Coming into Bud
The Greening and Flourishing Begins
Today, 4th February 2024 is the cross quarter day that marks the exact midpoint between the winter solstice and the spring equinox. That means, astronomically speaking, today is really Imbolc, the first day of spring, and the feast day of Brigid.
Tomorrow, we have a public holiday in her honour, it being the closest Monday to the 1st February, the fixed official Brigid’s Day which fell last Thursday. So, we get to celebrate her three times within a matter of only a few days! That seems a very fitting way to honour a triune goddess, to me.
I have been enjoying one of those rare days when everyone has left the house for their various reasons, and I am free to do as I please. I had hoped to visit my local Brigid’s holy well, but it is too far away to walk. Instead, I went out into the firelds to gather some rushes to make a Brigid’s Cross. I also made a votive candle, and I will take both offerings to the well on Monday.
In Ireland, our ancestors would make taper candles with rushes and tallow. I thought I’d try using a rush as a wick for my candle; I soaked it in oil, and then placed it into the hot wax and left it to harden. It lit with a beautiful still flame, then burned like an incense stick for a few seconds, and went out. It probably needed to be dried throughly first, just like firewood. So I used a little piece of oil-soaked wood instead, and that produced a lovely flame.
The fields are full of soft rushes here, probably because the ground is so wet and boggy. In the summer, the plants form a very odd little spherical brown flower on the side of the stem. As well as weaving crosses and making wicks for candles, people used to weave rushes into mats as a floor covering, spread them as bedding for animals, and use it to thatch rooves. And perhaps not surprisingly, they are said to have many medicinal properties, the white pith being used to treat sore throats, jaundice, oedema, and urine infections.
In the slow quiet fulness of my day, as my hands worked and my feet carried me through the lanes and into fields, I thought about transitions and boundaries, and the intersections connecting them. How the seasons in nature and in ourselves pass one into the other so fluidly that we barely notice until they are established. Today felt wintry, yet as I walked, I saw so many plants coming into bud. Although it didn’t feel like spring to me, the plants knew, and they were busy, and I had been walking among them with unseeing eyes.
The Cailleach, then, has handed over to Brigid, yet she is unsettled, and does not sleep. She is struggling to adjust. I know how that feels, to work late into the dark beyond your limits and into fatigue, only to find that lying between cool soft sheets is not enough to induce sleep, no matter how tired. Meanwhile, Brigid is stirring into wakefulness, taking her time to come to full cosciousness, and into her power. There is turbulence as they slip between roles. We see it in the weather, we feel it in ourselves.
I lit a candle for the Cailleach today. I thanked her for holding us so safely through the winter. For safguarding the gestation which has been going on in the earth beneath our feet. For minding all the Wild creatures. I wished her well as she goes to her rest, and promised I would walk out in the landscape with her on her return.
Tomorrow, I will light my candle for Brigid.
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Lisa, you just gave me the shivers with that comment... my best and closest friend once said exactly that to me years ago, which started me thinking, what is my church? I wouldn't be here, writing and doing all the things I've done lately, if she hadn't said that to me. I realised that my church is landscape, always had been since I was a child. And that was what brought me to the Cailleach, initially, the Creator and Protector of the landscape. Everything since then has fallen into place. Thank you for the reminder. I am seeing this friend again soon. You have reminded me to thank her for it. 🥰
Ahh, I wish I’d seen this post before I did a Brigid’s Day Guided Walk! Interestingly I discovered that the tradition of gathering rushes was done by family groups on the eve of St. Brigid’s Day, and always in a ‘neighbour’s’ field, as the presence of them indicated poor land and no-one liked to admit they had poor fields!