Tonight and tomorrow is when most modern Pagans celebrate the fire festival of Imbolc sacred to the goddess Brigid, patroness of poets, healers, and smiths. Today is also the feast day of Saint Brigid of Ireland patron saint of poets, dairymaids, blacksmiths, healers, cattle, fugitives, Irish nuns, midwives, and new-born babies.

Brigid: Saint and Goddess.

In Kildare, Ireland’s town square, a perpetual flame is kept lit and housed in a statue that pays homage to the Pagan and Christian conceptions of Brigid. Festivities for La Feile Bride in Kildare started on January 25th and will continue through Febrary 3rd.

Here are a collection of quotes on this holiday.

I see and smell the first fragrant scents of spring——the yellow acacia beginning to bloom. Gradually if we walk slowly and quietly we’ll notice the subtle changes occurring in nature, here and there in the plant kingdom. Humanity needs fire festivals during the gray, wet, rainy, snowy days of winter, to chase away doldrums and light deprivation. On Feb. 2 we have Candlemas and Imbolc (pronounced Im-bolk). Both Candlemas and Imbolc are fire festivals…lighting the darkness, offering humanity hope. February 2nd is also the midway point between winter solstice and spring equinox – Risa D’Angeles, Esoteric Astrology

As with all quarter days e.g. mid summer solstice and Halloween it was customary for customs, festivities and rituals to be enacted and these have remained an unbroken folk tradition in practice in many west of Ireland’s rural communities. One such enduring tradition marking the 1st of February are the distinct strawcraft folk rituals associated with Brigit who symbolically on the same date deposes the goddess of winter thereby marking the beginning of Spring. Loved by young and old is the fashioning of various Brigit crosses, 3 armed, four armed, diamond and interwomen which occur in pre historic stone carvings throughout Europe where they are understood to be ancient symbols of the life giving earth mother goddess. – The Fermanagh Herald

Happy Imbolc 2009! “Again, we banish winter; Again, we welcome spring!” The Wheel has turned once more, and brought us to the next holiday of the Pagan Year, Imbolc, February 2nd. A day directly between Yule and Eostre. Pagans call the day the first day of spring, since it is the time that the first sprouts show through the snow. This day is the centerpoint of the dark half of the year. – Terry Smith, The Town Talk (Louisiana)

…the history of Groundhog Day is far more complex than what it has become: a staged event in which poor Phil is observed in the glare of television cameras so our local meteorologists have a cute sound byte and a brief close-up of his blinking, bewildered groundhog face, a yearly ritual that appears on the morning news. The origin of Groundhog Day is derived from earlier celebrations held on the cross-quarter day of February 2, dates variously known as Brigid’s Night in Ireland (festival of the Celtic goddess of poetry, birth, weddings, smithcraft, and healing), Oimelc/Imbolc/Imbolg in Scotland, and Candlemas in England. The cross-quarter days (Samhain, Imbolc, Beltane, and Lughnasa) were always associated in ancient times with divination–the veil between the worlds is believed to be its thinnest, and the balance of energies between solstice and equinox was thought to be very significant. – Peg Aloi, “You Call It Groundhog Day, We Call It Imbolc”

“Candlemas” is the Christianized name for the holiday, of course. The older Pagan names were Imbolc and Oimelc. Imbolc means, literally, “in the belly” (of the Mother). For in the womb of Mother Earth, hidden from our mundane sight but sensed by a keener vision, there are stirrings. The seed that was planted in her womb at the solstice is quickening and the new year grows. Oimelc means “milk of ewes”, for it is also lambing season. – Mike Nichols, The Witches’ Sabbats

“I’d sit with the men, the women of God, There by the lake of beer, We’d be drinking good health forever, And every drop would be a prayer.” – Excerpt from “Saint Brigit’s Prayer”

Many blessings to you this holiday! Be sure to check out the fourth annual Brigid in Cyperspace Poetry Reading in your travels around the web tomorrow, I’ll see you by the lake of beer!

Tags: Brigid, Festival, holidays, Imbolc, Paganism