Good Morning Witches!
Wednesday / Thursday (depending on your tradition) is Imbolc. Not a festival I usually do much for, apart from acknowledging the day and offering a up a prayer to the Goddess Brigid. The Goddess of fertility for the ancient Celts. This time in the year marks the middle between the Winter Solstices and the Spring Equinox. It’s the start of Lambing session and although the ground is still to hard and cold to dig and start to plant crops to harvest in the summer, it is a sign that the thaw is about to start and things will start to get warmer.
I’ve always felt that Imbolc was just one of those reason’s to have another party. There isnt much happening it’s been a while since Solstice celebrations and you know, it’s still cold and dark so anything that lifts the mood kind of thing. Even the early church didn’t quiet know what to do with it. Candlemas, when the year’s supply of candles for the church where blessed, is a kind of muh thing that isn’t that important but we need to do something to keep the nearly converted pagans in the pews. Oh and if we link it to when Jesus was first taken to Jerusalem to be presented in the Temple well that’s two for one.
In the modern mundane world, where we have lost touch with the sessions and the timings of the year it’s even more of a Muh time. It’s cold and dark, nothing really interesting on the telly, Strictly finished ages ago and now if you can stomach commercial telly you can watch the UK’s best drag queen skate around a ice rink. (nothing against our Viv, I love her to the moon and back). It is just a muh time of year.
However Imbolc for me does mark the start of the planning session. Between now and Ostara is the perfect time to start planning what your going to do with the year. For some of us events have dictated that some things have to be done. But what I have found in the house hunting game is a chance to think about how I would like to live and to follow those thoughts in to the fantasy realms. Now that isn’t as daft as it sounds. I’ve dreamed of stone cottages in the middle of woods, totally off grid and as far from the mundane world as you can get. Seaside luxury cottage with views out over the water and sea gulls playing in the wind may be a light house attached, far away from the nearest village. An old Romany style Caravan with camp fire and house tethered up munch on the grass near by. I’ve thought about it all. None of these are reality (unless I win the lottery) but more often than not it show’s a wanting to get out of the modern world and away from the social economic boundary’s of the heteronormative capitalist world that we find ourselves in. Which is an interesting insight in to the way my head works at times, and a little insight in to why I feel that I don’t fit in most of the time.
A couple of years ago I decided that it was time to embrace my weird and make it more of me. To truly start to love all of me and not just the parts that every one else see’s. I’m thinking that it’s time to pick up that task again. Imbolc, seems a natural time to pick that up again. Shadow work show’s us that unless we try and integrate our shadows and learn to understand them, they will for ever haunt us. And now seems like a good a time as any to bring that task back to the front of my to do list. Also this year I want to do some more study especially in Ritual and ceremonial magic. And as much as it pains me to admit I also need to keep adding to the savings pot.
So Imbolc 2023 marks the start of embracing more of my weird, more study to enhance my craft and saving a bit more money. 3 goals for 2023
What ever your plans for Imbolc I hope you have a wonderful time and enjoy the session. Have a blessed week
laters witches!