This year we will celebrate Brigid, daughter of Dagda on Saturday 28th of January. We host an open and free ceremony for Imbolg at 1:30pm followed by our traditional Brigid's Cross making afternoon. Special designs such as three legged and spinning weave will be demonstrated and taught by Ard Druí Red John. The ceremony and workshop will be held in the comfort of the Hemp Hall. Places are limited so forward booking is important to secure your place - contact us at [email protected] Some people are unsure about variations on the 4 legged version so we took some pictures in the Armagh Museum and the Ballina Festival to show the wide variations that exist. The crosses above with the blue background are on a display board seen at the Ballina Salmon Festival - they are copies of the Brigid's Crosses on display at the National Museum for Country Living in Co Mayo. The crosses below (cream background) are on show in the Armagh Museum in Co Armagh, Ireland. The white table cloth below shows what we made here at the Celtic Druid Temple last year. Attending our ceremony for Imbolg at 1:30pm followed by our traditional Brigid's Cross making afternoon is open and free of charge - but as places are limited = you must make prior contact at [email protected]
2 Comments
Saturday January 30th. Noon-5pm Free- Members Only Event Celtic Druid Temple, Roscommon We will have ceremony at noon in the Round House, then we will retire to the main Hemp Hall and make our new Brigid's crosses from rushes collected on our land. This is a family friendly event. Not a member already.....you can join on the day or subscribe here Imbolg means “in the bag” but is understood as “in the belly” and refers to the coming of milk and the sheep carrying lambs. It is also the availability of lamb meat during the cold season. Many celebrate Imbolg today without awareness to its significance in the past because they are disconnected. Today, our refrigerators protect us and a multitude of shops are open 24/7... But just imagine that there are no shops and its windy, dark, wet and cold and the only foods you have are the seeds for the next years crop / harvest and all the time you know that there are a multitude of young lambs “in the belly” and the importance of this cross-quarter day become real.
Imbolg is also called Imbolc, Oimelc, Candlemas, Feast of Lights, Groundhog Day (in USA) and Brigit's Day and this is so because the original connection to the daughter of the Dagda (Bríd) was displaced by succeeding religions that today honour St Brigid. It's a beautiful bright day here in Roscommon. I (Niamh) have a couple of days off work and am using the time to prepare for our Samhain festival. My main responsibility is the fire. I along with Ard Druí Red John create the first spark of the new year fire. It is a sacred fire and so I take the preparations very seriously. Today I am making the char cloth to start the fire with.
On the night I will make a spark with a striker, this catches on to the piece of pre charred cloth, it burns at an intense temperature, this will be added to a pile of dry herbs and thistle heads that I have been drying for months. This, once it catches into flames, is then added to the sacred fire box into a nest of kindling also prepared weeks ahead of time. This process will only work if I get the charcloth right today and then keep it bone dry until Samhain. |
Archives
March 2025
Categories
All
|