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In Sweden, she comes on Old Solstice Day
But elsewhere in Witchdom, she comes in early February.
The Bride of Light.
Singing she comes. Crowned with candles and greenery she comes. Gowned and veiled in white she comes.
Before the Sun, she wakes us.
We rise, dress, and follow to where she leads us.
To breakfast.
And to sunrise.
We generally do this dance in a circle, facing in, with everyone singing and clapping. One by one we jump into the center and act out the verse.
You could also do it with the lord (or lady) of the dance leading the singing in the middle, with the dancers circling and miming around.
Likewise, although when we do it everyone usually sings the whole thing together, you could do it as a call-and-response:
One: There was a pig went out to dig
All: Candlemas Day, Candlemas Day
One: There was a pig went out to dig
All: Candlemas Day in the morning.
My daughter and I love watching BBC / PBS shows. Victoria is the most recent one we are watching. As I watched how people lived in the 1800s, I considered what it would be like to only have my life lighted by candles and sunlight. It would certainly make the dark part of the year different.
By 4:00 or so at night, flickering candlelight would be my only illumination. This reduces my scope of environment drastically. Right now, if it’s dark I flip a switch and illumination of my surroundings occurs. But what if I only had dripping smelly candles to light my way? What would it feel like to be surrounded by darkness? Would fear well? Would loneliness envelop?
...
At first glance, Steve Ashley's Candlemas Carol might seem something of a downer.
Don't be fooled.
On Candlemas beware, old man,
the wind, gale, and the storm;
and if you think that Winter's dead,
it's barely being born.
Well, here it is, right on cue: Bridey's Spring. What cowans call the “January thaw.”
Winter started off gently—the lakes didn't ice over until well after Yule—but we did endure a foul run of sub-zero highs in mid-January, just to remind us who's boss.
Then, just as we prepare to light the untamed torches of Imbolc (or what novelist Richard Grant calls “the mannerly votives of Candlemas”), it might as well be spring. The air is moist and fragrant, and oh that delicious music of dripping water.
Like Indian Summer, Bridey's Spring has its own painful beauty, that fleeting Yukio Mishima poignancy of the necessarily ephemeral.
Winter will be back soon enough. There's plenty more ice and snow in store.
Well, Yule is well and truly gone.
Gone the tree, with all its treasures.
Gone the green: the mistletoe, the holly, the ivy.
All is stripped away now, burned away to ash.
What remains, essential, is the seed, the core, the center.
Fire: the pure, pure flame.
She giggles!
“Knock Knock.”
“Who’s there?”
“Change.”
“Change Who?”
“Well, that’s always the question, isn’t it?”
The NEW ONES are stirring. Feel the vibration of Nature in February. Every-thing in potential, teeming underground, sap rising, hibernation ending. It can be hard to believe, sometimes, that change will come. Imbolc is Her promise.
As Above (the Equator):Imbolc/Candlemas is the day to honor the Goddess Brigit of Ireland, powerful in the success of Her worshippers’ adaptation. Her sacred flame was kept burning by priestesses, then by nuns, into the 16th century, and relit at Kildare in 1993. It is burning there tonight. Celebrants light every lamp in the home, build fires high, keep one candle burning, mindfully, all night long.
So Below (the Equator): In Brazil, on February 2nd, a day now consecrated to “Our Lady of Seafaring,” thousands of Candomble practitioners gather on the beaches at dawn, sending flower offerings out to sea for “The Queen of the Ocean,” the Goddess Yemanja, deity of fisher-people and shipwreck survivors, the female principle of creation, and the spirit of moonlight.
Greetings Imbolc! Blessings Candlemas! Offerings to the Sea!
Carolyn Myers © Mother Tongue Ink 2014
