Today, February 1st, is the first significant day of 2024, in Earth terms at least. It is Imbloc (pronounced emolc) also called St Brigit's Day (pronounced Breed). This is the mid-point (more or less) between the Winter Solstice (when the new year really begins) and the Spring Equinox.
In our book, Learning, Environment and Sustainable Development, Paul Vare and I wrote this:
"Brigit ... originally was goddess of the ancient British Kingdom of Brigantia. Brigit regenerates the forces of nature at the end of each winter. As Kathy Jones notes, Imbolc (half way between the Winter Solstice and the Spring Equinox) is Brigit’s festival, “in which the Light of Illumination from Her perpetual flame is brought into a darkened room, heralding the coming of spring. Small honey and barley cakes are eaten and milk drunk in Her honour. On the first day, the ears of corn from the Lammas Corn Doll are planted in the ground and the dried stalks are burned, the flame releasing the life back into the earth. The ashes are spread upon the ground.
‘Priestess of Avalon’, Kathy Jones describes Glastonbury thus: “Glastonbury is a small eccentric country town where many people come to live an internalised womb-like life for a time. It may be nine or eighteen months or more, before they are reborn, sometimes spewed out from the body of the Great Mother. As the Goddess in the landscape is ever-pregnant and continuously giving Birth, this process is repeated in the many different areas of life for those who live here. Visitors too are catalysed into new ways of living by the touch of Her Life-Giving Body.
So, Happy Imbolc. I should really be in Ynys Avalon to celebrate this, but West Wilts will have to do once again. Maybe next year.
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For breadth, you might read in The Conversation who explores the difference between Bridgit the goddess and St Bridgid the religious icon whose special day is celebrated more in Ireland than it is here. And here is Eleanor Cheetham writing a CPRE blog.
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