In the northern hemisphere, it is the seasonal feast and celebration of Lughnasadh or Lammas. Out here there is the barest greening of spring, a sprinkling of small white and blue daisies, fiery aloes, a whirlwind of peppery dust: and time to turn towards new life and rebirth.
Not that the weather here is very spring-like: there is a dusting of snow on the mountains around the village and I am still shaky from a burglary, intruders coming into the house unseen while we were in another room. The small dogs have no watchdog sensibility and no desire to bark at strangers or guard the house. I feel as if I am huddling in a shabby fortress, with locks and padlocks changed, doors bolted, windows barred. Horrible to live like this. But the anxiety and hypervigilance will pass.
The old word imbolc derives from a Celtic phrase meaning in the belly. It is traditionally a day in the colder northern hemisphere to watch for snakes gliding from holes and badgers coming out of dens, a day deicated to Bride. In this southern climate, it is a marker for blossom on the wild pear or Dombeya, the final glory of the aloes, scarlet flowers on bare branches of the coral tree. My strelitzia bush looks heraldic in indigo and orange.
And as the new moon begins to wax in our wintry skies, I shall be able to do my Imbolc celebrations each evening along with a lovely ritual at dawn when the skies are filled with birds and starlight criss-crossed with the rising sun. A time for initiations and the setting of new goals and visions.
So I shall do my rituals of fire and smoothing the ashes, the gathering of firewood (twisty vine stumps, acacia thorn) for the remaining days of winter, the trance journeys into the Lands beyond. Access is always easier during these days and nights when the wheel poises in its turning. There are Elders to consult and dreams to dream and signs to be read. The deciphering of another kind of descent as I re-embark on a study of Lacanian psychoanalysis. Nettles to be grasped, plunging amidst thorn. Diving, delving deeper, bracing the self to encounter terror and the concealed hope behind the slipping mask. One way of readying the explorer for new territory, a season of growth.
Recent Comments