Imbolc: welcoming the promise of spring
Exploring Imbolc through breathwork or ritual, including a playlist and journal prompts
Hello friends. I have been curating and sharing playlists around the Celtic Pagan Wheel of the Year for some time now. Each time the wheel turns I update my post and playlist from the previous year. This is always a really interesting exercise in observing my own repeating themes and cycles. For an overview of The Wheel of the Year you can check out this post.
Very often, for me, January feels eternal and spring feels like it will never come. I haven’t felt that way this year in spite of some incredibly cold weather and a few storms. I have been reflecting that the energy of January and shifting from deepest winter into the promise of spring feels visceral in a way that other seasonal transitions don’t. I suppose it’s not surprising given that the first part of the year has a waxing or building energy. This year, in particular, the shift from the energy of winter into allowing the potential of spring to feel present felt very definite. There is still frost up in the hills but down in the valleys there are snowdrops starting to emerge from the slowly warming winter earth.
Imbolc as a transition from Winter to Spring: all of nature has been sleeping and fallow over the winter and we are only just starting to emerge.
A traditionally woven Brigid’s Cross made by John Fryer at Bard at the Borders’s recent corn weaving workshop.
As I write this, it’s beautifully sunny outside but all of nature has been sleeping and fallow over the winter. We are only just starting to emerge. Imbolc is a celebration of that emergence. This isn’t a time to rush into doing, it’s a time to reflect on the path we’ve walked through the winter months and the seeds of intention we will be planting for the coming year.
Imbolc is one of the eight celebration days in Celtic spirituality and contemporary paganism. These celebrations include the solstices, equinoxes, and the four cross-quarter days that fall between them.
Imbolc is a cross-quarter day that sits halfway between the Winter Solstice and Spring Equinox. Imbolc is also known as Feile Brighde or “the quickening of the year”. It’s marks the beginning of lambing season and this is another signs of new life after the earth has laid fallow and barren through the winter.
Imbolc is connected to the goddess Brigid, also known as Brigantia, Brid, Brigit. Brigid is a Celtic Triple Goddess, who later became a Christian saint. Brigit is the goddess of poetry and creativity, fire and the forge and healing and fertility. Brigid represents a spark. A spark of creativity, a spark of fire and a spark of renewed or new life.
Imbolc is the time for initiation and healing, for reclaiming what has been forgotten.
In Glennie Kindred’s Sacred Earth Celebrations book she shares the following:
Here at Imbolc the unconscious is emerging from the time of incubation and rest, revitalized, potent and fertile. Imbolc is the time for initiation and healing, for reclaiming what has been forgotten. It is a time for invocation of the life force and working with the dynamics of its potency.
We are trying in our own way to live the dreams and visions of a new age, but we are still bound by our old conditioning and life patterns. We each carry the seeds of a new vision, of a new way of being. Each time these visions re-emerge after the incubation period of winter, they are stronger and we are surer.
Now is the time to prepare inwardly for the changes that will come. Plant your ideas and leave them to germinate. Bring your visions and inner understandings out through poetry, song and art.
My Imbolc breathwork or ritual playlist and journal prompts
You can use this Imbolc playlist for ritual, journalling, breathwork or any other practice that supports you to connect with yourself and explore the themes I’ve talked about. I’ve shared some suggested journal prompts below, along with a suggestion for a ritual practice.
Imbolc journal prompts
Here are some prompts that you might like to reflect on as part of your Imbolc practice:
How do I feel about the ideas of rebirth, transformation, and change?
What do I need to cleanse or clear out at this time?
How can I bring fire into my life, to celebrate the return of the sun?
As I walk through the world, what emerging signs of Spring can I notice?
What do I need to nurture?
What seeds am I planting for the year ahead
Imbolc Rituals to explore
If you’d like to explore ritual and ceremony that connects you to the energy of the season in a supported way, check out The Circle. The Circle is my monthly online offering where we gather in community to connect with ourselves and others through ritual, ceremony and reflective practices.
Self guided rituals and practices are just as lovely though. All you need is some time and space for exploration. I typically start all of my own rituals and ceremonies with a grounding meditation to connect to myself, followed by an invocation or a prayer of gratitude where I thank the elements, the earth and my ancestors. Other ritual elements can include:
Lighting a candle
Journalling (perhaps using the prompts above)
Intuitive movement to connect with your body
Making an offering to the earth or nature (making sure its biodegradable!)
Pulling oracle or tarot cards as a tool for reflection
Setting intentions
