Imbolc and being in our nature

It dawned on me today, on Imbolc, how we never say we like going ‘to do nature’, we say ‘we like being in nature’. It’s one of the few things we might enjoy, that we don’t actually ‘do’, we just be in it, we may even allow ourselves to ‘be’ it, nature that is, our own nature, we can’t do that either can we, not really, we are either in our nature, or we’re out of it.

Nature brought me back to myself these last few days. I may have stopped sea swimming, but I am still called to the beach, especially now in lockdown. We’ve been able to visit on the bikes, as a family, in the morning, on the high tide, and E and I have even run in, just to feel the coolness on our skin, to cleanse our energy and invigorate us for the day ahead. It’s not swimming though, my feet don’t leave the ground, I’m in and out so quickly that it’s barely even a dip, more a get wet quick and get out even quicker!

It’s not that we haven’t been doing the home learning, or exceeding our two hours exercise time, but we have made the most of every minute of this, to cycle, run and beach comb, something different each day, to just slow down into nature’s pace, enjoy the time to notice the waves, to hear the birds, to witness the changing landscape as the season changes. It’s a blessing really, a gift, just the family, a whole beach to ourselves.

I love Imbolc though, this is one of my most favourite times of the year. There’s such a magic to it, like the beginning of the inhalation, a spark, something that happens that gives life to the land again, as the breath gives life to us. I’ve been trying to explore more of this in my own practice, to notice what it is, which part of me, from where does it come, the drawing in of the inbreath. It’s a great mystery. One day we breathe out and the breathe never comes in again.

I was fortunate to be with my Gran when she passed on. I’d checked her chakras with my pendulum and they were all in balance. She awoke briefly, to check that my mum was OK, and then she finally took her last breath, her breath having been laboured before then, the death rattle, the nurses had called it. It was definitely an experience I will never forget, because I had a sense that she was in a state of deep peace as she passed over to the other side, the breath extinguished, no more inhale, no more life.

In my practice nowadays, since my teacher has shown me another way to move the body so I might feel more ease and grace and stability in postures than I have ever experienced previously, the inhale sometimes comes upon me as a yawn or deep sigh, like you might get when you have been crying for some time, something that draws the breath in, as if it is called from a deeper place. Imbolc is like that for me. It comes from somewhere that cannot be named.

All of nature is asleep, in winter hibernation, seeds under the ground showing no signs of anything, and yet as if from nowhere, as if the shift in light is enough to set the wheel in motion, and on it goes; the birds start singing again, at dawn and at dusk, their collective tunes remove the silence. The light too changes, there’s a texture in the air that cannot be named, but you know it means that spring is on its way. And the land, the land is changed too, snowdrops and daffodils, bulbs beginning to poke through.

I feel changed as well. Nature beckons me outside again. I long to get in the garden when it stops raining and tend to my plants, which have been left unattended for too long now, hanging on in soggy earth, crowded by weeds, which know my attention has been elsewhere, inside, with winter. “I’m coming soon”, I tell my plants when I venture outside to feed the birds, and I silently pray to the heavens, have we not had enough rain now.

I’m planting a whole heap of different herbs this spring. I’ve already planted lavender and chamomile seeds, it was extremely satisfying massaging myself with my own lavender oil these last few months and being able to use my own calendula salve on the boys’ cuts and bruises (when they let me, sometimes in their sleep, so they can’t wipe it off again when I’ve turned my head, the tricks us mums have to use us mums to help our children along).

Imbolc sits halfway between the winter solstice and the spring equinox, but you probably already knew that. A prehistoric mound at the Hill of Tara in Ireland is aligned with the rising sun on Imbolc morning; when the sun rises, the entrance to the chamber blazes with light. I’ve a feeling one of our dolmens here on Guernsey is also aligned with the sun rise on Imbolc but it was too wet this morning to traipse out there for a morning walk. Maybe tomorrow.

Imbolc is also known in Ireland as Brigit’s Day; a time sacred to the goddess Brigit, goddess of the holy well and the sacred flame. She is a ‘triple goddess’ –  the maiden, she kindles the smith’s fire of the forage, the hearth fire of the home and the inner fire of the poet. Her attributes are intuition, inspiration, divination and the spark of life. Her life-giving waters are the sacred springs and holy wells which can be found throughout the British Isles. When Christianity arrived in Britain, the sacred day of the goddess Brigit became the feast day of Saint Brigit.

It’s the spark of light she brings that makes this such an incredibly uplifting and hopeful time of year. Everywhere there are signs of the Earth stirring. Our acceptance of winter is giving way to an urge to move forwards into spring time energy, there is a vibrancy to it, like the energy of an embryo, packed with the potential of human life, and ready for the change ahead. We don’t just plant seeds in the ground, but we plant our ideas too, leaving them to germinate, letting them go to find their way.

Now more than ever, we need to try in our own way, to weave the web of the life we’d like to leave to our descendants here on Planet Earth. Planting seeds that will flower after we have gone, that will allow more of the being and less of the doing that defines our lives these days. We are of course still bound by our old conditioning and life patterns, but lockdown, covid, all of this, is giving us a chance to pay attention and see what needs to be changed, surrendered, let go of with Kālī.

There is order in the chaos of it all, an intelligence that lives within all of us, that weaves the web, brings us together, tears us apart, one cycle after another, a continuous circle of destroying and creating… and here we are on the cusp of another spark, of the turning tide of the breath, of the connection to the holy well within us, our inner fire and the light in our heart. We are living it, Imbolc, it is a state of being deep within our own nature, it can’t be lived outside ourselves. 

Enjoy what it brings, and if you can, take time to be in nature and find the stillness within yourself. Maybe you can hear the dreams stirring within you and feel the vibrant energy of the potential that lays ahead. 

P.S. I can’t take credit for the beautiful headdress, I left the willow offering instead (and yes, I ran back home as part of my daily exercise!), which I may learn to regret as willow is known in Celtic myth and folklore as a tree of enchantment and dreaming, and is associated with poets, the moon and water. It enhances confidence to follow our intuition and inspired leaps of imagination, it also helps to put us in touch with our feelings and deeply buried emotions. The willow helps us to express these emotions, letting them go rather than holding onto and owning them. The twigs of the willow are flexible and are used to teach us how to go with the flow of life rather than resisting it and repressing our feelings.