The seasons are crawling towards Imbolg again. Even though inconcievably the chappy’s garden opposite my house still has blooming roses in it.
The Sabbats always creep up on me like a stealth ninjas. I only just realised we’ve got less than two weeks before Imbolg hits. Time to get prepared, people!
Imbolg is Bride time. Bride (pronounced Breed) is a part of, or the same as, the goddess Brigid. Bride is a just a variation of the name Brigid, but though there is just a few letters difference, I love Bride and I am indifferent to Brigid. They are the goddess of inspiration, healing, poetry (gark) and smithcraft.
Brigid to me is a mothery goddess of fire, with red hair, sensible clothes and a proactive personality. She’s very wise and very very practical. She’s the type of woman who hugs you and consoles you when you are hurt and wounded, but who also challenges you ” how can you fix it?” and then gets you to take action. She’s a healing goddess because she is a wise goddess and an action goddess. I’ve never really felt drawn to Briget. I feel she is a goddess of fire, and as such I don’t feel she has a lot of connection to Imbolg, which I feel is a time of gentle transmutation and beginnings.
Bride feels very different. She is a maiden with dark, dark hair and dresses in flowing white, like the snowdrops and snowfall that tends to hit us in the UK around Imbolg time. She is quiet change hidden by stillness, the building calm excitement when you know something big is changing, something huge is happening. She’s soft, but there is a huge amount of power under her gentleness. I feel her as a meditative goddess, a goddess of inner calm at change – touching the earth and gently invoking life back into the ground, slowly, hidden by the lingering winter. She is about huge changes that slip under the radar, almost invisible for a long time, but profound in their magnitude, like the gaining of wisdom. Like when you wake up one morning and suddenly realise you have spent the past few years/decades transforming into something new without even noticing. She feels like snow tastes – cold, strange, soft and uplifting.
As ever, my interpretations of Goddesses are just that – my interpretations. But this is how I experience the Goddess of Early Spring.
You know… they always sneak up on me too! LOL
Blessings,
Kourtney
I enjoyed reading about your Bride – I always covered her in my B – although my Bride in my imagination has flaming red hair – must be the Irish in me.