Brigid, The Goddess of Imbolc

In the Celtic ritual year, Imbolc heralds the first whispers of spring. Here at the halfway point between Winter Solstice and Spring Equinox, snowmelt softens the earth beneath our feet, quickening the landscape towards spring.

Tender snowdrops begin to peek up through the frozen ground and witch hazel sparks to life. Lambs are wriggling to be freed from their mothers’ bellies and their udders begin to swell with milk.

It’s the goddess Brigid who greets us at the threshold of Imbolc, whispering promises of spring. She is the keeper of the eternal flame in the hearth, of poetry and smithcraft, and of fertility and the healing arts. It is Brigid who births ideas and dreams into fruition and transforms dormancy into emergence.

At Imbolc, the earth may still seem fallow and suspended in icy slumber, but there, underneath a cuticle of frost, is the timeless thrum that endures the turning of all seasons. It is the beating of an ancient, primal heart.

Traditionally, saucers of milk were left out for Brigid on the eve of Imbolc. This sweet, fatty, life-sustaining drink signified the promise of impending births as well as the first hint that the time of hunger and want was coming to an end. Cloaks, mantles, and blankets used for healing and comfort are set out overnight in hopes that she’d imbue them with her curative magic.

Brigid's crosses are made from rushes and hung in thresholds and also placed under marriage beds for protection and to promote fertility and safe delivery of babies. These crosses also symbolize the return of the sun and warmth in noticeably longer days. Corn dollies are dressed up in effigy of Brigid and taken door to door to be blessed with small tokens of appreciation.

She is also given a small bed on the hearth, and butter churns were dressed as the goddess in gratitude for the milk that began to flow. There are also many holy wells in Ireland dedicated to Brigid, where people go to seek healing in the waters. The wells themselves are seen as portals to the Otherworld; sacred places where we have access to the magic and the medicine of the Good Folk.

In this moment, we are precariously situated on a threshold between two paradigms; one that is in the final throes of an acrid demise, and one that is just being dreamt into being- a tender green shoot, newly emergent.

So, we gather. We gather and tend and share the medicine of story as a way to map the path forward. As we witness the medicine in the tellings of these stories, songs, and poems, may the spirit of Brigid quicken them in your belly.

May her skilled and knowing hands guide them gently from the womb out into the light. May she open a wellspring of wonder in you that flows from lands long forgotten. May you warm your bones by the hearth of these stories, and may they spark a deep remembering in you that cannot be extinguished.

Written by Ruthie Kølle Hayes