Januarys end and Imbolc’s arrival
A letter exploring the wild energy held in body and land at this time
Play song - For now I am Winter - Olafur Arnold’s, reworked by Nils Frahm
Hello there,
So January is nearing the end, and February and Imbolc are around the corner. I can feel winter turning, shifting and changing, the deep dark energy winter brings, that pulls my own energy deep into my body and the stories held there, is releasing. Another feeling is beginning to be felt, it is small and twinkling feeling, and just a little whisper. It is a whisper that tells of seeds, greenness, and of energy preparing to rise.
Yesterday, my boy and I went for a walk in one of our favourite places, we saw yellow witch hazel blossoms, snowdrops, dandelion flowers, tiny sorrel leaves and a billion buds, held on the end of bare branches. It made us smile ear to ear and feel incredibly heart happy.
Last Tuesday, I was with a group, a 9 week ecotherapy course called Mindful in Nature which is run by the Sharpham trust, and led by myself and a mindfulness teacher. It was a new group and Tuesday was their first day together, we went out for a walk on the land, and again, spied new growth everywhere.
It is a simple thing, to look out and see these tiny green leaves, to taste the burst of sorrel risen after the winter, to witness dandelion flowers smiling up at you. But a few people mentioned how the sight, taste and beauty of it all filled their heart with hope and gave them courage for their own journey.
When we take time to witness nature move, shift, alchemise and grow from death, it can be incredibly healing, and also insightful for our own journey. I have often found watching the cycles of nature, to be the guide that shows me of how my own inner nature flourishes.
I love February and the ancient festival of Imbolc that arrives with it. Imbolc is celebrated on the 1st February and continues through the 2nd of February. It is also known as Brigits / Brigids day after the Celtic goddess Brigit, who, was said to rise from the death of winter, after journeying the internal and external underworld.
She went into the darkness to find the medicine needed, and she brought back with her, the rewilder, the shifter of stagnancy, the shaker upper, the rebel, the alive one - dandelion.
The flowers and roots in her earthy hands, the flowers woven into her hair like a fiery halo, and dandelions appearing wherever her feet landed on the earth.
Dandelions shift the concrete, the make the stagnancy within melt away, they increase energy and they remind people of the wild power within body, soul and land.
Brigit is the goddess of fire, strength, recovery, herbal medicine, rebels, poets, rebirth, musicians, artists, nature and the fire in spirit. She is especially known as the one who rises from the dark, the one who alchemises the rot into gold.
Imbolc means ‘in the belly’, which symbolises the pregnancy of the earth at this time, we are still in winter, but the end is round the corner and the earth will soon be birthing medicine in abundance, life will start to slowly appear in the above ground world, from every pore, nook and cranny.
After an autumn and winter where we have been witnessing the lands death, the composting and rot that create a fertile womb for the growth to come.
We now start to witness the seeds and growth that are benefiting from all the inward work, and the nourishment of alchemy.
All wild folk, including human, may feel in more colour, the seeds that are stirring within, the ones that want to grow into our lives and offer up their medicine.
February is a transitional month, where we get to begin to taste those that were grown and shaped by the composting of autumn and the tender dark hands of winter, including our own selves.
Our own longings may be felt viscerally at this time for it is when our inner dreams, clarified and forged by winters inward invitation, ask to stretch out and be formed into our days.
It is the last phase of pregnancy, fear of what these beautiful seeds of change will bring, yet an excitement in wanting to know the energy this new way will bring.
Wishing you all the energy of wild new growth.
Brigit x
My Book
I thought I would give you a tiny insight into my book. It will have a title by Wednesday!
And then, art for the cover will begin its journey!!
My deadline is coming closer, which is worrying me, and also, delighting and exciting me.
Poem
Every day I see or hear something
that more or less
kills me with delight,
that leaves me like a needle
in the haystack of light.
It was what I was born for –
to look, to listen,
to lose myself inside this soft world –
to instruct myself over and over
in joy, and acclamation.
Nor am I talking about the exceptional,
the fearful, the dreadful, the very extravagant –
but of the ordinary, the common, the very drab, the daily presentations.
Oh, good scholar, I say to myself, how can you help
but grow wise with such teachings as these –
the untrimmable light of the world,
the ocean’s shine, the prayers that are made
out of grass?
- Mary Oliver
Thank you Brigit 🙏 And wishing you success in the journey of your book.
Thank you for this. My energy has been shifting as well. A new moon and February around the corner. Time to plant all the metaphorical seeds, and then the real ones soon enough!