Today is Ash Wednesday and the beginning of Lent.

(Protip: If you see people with black smudges on their forehead, don’t helpfully wipe off the dirt.)

Lent is…weird for me. I don’t really recall giving up much as a kid. I know it was talked about in church, but I didn’t really ever do it. It’s always struck me as odd. Yes, Lent is a period of mourning and repentance, but it’s also struck me as oddly self-punishing.

Because I mostly hear about giving up something you enjoy. Enduring the trial of it.

But I started thinking this year about if I was going to give anything up. In thinking about it, I realized that there is a different way I can approach this.

Because there are things that I mean to change. That I mean to let go of. But that are difficult. Because I sink into habits and familiarity. Things that are harmful, not just to me, but to the planet. We do things that harm, not out of malice or spite but out of habit and ease. Because doing the right thing is difficult. Because the harm doesn’t affect us directly.

For me, one of the big changes is to try to move away from consuming factory-farmed meat. I don’t have any aspirations to become a vegetarian but I know that I could be better about eating less meat and being more conscious of where the food I consume comes from.

So this year, I’m giving up meat for Lent. I’m looking at the time as a way to hit the re-set button. To focus on eating more fruits and vegetables like I know I need to, and hopefully break out of my habits. So that when it’s over I can add meat back in smaller amounts, from better sources. To think more about becoming an ethical consumer and to do something that will benefit me and help ease the burden on the planet.

So that’s my plan for this; to give something up, not to punish myself, but in hopes of moving towards something better.

As is typical lately, I found myself facing Candlemas and Imbolc utterly unprepared for the things I would like to do. I’d meant to have things ready to spring clean and throw open the windows to greet spring. To bake bread. To make my own candles and bless them. To get my hands on a corn dolly or Brigid’s cross.

None of that panned out due to time. I also had a vague plan to put  a scarf out my window as Bride’s mantle, to be blessed for healing, but that idea got scrapped after my neighbors stopped by to let me know there’s been a increase in crime in the area (a break-in/theft, a mugging, and a shooting or stabbing) and I decided a more prudent course of action as to make sure my windows were shut tight and locked.

I did, however, manage to arrange my seasonal altar space.

This time of year the space looks a bit sparse. White candles for the holiday, a larger white candle for Brigid, a cauldron for her power of hearth and healing, a bit of the very first wool I ever spun and a little sheep.

I talked a bit about Candlemas yesterday, but of course this is also Imbolc. Brigid the Goddess and St. Brigid have so many tied together customs it’s difficult for me to tease the two apart. Brigid is a goddess of fire, of the hearth and the forge. She rules over healing, poetry and inspiration.

I also managed a bit of feasting. I tried to keep it seasonal, even if I was relying on easy to prepare foods. Lamb sausage with basil and garlic, some red cabbage with apples, and herbed potato and cauliflower mash. The potato and cauliflower dish came from the Whole Foods hot bar and the cabbage is really more German than Irish but it’s still festive. (Especially if by festive one means it’s probably the first well-balanced meal I’ve had in an alarmingly long time.)

Imbolc is also a celebration of the dawning of spring; it means ewe’s milk as it was when the sheep would begin to lactate and dairy would be part of the diet once again. This gets tricky for me observance-wise, as I can’t have cow’s milk and dairy foods tend to be heavily emphasized. But I wanted to do something to leave as an offering as well as a libation, so I picked up some goat’s milk and made a honey-spiced warm milk, leaving some on the altar and drinking a mug myself while curled up on the couch listening to Alison Kraus and Gillian Welch.

I’m usually the anxious sort when it comes to candles — if I’m not around, they go out. But on the night of Imbolc I leave Brigid’s candle burning with my offering to her. Brigid of healing, hearth, flame and forge. Bless me with your inspiration, courage, and strength. With your fire forge me into the woman I am meant to be and with your spirit heal and soothe my soul.

Today marks the occasion of Candlemas, and also is a day that many celebrate Imbolc (though technically Imbolc occurred yesterday, as did the feast day of St. Brigid).

Photo by ndrwfdgg

I admit, this year I have (once again) fallen down on my observances. The best intentions — to make bread to set out, to have a corn dolly to dress, to make candles — have not been squeezed into my exhaustingly busy schedule.

This year, because I’m exploring Christianity more deeply, and how festivals and feast days there fit with the turning year, I am thinking more about Candlemas.

In the church, Candlemas marks three things: 1) the purification of Mary after childbirth, 2) the presentation of Jesus at the temple as part of the redemption of the first-born, and 3) the prophecy of Holy Simeon.

The end of Christmastide

Photo by Editor B

So what is Candlemas? First off, if it’s the very tail-end of the Christmas season. The absolute, no-seriously we’re done end. If you haven’t taken down your Christmas decorations, this is the absolute last day to do so. It’s also traditional to burn Christmas greenery this day — provided, of course, that your greens are real and not (like mine) the kind that get packed back up in their box, and it’s not a no-burn day where you are.

Weather Lore

Photo by slgckgc

It’s also a day for weather lore. In addition to the most-familiar Groundhogs day (Punxutawney Phil has apparently already predicted six more weeks of winter for us this year), there’s other weather lore associated:

If Candlemass day be dry and fair,
The half o’ winter to come and mair
If Candlemass day be wet and foul.
The half o’ winter gane at Yule.

It’s dawning dry and fair where I am, so it looks like we’re in for a bit more winter. Fair enough, we could use the rain.

Feast of Candlemas

Photo by ultrakml

Want to feast on Candlemas? Crepes are a traditional food, which makes a lot of sense. This time of year, spring has not yet come and spring fruits and veggies have yet to appear, but the stores of winter are growing thin. Foods that can be made with things that store well over the winter are key; making a feast out of what is left lurking in the dark corners of the pantry.

Blessing and procession of candles

Candlemas is also a time when the candles for the year would be blessed and processed. Why candles? As best I can tell, it ties back to Simeon’s words of prophecy as Jesus is presented at the Temple:

Sovereign Lord, as you have promised,
you now dismiss your servant in peace.
For my eyes have seen your salvation,
which you have prepared in the sight of all people,
a light for revelation to the Gentiles
and for glory to your people Israel.”
(Luke 2:29-32)

This, for me, is where it all ties together. Candlemas is a feast that still comes in a time of darkness. The days are lightening, things are getting better — but we don’t see it yet. The changes are imperceptible, working deep in our hearts and souls.

Photo by Beige Alert

We light candles in the dark to hold it off, and to remind ourselves of the light sure to return. We make feasts of the the scraps we are left with, sweeping around for the stores of winter and pulling together something nourishing and delicious.

Simeon refers to Christ as a light of revelation. It must have been hard to see that in a small baby who had yet to become who he was. But Simeon did. I think it’s hard to see now, too. Look around at a world with so much suffering and conflict, where faith has become a battleground and used to hurt as much as to heal.

But even in the darkness there is change and germination, working it’s way deep inside, preparing to grow. Even when we can’t see the potential yet.

As part of my service in Come As You Are Coven this year, I decided to work on our public service track. In all my religious paths giving back and doing good in the world is of a very high importance to me, but like so many rushed people it has a tendency to be one of those things that is easy to let fall by the wayside.

My first challenge here was finding something to do. I had a lot of ideas for things I’d like to work on — volunteering with hospice was one or prison literacy programs or programs that feed the hungry. I looked into becoming a medic with the Berkeley free clinic.

But I quickly ran into a problem and that was this — it’s very difficult to balance volunteering with a demanding job. I looked at an awful lot of volunteer programs that had requirements I just could not meet. They want people to be there from 3-5. Or arrive exactly at 5. Others could work (the medic program being my favorite of those) but the training just wasn’t realistic for me right now.

So I was stumped. It frustrated me on a few levels; one because I think it’s problematic that volunteer programs that need help aren’t necessarily keeping up with the realities of modern working life (long hours, long commutes, less options for flexibility in this economy) and second because I really do want to be able to do these things.

Finally, though, in a conversation with the Lady Yeshe Rabbit it dawned on both of us that, hey, there are a lot of charities that look for knitting donations and what do you know, I’m a knitter.

Yes. I probably should have come up with that one sooner.

I’ll be perfectly honest here and say that it’s not my ideal form of service. I want to be able to do things that put me more directly in touch with people, not so safely ensconced in my world. But with the realities of a demanding job and a more erratic schedule due to it being an election year, it’s a much more sustainable and realistic option.

As I move forward in this, I hope to share my projects and talk a bit about the different organizations. I’m hoping to knit for a mix of more established organizations as well as smaller efforts; I’ve joined a group on Ravelry and have seem calls for things for smaller, grass-roots efforts as well as organizations. So here’s to putting my love of yarn to good use!

The other night, the power went out in my neighborhood.

This doesn’t seem like a big deal, and in a lot of ways, it isn’t. I have a lot of candles, so I was able to light them and have enough light to read and knit. My laptop battery was charged too, so I was able to get so me things done (though nothing that required Internet, which most of my to-do list does.)

But then it came time for me to sleep and the power was still out. So blew out the candles, and found myself in true darkness. Even when it’s dark here, it’s not really dark. The glowing numbers on my alarm clock illuminate my room, accompanied by the soft flicker of the Wi-Fi router. I have blinds and curtains but even then the security lights from the building next door bleed through.

This was true darkness. Heavy, thick. I could see nothing, only wait in stillness and mystery. No distractions, nothing but me and my mind and this space.

Once a year, CAYA Coven goes on a retreat. We go somewhere that has no cell phone access, and the first year I think everyone (including me) thought I’d go twitchy about two hours in. But I didn’t. I love my phone yes, but I also enjoyed the slowing down. The meals with friends, the conversations, lying on the Earth and feeling the solid ground beneath me, darkness at night and the stars shining bright.

I want to make room for more opportunities for that. I don’t, as a rule, camp. (At least not the kind that involves tents.) But I want to find a way to make space to have that stillness. Perhaps alone, perhaps with friends. I want to find a place with no schedules or deadlines, to be present and feel the world around me.

To find a place where there is darkness and sink into the deep mystery. To face my fears of what lurks in shadow and seek revelation. To feel the darkness and the light, and in the place between become whole.