A Celebration

This week celebrates Celtic Imbolc, marking the lengthening of days and the beginning of spring.  Also called Brigid's Festival, it's a celebration of the divine feminine.

And so what started as a casual glance at Instagram (thanks Robert!) has taken me down a virtual rabbit hole (what did we do without internet?!), seeing old beliefs and traditions in a new light.

Turns out that there's much more to Saint Brigid (the namesake of the church I was baptized and married in) than I ever knew... even after doing research on her for our wedding programs.  What I learned then was that Saint Brigid was likely born near Louth, Ireland in 453 and that her parents were baptized by Saint Patrick.  Her feast day is February 1st.

Turns out, there's a reason for that.  Just like Christmas Day falls on the Roman pagan holiday of Saturnalia (the New Testament gives no date or year for Jesus's birth), Saint Brigid's feast day falls on Imbolc, the pagan holiday of Brigid's Festival (and the midpoint between the winter and spring equinoxes).  Turns out that long before she "became" a saint, Brigid was the Celtic goddess of fertility, who was reborn on Imbolc from the "crone of winter" to the "maiden of spring".  She represents regeneration and light.  One article I read said that "For me, Imbolc is an honoring of what's not present yet.  It represents the words yet to be spoken, the potential in our spirits, the "calm before a storm" of growth, the quiet before the snow, and the unknown baby before its birth... Imbolc's beauty is in its waiting and not knowing."

Because she was so revered through to the Middle Ages, it seems that the Catholic Church canonized her into a saint (though others believe she was a real person who was later given some of the goddess's attributes) -- there's even a word for this: "syncretism".  Even in articles that talked about her historically, there were always fantastical elements to them: "legend says that Brigid's mother was a slave, who forced her to sell her daughter to a druid when she became pregnant.  Brigid herself was born into slavery, though from the start, it is clear that Brigid is holy"... She vomits when 'unpure' people try to feed her; and "a while cow with red ears appears to sustain her instead."

What shocks me (though perhaps it shouldn't) is that the goddess of fertility with wild red hair becomes a virgin clothed in black instead.  It's a bit like Mary Magdalene... growing up, I thought she was a prostitute; but it turns out that she was from a very well-off family and was actually Jesus's "sugar mama" and one of his main financial sponsors (the Church has apologize for defaming her name for hundreds of years).  This past summer, I devoured an amazing book called Reveal: A Sacred Manual for Getting Spiritually Naked by Harvard-trained theologian Meggan Watterson, who writes of the divine feminine and the missing stories of women's spiritual voices.

She writes of Imbolc and Brigid: "Brigid is a fiery Gaelic fertility goddess still celebrated in my native Isle of Man.  She is honored by fire light, food, and wine, and frankincense and myrrh.  I intend to appease her.  To consider the recovery of the goddess as sacred work.  Because I love god, but I also love the goddess who gave birth to him."  Happy Imbolc.