02 February 2012

This day sits half way between midwinter and spring equinox. The ancient Celts called it Imbolc and celebrated the beginning of the light, spring, the first lambs etc., the catholics obviously had to have their own spiel on it and made it into the feast day of an elderly abess, Brigid/Bride of Kildare, Lá Fhéile Bríde. The various rituals overlap and whatever you feel like doing (weaving the straw cross, dipping your hands in the well, dancing at sunrise or having a drink...) remember it's all about the light.
(Luka always makes me cry.)

3 comments:

am said...

Thanks for this song on this early morning when I woke up from a nightmare.

Now I'm remembering John Lennon singing, "... well we all shine on, like the moon and the stars and the sun ..."

Good reminder about this halfway point and not being afraid of the light that shines within.

Luka Bloom from Country Kildare moves me, too. On my mother's side, as well as people from Germany, are people from County Cavan. A woman from Dublin who lived here for a few years commented that I looked "more Irish" than she did.

Is your ancestry German and Irish?

Fire Bird said...

oh this is great

Sabine said...

Thank you.
Well, my ancestry is a mixed European bag, but Ireland was not in it. Sometime in my early 20s I first fell in love with the country and next with a male specimen from it and the rest is history...