In the belly

Today we celebrate Imbolc, one of the eight great sabbats (festivals) of the Pagan year. Imbolc comes at a time when here in Northern California we begin to see big signs of spring: the first California poppies start to bloom, the Berkeley/Oakland hills are reupholstered in green velvet, and days are lengthening noticably.

Here in my garden, one of my favorite harbingers of spring has its first blossoms. I am referring to Baby Blue Eyes (Nemophilia menziesii), a lovely tender annual with flowers the color of Mary's cloak in the statue that stood in every one of my classrooms in elementary and high school. Unfortunately the snails love this plant almost as much as I do, but as you can see, at least one of the three I brought home from Annie's Annuals this year has survived. The blue is intoxicatingly beautiful and soon the flowers will entirely cover the plant.

I'll be going to several Imbolc events this weekend. First thing tonight is Reclaiming's Brigid ritual at the SomArts Gallery in San Francisco. Tomorrow night my coven will be holding its annual Imbolc ritual, when we reaffirm our commitment to our religious path. This is the ritual at which each of us makes a dedication to a the particular goddess we've chosen for the year.  For the past year I've been hanging out with Persephone--who has given me a fresh perspective on so many things-- but I have not yet decided who I will invite to accompany me for the next year.

We celebrate Brigid at this ritual, she who is both goddess and saint, breath of life, mistress of transformation, wellspring of art.  I do honor Brigid in all these manifestations, but for me, personally, the strongest image of this goddess is as Brigid of the kine (cattle). I love the idea of a goddess associated with the dairy, with the cow as symbol of life. The late visionary artist Monica Sjoo saw Brigid in this incarnation as did the artist who created a tapestry that hangs at the Glastonbury shrine. And for me, celebrating Brigid of the kine is a way of exorcising the insult that was hurled at me so often during my childhood and adolescence --"you're nothing but a big cow."

My own personal Imbolc tradition is to make home-made butter and place it on the altar for the ritual. This reminds me of how important it was to my ancestors when the cattle freshened and they were finally able to have the first fresh milk, cream, and  butter after a long harsh winter's deprivation.  I'll also make a loaf of Irish soda bread, which we will eat with the butter.

I will also be participating in a rehearsal for the Brigid's Forge ritual we will be presenting on Sunday night, February 18 at Pantheacon, the annual gathering of California Pagans.  I will be one of the 19 priestesses/priests of Brigid. We presented this ritual last year, also, and for many, it was the high point of Pantheacon. I hope we do as well this year, too.

Pagans also celebrate Brigid of the poets on Imbolc. In honor of this feast, many Pagan bloggers are  participating in a cyberspace poetry reading.  Some are posting their own original work, while others are including one of their favorite poems in a posting. I will be doing the latter.

The poem I have chosen is by David Wagoner, a professor emeritus in the English department at the University of Washington where I went to graduate school back in the 1960s.  Wagoner's poetry reeks of the Pacific Northwest, which I still miss so much, even after 25 years of living in Louisiana and California. Many of his poems either draw on the mythology of the northwest's native people, or reflect their culture in a more general way. And his environmental advocacy is a subtext in all his work.

The particular poem I have chosen is from Wagoner's collection Who Shall Be the Sun?, published in 1978 by Indiana University Press.  I think I saw this poem for the first time in 1979, and have loved it ever since. It is the poem I read at my son's burial and at my husband's memorial. And it is the poem my coven sisters know one of them will read one day when they gather to remember me. It seems to me to express well many Pagan's view of death. Certainly I hear echoes of "what is remembered lives" in its final stanza.

Burial Song

My body ran on its legs and waved its hands,

Dug holes, cracked wood. It leaped into water,

It climbed over rocks and hurried from one place to another

And came back to its beginning, aiming its empty ears

And eyes into the four mouths of the wind.

My body carried another body into the woods,

Forgot itself, found itself, lost itself.

 

Now it lies still. Children may tease it with sticks

Or women call to it, laughing behind their fingers,

Or men challenge it with their proud crowing,

But it wants nothing from them and will not move.

Its hands stay where they belong—Together—

Its eyes shut, its heels not rising or dragging,

And its mouth keeping a cold council.

 

My body has stopped. Now yours will go forward,

But mine will stay in this Now, exactly here,

Tomorrow it will seem far behind you.

Though you squint till you weep, you will not see it

Nor will Hawk from the edge of his cloud

Nor will Owl see it in this different darkness

Yet it will lie in wait for you to remember

Like a dream stiffened with danger.

poem poetry Imbolc Sabbat Pagan Paganism festival butter bread home+made bake ritual garden gardening Northern+California religion