Join me on February 1 to explore the opposites that pull you, to seek Brigid’s guidance as to the way forward, to explore what is stirring but not yet fully emergent in you.

Time: February 1, 11am Mountain Time Fee: $10-$25

https://marydiggin.com/.../a-reflection-on-the-feast-of.../

Brigid is patroness of many things, including poetry, learning, healing, protection, blacksmithing, livestock and dairy production, and also of weavers.

Traditionally, her feast is celebrated by the weaving of a rush cross and in some places, by the weaving of the Crios Bride. St. Brigid’s girdle: a rope woven from straw, with a number of crosses plaited in straw attached to it.

Both her Rush Cross and her Crios are used for protection. The Crios Bride was carried from house to house. At each house visited, the occupants were expected to pass through the crios, thus obtaining the protection of Brigid and freedom from illness for the coming year. Sometimes too, the Crios was hung around the door for the protection of the house. The Rush cross was hung over the door.s for the same purpose

Taking the images of the thresholds and weaving, this year, I offer a reflection for the feast of Brigid, the Celtic festival of Imbolc around the liminal space inherent to this time of year. Brigid holds in her very being a series of potential opposites that she weaves together with ease.

She was born at dawn on the first of February, on the Celtic Feast of Imbolc, the halfway point between Winter and Spring, when life begins to stir in the belly of the earth and in the bellies of ewes but is not yet born.

Brigid was said to be the daughter of a pagan chieftain and a Christian slave woman. Her mother stood in the threshold of the household dairy when she gave birth. Brigid was born neither slave nor free, neither indoors nor outdoors, neither pagan nor Christian, neither in the winter or the spring, neither at day or at night.

Brigid embodies liminal space and can serve as the doorway between realms and understandings.

She weaves back into wholeness concepts that are usually considered opposites: Christian and pagan, free and unfree, day and night, winter and spring, woman and bishop.

Join me on February 1 to explore the opposites that pull you, to seek Brigid’s guidance as to the way forward, to explore what is stirring but not yet fully emergent in you.