The Imbolc Celebrations
Today is a very important day for our Wiccan friends, as Winter is soon over and Spring Equinox is on the horizon, this date also marks the time of the year where sheep, vital cattle to human sustainment since the dawn of times begin breeding and lactation. Therefore celebrating nature’s cycle and order. The day is one of the most important ones in Celtic, and today’s Wiccan calendar, where this day and night are dedicated to welcome into the worshippers home the presence of Brigid, the ancestral goddess of fertility This days sees fires, puppet weaving representing the goddess, and a central role to the poets, sacred to Brigid, who recite devout prose and composition in her honour.
With the advent of Christianity Imbolc was transformed into Saint Brigid’s day a healer nun who shared with the Goddess the symbolism of fire and milk.
Modern day Wiccan spirituality sees in this day a strong opportunity to reconnect with nature, as if opening the windows, after they were kept shut during winter to keep out the winter cold, and individual practices are carried out, such as taking a cleansing bath, visiting rivers or streams, composing and reading poetry, begin planting some crops and flowers for the coming Spring, thorough cleaning of one’s home, and of course, light a candle. All rituals that include re welcoming nature into our homes and its natural and perennial cycles.
An interesting element is that Imbolc’s celebrations are not only, in parallel, celebrated as Saint Brigid’s Day, the same day was in the Greek Christian celebration of Candlemas as feat of purification, and finds a parallel with the Roman festivity of Februalia, where Februs God of purification and the underworld was worshipped. Nature’s cycles affect human rituals since the dawn of time.
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