I’ve been so busy I haven’t had time to post about all my adventures in between work, so you’ll get it all in one long post and with luck I’ll catch up with myself! Last week and the weekend was full of non-stop packaging of Stang & Cauldron orders to ship. I took a short break on Friday to have my own little celebration of Là Fhèill Brìde. I found roses the colour of flames for my altar and picked up some delicious local beer which I poured in offering to Brìde, my spirits, and the land and shared a little feast with them.
I came up for air from my work again on Saturday evening to spend time with my good friend Beki – a fellow artist and tarot reader. I love visiting her because not only are there cute bunnies to snuggle, but her place is always filled with the amazing paintings she’s working on. Right now she’s painting the major arcana for a dark bunny tarot and they are gorgeous.
We walked through the magical night-time fog to the Drive for burgers and beer and then headed back to her place after to read cards for each other. She did a reading for me with her beloved Fairy Tale Tarot and I brought out my vintage Gypsy Witch fortune-telling cards for hers. The meanings of some of the cards are backwards so I also brought my handy old book with English playing card meanings in it. Technically we played drunken oracle as we’d both shared a pitcher of local beer at dinner and then had homebrewed mead afterwards while reading the cards. Then it was back home to get some sleep so I could get up early on Sunday for an all-day Imbolc ritual by the sea inlet in Lion’s Bay.
The shaman picked me up bright and early and off we went to a gathering of others to share in Imbolc rituals and festivities. We all wore white and green and the hall was elaborately decorated in the same colours with an altar to Brighid in the South and a live apple tree in the centre on a cow hide ringed with primroses, fresh greenery, and feathers. Brighid’s doll and bed made, we brought her in and laid her by the open fireplace with offerings of bread, milk, and fruit. We made oatcake dough (for Bride’s bannock) and all of us shaped our own – one to share with each other and one to keep.
We listened to stories, we told stories, we sang songs, we feasted, we performed many little rituals adding up to one big one. We purified ourselves with smoke, water, fire, and milk. The hall was filled with the intoxicating scents of sage smudge, rosewater, apple mead, the baking oatcakes, tobacco, and woodsmoke from the fire. We tied ribbons of wishes to the apple tree and we wove Brighid’s crosses to hang over our front doors for blessings and protection for a year before burning them next Imbolc. We each brought home a candle to use for magic.
The theme of the ritual was playfulness – to stop worrying about the mundane world and trying to control things and instead to feel the freedom and joy of what it’s like to be a child and let go; having no expectations but to find joy and wonder in all things. To learn to stop for a moment now and then and just play, just be. Considering how hard I’ve been working and how busy I’ve been it was a very necessary reminder for me that I need to stop and enjoy myself now and then. Everyone there radiated such tender joy and love that by the end of the ritual, when the sun was sinking into the ocean, we were all sleepy and content like kindergarteners ready for nap time after stories and warm milk. Home we all went into the sunset, still smelling of rosewater.
Then it was back to concocting and packaging magical goods for the shop on Monday and Tuesday. Tuesday evening was filled with more magic as it was the night of the full moon. February’s full moon is often called the snow moon, but I prefer the older name of “The Bone Moon.” Off I went into the sunset back to the sea inlet surrounded by impossibly tall mountains to circle with other witches and shamans on the beach under the stars. We met when only the faintest bit of dark blue remained across the horizon, the stars and planets shining down on the water, and the white pregnant moon rising over the mountain behind us.
It was cold, but there’s nothing like celebrating the moon and nature actually in nature under actual moonlight with the bite of winter wind on your cheek. We poured out offerings and planted seeds. There was more storytelling accompanied by hot tea and mead. We stayed until the wind blew out all the candles but the one in the South. I dipped my hands in the Mother’s ocean and anointed my face and neck with the water for renewal. Then off we went back into the night and back into the city of lights away from the darkness of the sea.
