imbolc, candlemas, the returning light

In the Celtic calendar, the cross-quarter days (midpoint between the solstices and equinoxes) are important fire festivals. February 1st/2nd is dedicated to Bride, Brigid, and I've lit the candles to celebrate the early light of spring, and floated them in hand-thrown little ceramic bowls of water. This is a 'quiet' fire festival, an inward time, and looks to gentle light rather than to the ebullience of fire – this energy builds as we move through the year towards the midsummer solstice, and then wanes again towards midwinter.

In Mexico this is still celebrated as the beginning of the Aztec new year, and it's seen similarly in Tibet. In the ancient Greek world and the Eleusinian Mysteries, Persephone is released from Pluto's underworld kingdom now, and trails with her early flowers. It's also a time for cleansing and purification, letting go of winter's residue.

The last two mornings a thrush has started up a spring song from the ash tree outside the bedroom window. This white month, in the Celtic tree alphabet, is signified by Nuin, the ash tree, which is dedicated to Brigid (as well as the horse goddess), so this makes me smile. Yesterday as I walked along the valley stream a little (white) egret flew up from (presumably) fishing. Little egrets have colonised many of the Devon estuaries, but it's rare to see them very far inland. We're a few miles from the mouth of the Dart, but this egret seems often to roost in the trees here in winter.

And yesterday morning, too, I spent a couple of hours putting myself between the hunt and two hare in the field next to us (I'm delighted to say they survived, although not really thanks to me). Is it a surprise that hare, seriously in decline in England, are also companions of the Goddess?

*

from 'Entering the Wood'

February is coppicing

            spring-cleaning the wood

                        remembering line, vaulting, architecture

            thinning hazel scrub

                        to let in summer

when it comes

            the pattern of our saws

their dissonant harmonies

                        weak sun on our backs

thin feather of smoke

            and the showers of rufous catkins

   around our feet

                        the mallet’s knock

its echo

                                    on the road the erratic pulse

                        of traffic

                        we think of tidying our lives

  

– Roselle Angwin, in Bardo, May 2011, Shearsman