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.