Monday, February 01, 2010

Imbolc February 2

The Pagan holiday of Imbolc or Imbolg, secularized as Groundhog Day, is the anniversary of my own committment as a priestess. In 1997 I used material from Shekinah Mountainwater's ecclectic pagan book "Ariadne's Thread" to perform my own ritual in which I dedicated myself to the Pagan path as I found and understood it. Mountainwater suggested that Imbolc is a good holiday to do this initiatory work since the germination energy of very early Spring is similar to the energy of a new initiate who is just beginning the Pagan path. My own initiation let me know right away what my path would be like since I took a bunch of trouble to try and be all formal and promptly dumped a seedling pot all over my ritual garb. I figued the universe was telling me to "chill out" and it's a good thing since I usually don't overly formalize (or plan) my ritual work. But whatever your path may be the Sabbats are a great time to tap into some mass-consciousness energy and grow your own craft.


Here are some ideas for Imbolc:
making and/or blessing candles
soing some pre-emptive "spring cleaning" of home and/or ritual space
planning the garden
planning other projects for Spring

Some websites with basic info on Imbolc:
http://paganwiccan.about.com/od/imbolcfebruary2/p/Imbolc_History.htm
http://www.wicca.com/celtic/akasha/imbolclore.htm