrop that bears the new frost, that pokes her small, white head up, up from beneath the slush.

O Brigid, help us see through the ugliness that brings despair. Let our Hammer, our Cauldron, our Fire in the Head, let all these things bring hope, hope through action, hope through care, hope through speech and song and word, hope through inspiration, wisdom, and discernment.

So may it be.

If this piece has spoken to you, I invite you to go to the top of the page and click on Love Letters, or just here to see my weekly Reflections. I meditate on spirituality, holidays, virtues, seasons, divination, and other topics touching on the longings and yearnings of our hearts. Be welcome!