Good news is on the way: The month of February brings many reasons to celebrate!
I’m very much ready for spring. I’d settle for a few sunny days, though. How are you holding up during the long darkness? Hello to my friends in the southern hemisphere who are enjoying the last weeks of summer!
Good news is on the way: the month of February brings many reasons to celebrate!
You’re invited to join the Wise Souls Circle!
In February, on Monday the 12th, we start a new session of the Wise Souls Circle! This is your invitation to join us again or for the first time. Wise Souls Circle is a sacred community that gathers to explore how we relate to the Divine Mystery in a way that has little to do with rules and restrictions. We are creating a safe space to question and release long held beliefs that have grown too restrictive, to explore new and life-giving ways to connect with our deepest knowing, to journal and talk about what comes up through introspection, and to laugh a little more and enjoy the ride!
In this upcoming session, which aligns with the preparation period before Easter, we’ll explore the phrase: “Let your feet follow your heart until you find the place of your resurrection.” How do you follow your heart? What does ‘resurrection’ mean? It may be a much more expansive term than we’ve been taught. Starting on February 12th, we’ll meet five times via Zoom on the second and fourth Mondays from 7pm eastern.
If you need this kind of safe community space in your life, click on the button below to sign up for the Zoom links and to get all the info!
early spring morning on Lake Chautauqua
The days really are getting just a smidge longer with the glow of the rising sun starting a few minutes earlier each morning. While you may be buried under piles of snow, Imbolc and St. Brigid’s Feast Day are fast approaching!
Brigid the goddess or Brigid the saint? Yes!
February 1st is St. Brigid’s Feast Day, now an official holiday in Ireland. Imbolc is a festival honoring Brigid the goddess and is situated on the Celtic wheel of the year at the halfway point between the winter solstice and the spring equinox. It signifies the beginning of Spring in Ireland and signals an end to the darkness of Winter and a new season of growth. Celtic folklore recognizes Brigid as a powerful matriarch, right up there with St. Patrick. Brigid is the one who transforms the frozen Callieach of Winter into the verdant renewal of Spring.
Celtic people have a strong and loving devotion to the goddess Brigid who for many now wears the mantle of St. Brigid of Kildare. The lore of Brigid the goddess and Brigid the saint are interwoven - they share attributes and a deep protective concern for Celtic people, animals, and lands. Many people continue to make St. Brigid’s crosses on the eve of St. Brigid’s Feast, using straw or rushes, to protect the home and ward off evil. You can find my instructions and a video below to help you make a Brigid’s Cross with skinny rolls of packing paper.
snowdrops wet with dew
As I continue to explore Celtic spirituality, Brigid grows stronger for me as an energetic archetype of the Divine Feminine. She represents an aspect of divinity that brings me comfort in a way I didn’t even realize was missing. Brigid is considered to be the protector and encourager of transformation: she oversees the transformation of fire and metal into tools and creative arts, words into poetry, and healing water into health and wholeness.
You may be familiar with the story that Brigid was a nursemaid and foster mother of Christ; she is sometimes called “Mary of the Gael.” My rational brain struggled to accept that bit of lore because St. Brigid, the person, lived centuries after the time of Jesus. It just made no sense until I began to realize that the energy of Brigid helps to bring Christ Consciousness into the world. Brigid is midwifing the rebirth of Christ, the second coming of Christ, in each of us.
The second coming of Christ is the coming of Christ in you.
Christ consciousness can mean many things for different people. Religions have various labels for this idea of spreading extravagant tenderness into the world. Does the phrase “Christ consciousness” have any resonance for you, either positive or negative?
For me, it is an invitation to be Christ for others. When I put on “the mind of Christ,” it is easier to see and treat myself and others, as interconnected, interdependent, and filled with divine dignity. In his book, The Return of the Prodigal Son: A Story of Homecoming, Henri Nouwen unpacks the parable and turns its meaning on its head. It is not a story of forgiveness as much as it is a story of the extravagant, prodigal love that the Divine showers on each one of us, if only we are willing to receive it. In response to the lavish, unconditional love, we are free to allow that love to flow through us to others, treating others as the Divine treats us.
Could it be that this is the second coming of Christ - the coming of Christ in each of us? Brigid helps us embrace this invitation to allow the second coming of Christ to be birthed in us. The world needs more of this: more of us offering unconditional love to ourselves, and to those around us.
If you need some practical examples of how this works or what this could look like, I highly recommend Fr. Greg Boyle’s newest book: The Whole Language: the Power of Extravagant Tenderness. I haven’t read his earlier books, even after many have recommended them to me, but I will. The phrase “Extravagant Tenderness” grabbed my attention because this is the kind of Godde I am interested in, this is the kind of attitude I can get behind. I have grown out of the god who demands that I change who I am to earn divine love. I’ve already won that love, just as I am. Godde loves who we are deep inside and under all that we’ve done (or haven’t done).
I will close with my favorite blessing found at the end of For Solitude by John O’Donohue:
May you learn to see your self
with the same delight,
pride, and expectation
with which God sees you in every moment.
And slowly, as we learn to see ourself with God’s eyes, may we see everyone else the same way, too!