Imbolc

Last month I participated in the Connection Project at Mirabellenhof in Biesenthal, Barnim. The theme of the workshop was “Imbolc”, the celtic spring festival. At Imbolc people celebrate the phase in nature where everything is preparing for the coming spring in the earth, even if it’s hardly visible above the earth, except, for example, in a snowdrop or a winter rose.

Imbolc is Gaelic for „in the belly“. So as we were sitting in a circle of women, we placed our hands on our bellies. Our workshop leader, Angela Halvorsen Bogo, said something like this: “Imbolc celebrates the seed growing in the belly of the earth and in the belly of ourselves. Even if we aren‘t pregnant with a child, we might be pregnant with a wish or an idea or something we are not aware of yet. There’s a lot going on inside the belly that we don‘t see but it‘s happening all the same. The organs of the belly are working constantly, our breathing is happening beneath our hands.“

With this idea in mind, I‘d like to invite us to place our hands on our belly, as if we‘re holding it like a bowl. Sensing the contours and the texture of the belly, we can see what if feels like at this moment. When touching the belly like this has become familiar, we can bring our attention to the breath movement happening underneath our hands. In a way, with breathing, Imbolc is always happening. Each breath is a mark of what’s going on inside of us, independent of whether it finds outward expression or not.

At Imbolc people also make Brigid dolls. Brigid is a pagan goddess and the saint of healers, poets and blacksmiths. On St. Brigid‘s day, the Brigid dolls are hung in windows and on doors of houses for protection and abundance in the new year. As part of the workshop, we went out into the countryside around Biesenthal and collected things for the making of our Brigid dolls. I collected all sorts of things but a couple of twigs, a small shell, horse hair and a yellow flower would make up my Brigid doll in the end. It’s quite beautiful, the idea of a seed growing inside us, realized in the representative of a girl, a goddess.