From Brigit with Love

Tomorrow night I will be attending the C.O.G. ritual celebrating the yearly return of fire, Imbolc. The goddess sacred to this ritual is Bhride, also known as Brigit. The days have become noticeably longer, and I'm happy to see the light returning. It's still solidly winter white here in Minnesota, which leaves me wishing and hoping for Spring more and more.

So I went online and downloaded some ideas for garden design, and I stumbled across this most glorious thing on my journey: a design of four seasonal gardens for Brigit's Garden on the theme of the Celtic festivals.

Imbolc (pronounced Im-ulk) is the old Celtic name for the spring festival on 1st February, now St. Brigit's Day. The birth of lambs and the first snowdrops herald this season of new life. In the Imbolc garden the path leads through hay meadow and orchard trees to a children's glade with its delightful basketwork swings. Further on, a carved triple spiral symbolises Brigit, who is often represented as three sisters or as the three patrons of poetry, smithcraft and midwifery.

Such is the nature of the imagination that I can take myself there, walk through the gardens and dream of creating my own sacred spaces on this old plot of land here in Minnesota. So tonight I will pick up my Stav and seek guidance from the Old Ones on how best to plan my garden. Such is the imagination of Nature herself that I should be given the dream. I will plan my garden to heal, to dance, to sing, to laugh, to play and make merry in.

There have been many challenges in my life lately, not the least of which is the looming "job transition" which is a nice way of saying lay off. It's to happen sometime in May, they are saying now. It could change, but whether it does or doesn't makes no difference to me. I will have a plan in hand to dig, shape, plant and create my own gardens to honor the Sacred Earth in my life. And I just may have some extra time to work on it as well.

So much thanks to Bhride for the inspiration and aid toward crafting visual poetry and stoking the fire of my imagination, so that I may bring into being a sacred space and pass that gift on.

I go to Stav Huathe, the Hawthorne Tree.