Welcome to this Imbolc Playlist with journal prompts. You can use it for breathwork, rituals, or gatherings.

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.

Last year on the eve of Imbolc (pronounced Im-Olc or Im-Bolc) I reflected that I often feel like I’m playing catching up as the seasons shift and change. I don’t know that I feel that way this year, but I have definitely felt a little stuck in the heavy energy of January. I’ve felt like I’m wading through treacle for a lot of this month but I know that this, in part, can be attributed to the fact that I haven’t rested this winter. I’ve been busier than ever and I’ve ignored my own reflections about the importance of slowing down.

And now we’re ready to shift again. I can feel the energy of Spring in the air and I saw my first emerging daffodil this week. There are no flowers just yet but event the first green shoots always feel incredibly hopeful to me. I just need to remind myself not to launch myself full throttle into the energy of a new, emerging season. There is still time to regroup and gather our energy.

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 or throw ourselves into doing, it’s a time to reflect on the seeds of intention we’re 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 we see signs of new life starting to push through the cold and barren earth.

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. As my friend Bard at the Borders shared at their recent Brigid’s Cross weaving workshop, in all of these areas 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: