{"id":7855,"date":"2021-02-02T08:43:49","date_gmt":"2021-02-02T08:43:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/?p=7855"},"modified":"2021-02-02T08:44:11","modified_gmt":"2021-02-02T08:44:11","slug":"the-feast-of-st-brigit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/2021\/02\/02\/the-feast-of-st-brigit\/","title":{"rendered":"The Feast of St Brigit"},"content":{"rendered":"

Brigit (pronounced breed)<\/em> was goddess of the ancient British Kingdom of Brigantia.\u00a0 She regenerates the forces of nature at the end of each winter. \u00a0 Today, February 2nd, is Imbolc (pronounced emolc)<\/em> which\u00a0is half way between the Winter Solstice and the Spring Equinox, and is Brigit\u2019s festival and\u00a0one of the four Celtic Fire festivals<\/a>. \u00a0Christians know it as it Candlemas<\/a>\u00a0and secularists in the UK as a half Quarter Day.<\/p>\n

Kathy Jones notes of Imbolc:<\/p>\n

\u201c... \u00a0the Light of Illumination from Her perpetual flame is brought into a darkened room, heralding the coming of spring.\u00a0 Small honey and barley cakes are eaten and milk drunk in Her honour. \u00a0On 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. \u00a0The ashes are spread upon the ground<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n

That such connections between fertility and the Earth from the ancient past remain active even in a developed capitalist economy (and they are much more extensive across the world) shows the hold that myth and tradition still have on us, and on our need for connectedness to nature.<\/p>\n

Honey and barley cakes sound a fine way to celebrate. \u00a0Maybe with a glass of mead, metheglin, melomel or\u00a0pyment. \u00a0Or herb-infused mulled wine perhaps; here's a suitable Imbolc\u00a0recipe<\/a>\u00a0c\/0 Green Witch.<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

...............................<\/p>\n

Jones, K. Remembering the Nine Morgens: the nine sisters of Avalon<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

This post is a brief extract from one of the chapters in the recently published\u00a0Routledge text<\/a>:\u00a0Learning, Environment and Sustainable Development \u2013 a history of ideas<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Brigit (pronounced breed) was goddess of the ancient British Kingdom of Brigantia.\u00a0 She regenerates the forces of nature at the end of each winter. \u00a0 Today, February 2nd, is Imbolc (pronounced emolc) which\u00a0is half way between the Winter Solstice and...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":237,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[2,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7855","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-comment","category-news-and-updates"],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7855","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/237"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7855"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7855\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7855"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7855"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7855"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}