Wild Women Ways: Imbolc Celebration

Tonight is Imbolc, or the festival of the Goddess Brigid, patron Goddess of the Hearth and Poetry. Celebrated traditionally on Feb 2, this ancient holiday is today recognized as Candlmas, Tu Bi-Shevat, even Chinese New Years. The point is, all traditions are moved by the same earthly rhythms, no matter what the society or culture defines it as. Now is the time of mid-winter; classified by the Aquarian Full Moon. It is the time of first light. Winter Solstice marks the longest night of the year and too the return of the sun with solar entry into Capricorn. Capricorn is an earth sign, its energy is initiating, which means ushering in of change, of a new tide. So at the peak of darkness, in comes new energy in earthly--or physical form. The alchemy of the darkest time--and all the darkness peaking, bursting forth with the initiatory energy of Capricorn births new levels of consciousness within us. Now, at Brigids Day, or Candlemas, or Imbolc--emblazoned by the peak energy of Aquarius with tonight's full moon, that energy is given full light. In our quiet time, now is a powerfull, powerfull time of intention setting, prophecy, and empowering our new ideas. Aquarius is an Air sign--a mental energy with ties to our etheric or spirit selves. It is Fixed, meaning what is energized now in our spirit or ether form will between now and the summer solstice come to full fruition.

Take the time to be conscious, whoever you are, whatever you celebrate, about this!

In honor of my own Intentions, and with perfect love trust and gratitude over the tides that have flowed me to just where I am at this time of year, here is a poem. It appears in this years We'Moon, and is reprinted with permission by author Pesha Joyce Gertler, recipient of Seattle's Populist Poet Award for 2005-2006. Ms. Gertler was so very, very kind in our emailing--thank you Wise Mama, thank you!! This was the poem opposite the page of my birthday this year!

The Limping Goddess:She-Who-Survives©1983
She limps into the room
bent with the cargo of rape, battering
single-parent mothering and bureaucratic neglect
if she is fat or gay or nonwhite or Jewish
the pains multiply;
she has carried them all.

Her lotus feet have trudged this planet
for aeons; torn tennis shoes tell
how far she’s traveled. She hunches
against the winter wind, her second-hand
coat like a blanket she wraps around
her golden body. Occasionally, she flies
over buildings, lands on tree tops,
is mistaken for a fat bird.

And occasionally, she falls,
intensifying her limp. But make no mistake;
that golden skin was mined in the black earth,
her feet, though limping and calloused,
are the lotus feet of She-Who-Survives.
A broken yet shining forgotten deity
returning, and there are millions
like her, multi-colored, limping
Goddesses returning to lay down our cargo
and reclaim our own.