imbolc – Aspirational Adventures

Daffodils in my local park. Photographed by me March 2022

February 1st is Imbolc. Often seen as the start of Spring. It comes exactly between the winter equinox and the spring solstice. It is known as a quarter day. In the church calendar it is known as Candlemas the time to get candles blessed but also when the light is coming.

It has been noticeable on my morning dog walks that the sky is lightening, that there is a something in the air. Things have changed. The Met Office is still “promising” us a cold snap later in the month, but the air does feel different. The dawn chorus is more vibrant. This morning there was a large flock of geese flying out across the sea honking away. I can feel the urge to spring clean, to start a new things. Being me of course that means that after promising myself in January that I would only sign up for one thing at a time I now have three things I have signed up for and 2-3 others on the back burner, simmering. I can feel I want to get on and do things. Whereas at New year I wanted to hibernate. We were meant to be going to see our mothers on the 2nd weekend in January but my husband had a bit of a cold and instead of me pushing him onwards I advocated a hibernation weekend. I do think we both benefited from it. But now that the lighter days are coming I am ready to start planning.

So it got me to wondering why we don’t pick Imbolc, Candlemass, Brigid’s day, 1st February, as the day when we make resolutions for the year. I’m sure I’m not the only one who feels more like it. That heaviness of Christmas has gone. That need to be doing has gone. I know people who have done Veganuary and Dry January and so are feeling lighter, fresher, healthier. Now is the time to start thinking of those things we’d like to do during the year.

No I’m not going to now start advocating goals and resolutions, as I said before [sorry can’t find that post to be able to tag it]. But I am as the sun starts to show itself more often, as the light is fresher, I am going to start doing what many did on 1st January, and am going to start looking at what I would like to achieve this year.

I’m also in that strange limbo land. My friend with the cancer died last week but there still hasn’t been a date announced for her funeral. I should know today. But for now all I can do is hold my plans lightly, not put anything firmly in my diary, and also trust. Though I also think threshold time is a good time to plan. One is stood between two worlds not yet able to step into the next. I can write my wish list on the walls of the chamber I wait in.

Though of course maybe that is why people do this in that space between Christmas and the New Year? That is a threshold time too.

Imbolc – 1st February

February 1^st-2^ndmarks a confluence of several feasts and occasions including: the Celtic feast of Imbolc, St. Brigid’s Day, Candlemas, Feast of the Presentation, and Groundhog Day! Of all these things what do we know to be fully true? Or what, like the stories of the Celtic Saints are not meant to be literal or historical, but spiritual, mythical, archetypal, and psychological, resonating with the deepest parts of our souls.

I wonder how often we fight to make things factual. Yes not necessarily “true”, whatever that means, but factual. I know I’ve said it before about someone, and I thought it was CS Lewis but can’t find the actual quote, who says that “the Bible is true” but not factual.

Imbolc is said to be the day when sheep start lambing and when the days start to get noticeably longer; Brigid was allegedly a powerful abbess showing that Celtic Christianity was pro-women; she is also connected with the pantheon of ancient Celtic gods and goddesses; Candlemas is celebrated as the day Jesus was present at the temple in Jerusalem and recognised by Anna and Simeon, yet also within the bible narrative he was in Egypt at this point; and Groundhog day is to do with the shadow of a groundhog and how long winter will last, although we use the meaning for “Groundhog day” more in keeping with Bill Murray’s movie.

But as one thinks over these feasts and occasions with their elements of “truth” we need to realise how much we need them. As women we need a powerful woman, whether saint or goddess, to encourage us as we deal with our homes, our children, partners, and the mundane of life, because no matter how you jazz it up housework, daily feeding of a family, etc are boring and repetitive. But to have a supernatural woman to turn to then it helps.

To have something like groundhog day when, as we step tentatively out of winter and into spring we are reminded that it may either getting better immediately or not. And not just the weather. As we step into another month of the ever extending lockdown here in the UK, I believe, it is good to be able to think that, at the turn of a groundhog’s shadow things could change rapidly or continue for longer. I am wondering if we need to put in some superstition to help us through this lockdown time, something we can turn to that might just help us keep on keeping on? Something that gives us hope but in a “well if it doesn’t happen then it will in time” type of hope.

Hope isn’t instant. Sometimes hope unfurls slowly and only when it has fully come to fruition do we recognise it for what it is. Sometimes what we are hoping for unfurls in a very different way to what we wanted. Which then leads us to Jesus being presented in the Temple and the two old people, who had been waiting their whole lives, recognised him for who he truly was. Factually he was a small baby, child of two not overly well-off parents, but these two old people knew him for what he truly was – the saviour of the world. But the only way they knew was because they had been praying their whole lives. Are we willing to pray our whole lives to see change? To see something amazing unfold?

Even though, as I saw that original sentence on the Abbey of The Arts newsletter I thought the events were unconnected as I have explored through this post I can see that they all fit together like a well-made glove. And this makes me willing to pray for the future. A future I may only glimpse that that will benefit the whole world.