Blessed Imbolc and a sense of accomplishment

Today is Imbolc (aka Candlemas), the ancient holiday that marks the half-way point between Yule/Midwinter and the spring equinox–a time when, though deep in winter, we may start seeing signs of spring. It also marks the start of lambing and calving* season, meaning, in the old days when you couldn’t easily keep an animal producing milk on scanty winter rations, the start of the season when milk was available. (This gave me an excuse to make a seasonal meal tonight of yummy mac and cheese with Vermont cheddar and a salad of locally grown greens to celebrate that fact that, while spring is still far off, the light’s returning enough to get plants living in hoop houses growing well.) It’s the feast of St. Brigid in the Catholic church, but before that dedicated to the goddess Brigid, the goddess of fire, healing, poetry, and smithcraft. As a poet, I dedicated myself to her when I was still in high school, so this is a special day on the wheel of my year.

It’s fitting that I managed to ship a project that’s been on my plate for far too long back to my co-author tonight. It’s not poetry–it’s a romantic comedy that’s been oddly hard to get finished–but it’s still crafting with words. It counts.

I don’t have an Imbolc poem yet this year. Sometimes they arrive late, after the day itself has passed. So I’ll share some from  past years.

 

Imbolc, Northland Sheep Farm

 

Lambing season, and the snow lies heavy on the hills.

The farmer struggles to the barn, path iced over.

The sheep are in tonight, no grazing.

By Coleman lantern as wind-whipped snow

Reshapes the central New York hills

She watches, breath crystallized in the cold,

Chapped hands rubbing together for warmth

For a moment poised in the darkness

Between death and life, between disaster

And a newborn lamb, blood slick and staggering

On drunken legs to its mother’s teat.

 

On these nights rest her prosperity: milk, cheese, meat,

Wool in the autumn. On these nights rest her year, scented

From them with snow and blood and milk.

 

Bryn Celli Ddu, Anglesey

 

Black-faced lambs cavorted in the fields.

Their mothers ignored us as we tromped

Up the lane to the ancient burial mound,

Surrounded by henge of stone and earth,

Surrounded by sheep and mud and lush spring grass.

Three weeks past Imbolc, lambing season was in full swing

And we entered the passage grave

With quavery young bleets ringing

In our ears, warm, pungent sheep-smell clinging to us.

Crouched down, we scooted along the narrow passage,

My raincoat snagging on rocks. Not so much bigger

Than my ancestors four millennia ago, I could move

With fair ease in the tomb’s tunnel, stand in its womb.

A narrow opening between the rocks provided light.

The cold was deep under the hill–winter cold, grave cold–

But I was warmed by earth powers or the force

Of my imagination. Chthonic and homey at the same time,

No menace, but a welcome. Those who were laid to rest here,

And those who half crawled to bring them to their rest,

Came with regret, but without fear, their hope clear

In the form of a grave where funeral celebrants

Were reborn at the end, as their dead kin would be.

When we came out, we blinked in the cloud-streaked light,

And I walked the henge three times deosil, tried

To imagine back forty-five centuries, failed abjectly.

 

When we headed back down the lane, we peered back

Through the hedgerow. We meant to take a last look

At the ancient tomb. Instead we saw, hidden inside
The greening fabric of the hedge, an exhausted ewe

And a staggering, damp lamb,

Its red umbilical cord still clinging to its belly.

Beyond them, the mound spilled

Its ancient wombshadows onto the pasture.

 

Blessed be, and may the knowledge of spring’s approach fill you with renewed hope. (If you’re in the Southern Hemisphere, it’s probably the middle of the hot, sticky harvest season…enjoy the fruits of your harvest and then go skinny-dipping!)

 

* In the British Isles, at least. Back in central New York, the farmers I knew aimed for lambs and calves to be born a bit little, when the odds of having to deal with it in a snow storm were lower and the mother animals could graze to regain their strength. This winter it’s been April-mild on and off for a month, but having seen snowstorms in April, I don’t trust that.

 

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