Connecting to Nature at the time of Imbog

Springtime is time of Death Rebirth and Renewal. It is the time of Imbog and the festival of St Brigid, the Celtic Goddess.

The Shaman is acutely aware of how the human psyche is intertwined with nature. We can learn so much from nature. She is our teacher, our healer and our guide in good in good times and bad. So be encouraged, and enter into this new season which brings with it love, rebirth and the increase of the light and promise that is to come.

February 1^st is the best time to launch or give birth to a new enterprise or project in your life. The Springtime brings with it the promise of renewed life and our faith in our creative power is bolstered and new ideas begin to spout from within us just as life in nature awakens from its slumber.

St Brigid’s day is one of the cross-quarter days on the eight spoked wheel of the year, falling roughly between the Winter Solstice and Spring Equinox.

St Brigid’s day falls on February 1^st. St Brigid is the goddess of healers and midwifery as well as presiding over hearth fires.

Rituals to Release What No Longer Serves You And What Call Forth Into Your Life

1. One of the sacred rituals associated with St Brigid is to light a fire or bring light or candles out into the darkness of the night on St Brigid’s day. The light symbolises our intention to bring light out into the darkness to connect for our need for Enlightenment of our interior darkness or the Shadow self.
2. Introspection and meditation, the healing arts and shadow play are all associated with this special time of year.
3. As we leave winter behind and the time of resting to plant new ideas and dreams, we also need to let die that which once served us but no longer does we are encouraged to write down all that needs to be released onto paper and gift it to the water for release and transmutation.
4. An exciting way to call forth your dreams and intentions is to go out to a place of nature that you feel called to, connect with nature and the nature spirits, and create a nature picture on the earth in the forests, the mountains, or on a beach, which once completed, you are asked to give thanks, then walk away and leave it to nature to bring it forth in its own time, in its own way.
5. On 2^nd February offerings of pale cakes, salt, wine or milk are offered and can be placed in the threshold of your home to attract the Goddess to return from her underworld retreat. On this day doors should be opened to allow Brigid to enter and return with her light and her fire.