I Have Always Struggled with Imbolc

Imbolc is a holiday, based out of Celtic traditions, signaling the beginning of the spring season in a specific region of the world. It has been made popular among various cultures by the Wiccan wheel of the year, and adapted by most neopagans and many nature-based practices including but not limited to secular practices and sub-sets of the Waldorf education system. Its common symbols are flowers, baby farm animals, the goddess Bridgett (whom the saint is appropriated from) and other common spring symbolisms. Celebrations range from buying seeds and planning one’s garden, visiting wells and streams, making corn husk dolls and offerings to Bridgett. Today Imbolc is celebrated on February 1st.

Living in North Eastern Pennsylvania, the beginning of February is typically the harshest part of winter, often with subzero windchills if not feet of snow on the ground. It is very difficult for me make a feast to celebrate the earth waking up when in fact, where I live, the earth is not yet waking up and won’t be for some more weeks.

I feel that Imbolc is unique in that way. While all of the holidays on the wheel of the year are nature-based, the others tend to be more universal. The solstices and equinoxes are celebrations of specific planetary points on given days. The other three cross quarters, Baletain, Lammas and Samhain, are typically observable by tradition around the world, Samhain given the extra unique observance of our ancestors.

In years past I have tried to go through the motions and enjoy the fact that spring will someday come but it’s never sat right with me that I was celebrating something that I was not currently experiencing. I firmly believe that my nature-based practice needs to be authentic to the here and now. I do have Celtic ancestry but do not connect with the coming of spring at the beginning of February.

I tried to understand that many parts of the world, where near total, or even total darkness controls the day, are beginning to see light. THAT I could connect with, if I lived it. Well yes, around Imbolc there is a bit more sun; not a noticeable amount for me. I have about an hour more of daylight each day, give or take.

I’ve really struggled with Imbolc and what it means for me, today, in this lifetime and in my region of the world.

For me, Imbolc represents dawn.

Dawn is a sliver of time in which the sky changes color. At dawn there is not enough light to go about your regular business but you are able to tell that light is coming. It is that time when the night sky goes from “that big, bluish black thing” (absolutely quoting Timon there) to beautiful shades of dark blue and eventually into oranges, red or pinks. Dawn ends moments before sunrise. Dawn also tends to be the coldest time of day. Despite it being too dark to work without creating your own light, despite it being the coldest time of day… it is when we tend to think of what day will bring. It’s what reminds us that even in the darkest night, the sun will return. It’s what reminds us that no matter how cold it is, warmth will return, even if just relatively speaking. It is hope. Hope of what will come naturally, what is beyond our control in a positive perspective.

This winter I have found that I can connect to Imbolc. I can think of it as the dawn. Light is coming, though it is not light yet. Warmth is coming though it is not warm yet. Spring is coming though it is not spring yet. Hope of these things that are coming and that I have no control over. Trust of nature in her magical ways and realizing how much I rely on her. While I cannot plant my garden for at least another three, closer to four, months… I know it is coming, it is dawning. It is still time to rest but the stirring will begin soon. And nature doesn’t tell time the way I do.