Imbolc is one of the four seasonal festivals of Celtic spirituality, and takes place on the 1st February. It marks the very start of Spring and looks ahead with hopeful expectation to the season of new life. Content warning: fertility and birth metaphor.
Spring does not arrive with a crash of symbols
But rather with the still, small voice of Imbolc
A stirring deep in the dark soil
A subtle quickening in the womb of all things
Today, there’s no need to leap up from your bed
To start spring cleaning
To make ambitious plans
To try to dissolve anxiety or stale energy
Through action
Rather you are invited
Simply to glory in the knowledge
That the wheel of the year is moving again
The sun is turning his face to us
And fresh, new things are on their way to you.
This Imbolc, may you honour the ways
You carried yourself through the winter
May you allow your imagination to lift its nose
And sniff the air
May you sense within the rich dark soil of your self
Those seeds which may be ready to sprout
And show their colours
May you hear in the morning air
That same thrumming of divine possibility
In the heart of all things
Today, may you yawn and stretch and start to feel
That soon you might be ready for a new adventure
Not yet, not yet – but soon.
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