Brigid - Goddess of Poetry

February First

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February 2nd is a holy day known by many names throughout western civilization. Some people call it Imbolc, the festival of the first lambing and ewe's milk. Some people call it Candlemas, the purification of the Holy Virgin forty days after the birth of the Christ child. Some people call it Groundhog Day, a time of weather augury to see just how quickly spring will come. Some call it Brigid, Bride, Brighid, Brigit, the day of the Celtic Goddess who has become the most beloved female saint of Catholic Ireland. I usually just call it February First.

No matter the name of the festival the Goddess is the central focus. At this time of the year the crone of winter goes to the sacred well and comes away the maiden of spring, the maiden goddess Brigid. Brigid is many things to many people; the patron of metal smith, healing, weaving and prophecy. She is also a goddess of poetry.

by tattereddreams

At the end of my first year of blogging here at The Wheel and the Disk I said I wanted to incorporate more poetry into this blog. I have not only been successful in posting poems on the blog but also in reading more poetry. Many years ago when I was a freshman in college, in a late night in a dorm room when the world was young and new, I asked a friend of mine what poetry is. I don't remember the answer she gave but I remember the question. It is still a question I have and still ponder. All I can think to say is that poetry is magic made of words.

As winter tips into spring I give to you a poem to commemorate Brigid and all the other forms of the Goddess.

POEM
by Mary Oliver
The spirit
 likes to dress up like this:
   ten fingers,
     ten toes,
shoulders, and all the rest
 at night
   in the black branches,
     in the morning
in the blue branches
 of the world.
   It could float, of course,
     but would rather
plumb rough matter.
 Airy and shapeless thing,
   it needs
     the metaphor of the body,
lime and appetite,
 the oceanic fluids;
   it needs the body's world,
     instinct
and imagination
 and the dark hug of time,
   sweetness
     and tangibility,
to be understood,
 to be more than pure light
   that burns
     where no one is --
so it enters us --
 in the morning
   shines from brute comfort
     like a stitch of lightning;
and at night
 lights up the deep and wondrous
   drownings of the body
     like a star.

from Dream Work Atlantic Monthly Pr., 1986

Happy Brigid! Happy Groundhog Day! Happy Candlemas! Happy Spring!
 

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Other The Wheel and the Disk posts with Poems:
Winter
Christmas, 2010; Winter is Dark, Yet Each Tiny Spark; Forty Two with a Seventy Percent Chance of Rain; Christmas; Moving from the Season of the Dead

Spring
To Everything There is a Season; The Lusty Month of May; The Seed Moon is New

Summer
Robin Hood; Glory Days; The Aftermark of Almost Too Much Love

Autumn
Martinmas; The Power of the Dog; The Rains Have Come; Here Be Dragons; Ramadan; August Eve, the Subtle Turning

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February First 2009: February the First

February First 2010: Lovely Luz and Sweet BridgitThis happens to be my all time favorite post from all two plus years of blogging. Please go check it out.