Imbolc is a sweet new beginning

After the write-off of January, we can finally start looking forward

Hello and happy Imbolc/St Brigid’s Day to my Irish friends! It’s 1st February and the Celtic early spring festival of Imbolc has finally usurped the longest month of our year (lives?)

This is my post ahead of my next seasonal circle next week, on Tuesday 4 February at 8pm. Normally these posts are just for paid subscribers, but I’ve opened this one up for everyone as it’s ONE YEAR since my circles have been running! (apart from the Zoom link right at the bottom of the page, available to paid subscribers). I love the connection they bring - connecting more deeply with the season we’re in and with the brilliant people in my membership. Fancy joining us? Upgrade to paid membership and you'll receive the Zoom link, and a few things to bring for our circle, in your inbox on Tuesday. You can learn all about me and what a paid subscription offers you here.

Look at these guys, heading towards the light

(S)low January

I feel like January is mainly about recovering from Christmas, which suggests that Christmas has got a little too MUCH and pulls us too far out of our cosy wintering nook. We’ve gone from cosy, traditional winter festival of feasting and jollity to something that requires months of preparation and frequently brings the chief organisers (usually women) to their knees. It’s no wonder that lots of us end up craving more a lot more wintering in January (just when we feel we *should* be back to regular energy levels).

I do enjoy that fresh start feeling on 1 January: new calendar, new calendar year, done with the indulgence of Christmas, ready to move my body, ready to stop eating cheese, to set a few intentions or words for the year ahead. But usually I find that any major burst of energy in early January is a false alarm, the centre cannot hold, and I want to go back to cancelling plans and getting early nights and leaving all the serious ideas and plans to percolate a while longer.

I’ve learnt to realise that this is ok. It’s my pattern and it’s lots of people’s pattern at this time of year, when the mirror of light and weather is inviting us to reflect back what we see and feel around us in the natural world.

It’s always the end of January when I can first discern the dark receding earlier in the mornings and arriving a little later in the afternoons, and with it a lift in my energy to do things, plan things, turn my face upwards towards the light. The weather might not warm up for a few more months but the light moves and enters within us, reminding us of possibility, change, the moment when things spring forth.

Imbolc: better new year vibes than 1st January

Photo by i vv on Unsplash

Enter Imbolc, marking the halfway point between winter solstice and the spring equinox. It’s not spring proper but by now we can feel the first stirrings of spring. The word for the first time pregnant women can feel the flutterings of a baby move inside them is called the “quickening” (such a gorgeous description). And Imbolc is about these early stirrings - it means “in the belly” in reference to fertility, as so many Celtic celebrations are, to the times when life feels pregnant with possibility.

The symbolism we’re working with is awakening from darkness, promise and new beginnings, but we’re also being asked to hold off on leaping into full action mode. We can start to discern which projects or ideas are going to be the ones we follow and start putting things in place, without urgency or the pressure to complete.

This slow move towards more output means avoiding the whole peaking too early phenomenon. The Celtic Wheel teaches an unhurried approach - ideally we’ll have been resting and dreaming (relatively speaking) through the winter, and there’s no need to rush back to full speed yet. This dreamtime really speaks to me in a similar way to the idea of “doing nothing” to inspire creativity. Writers and other artists know that it’s often the moment we go for a walk, swim, coffee that inspiration hits; the way that it’s often sitting with an idea, letting it percolate, that allows the true magic and authenticity in. Not rushing forward ensures really strong roots for our actions, plans and ideas: lots of tending, nourishing and waiting before things unfurl.

Brigid, Celtic goddess and Ireland’s patroness saint

Any discussion of Imbolc must mean a mention of Brigid: Celtic goddess, Christian nun and still a hugely important cultural figure in Ireland. She was a goddess of both fire and water, of healing, poetry and fertility, and as an early Christian saint she founded the church of Kildare, a highly influential institution in medieval Ireland. Both pre-Christian goddess and Christian nun are inspiring sources of feminine power, representing kindness and healing as well as a marriage between masculine and feminine. We’ll talk more about the iconic Brigid in our circle, and how her symbolism can bring meaning to our contemporary lives.

Brigid by Sannie Cuddihy

Activities with an Imbolc energy

• spring cleaning or decluttering

• filling your home with spring flowers

• looking ahead - booking holidays or day trips or making plans to meet up with friends

• journalling on ideas, projects, desires - starting to fill in more detail about what something might look like and how it might work

• gardeners: clearing, planting seeds

I’d love to see you at my circle, or in the comments below. Here’s to a hopeful springtime for you,

Chloe x