This web­site is ded­i­cated to Brigit!

We hon­our Her and What She Sig­ni­fies, The Heal­ing of Our World

Last night, on the 31st Jan­u­ary, the Eve of Brigit’s Day, I moved into action, re-invigorating a very ancient tra­di­tion of hon­or­ing the ancient ‘Celtic’ fire God­dess Brigit: Her name may be spelt var­i­ously, espe­cially as regards the use of ‘d’ or ”t’ (Brigid/Brigit), which are very closely linked. She is also endear­ingly known as Bride and Bridey–thus Brides’ Well or Brideswell–the name of my husband’s and my web­site: www.brideswell.com–signifying MUCH! The God­dess of Heal­ing, Poetry and Birthing, is very well-connected (smile!)–as the many wells, espe­cially in Ire­land, contest.

In years gone by, my pal Kathy Jones (of Glas­ton­bury UK God­dess Con­fer­ence fame) and I, amongst oth­ers, revived the tra­di­tion of cre­at­ing Bridey Dolls, birthing a yearly Bridey, appre­ci­ated through the year and beyond. So I too birthed a Bridey last night, attached my spe­cial Cal­i­for­nia wand (nor­mally it should be of some tree or bush that starts with a ‘b’), and swad­dled her in an ornate Moroc­can trav­el­ling pouch left by my old Wise Crone Café pal, Mar­garet Kim­ber. I stood at the door and knocked thrice, and each time my savvy goddess-wise hus­band (whose sur­name is that of the Great God­dess of the Track­ways, Elen) cor­rectly called out “Enter Bridey!” She entered our home offi­cially and lives with us now, bring­ing Her Bless­ings. Tonight She will eat with us–’poundies’ (pota­toes), eggs and lots of but­ter and cream–as milk and but­ter are espe­cially asso­ci­ated with her. Her bless­ings on our house will be many, as She is a benev­o­lent, heal­ing Pres­ence to a house­hold who hon­ours Her.

And for the first time I cre­ated a Brigit ‘brat‘ (wait for it!): I placed a piece of unwashed cloth,  a white (milk-colour) hand­made shawl brought back from the recent 9th World Wilder­ness Con­gress in the Yucatan, out in our gar­den, as it is said that Brigit will come by and turn it into a magic cloth.  The full moon had risen (in Leo, my sun sign!), flood­ing the gar­den with clear and sil­very enchant­ment; I placed the shawl on a pro­lific rose­mary bush (asso­ci­ated with The Fem­i­nine, as Sage is with The Mas­cu­line). This morn­ing, cov­ered with dew and a dust­ing of sil­very frost, I brought it it. It is now a heal­ing blan­ket to be car­ried Where Need Be.

Brigit’s Time–Imbolc–heralds the com­ing of spring, when wee lambs start to appear in the hills and dales of this Mag­i­cal Island of Britain, when ewes’ milk pours forth,  a by-product of which can be a lovely cheese!

My hus­band and I often visit our favourite local ‘holy well’ in yes, Holy­well (near St Ives, Cam­bridgeshire). From being an over­grown bram­ble infested site some years ago, it’s been restored and cared for (THE GREAT RETURNING has its own nat­ural momen­tum). Once there were many such such ‘holy wells’–too many have been sealed up or for­got­ten. They marked heal­ing springs, where in olden times peo­ple would tie bits of cloth and other items on branches of trees and bushes nearby, as an indi­ca­tion of prayer for some heal­ing neces­sity. There are still a few of these in Scot­land and Corn­wall. Most such wells and springs would have had some linked asso­ci­a­tion with Brigit or a form of Brigit, often trans­posed onto some Chris­t­ian saintly fig­ure (males or female). Thus the ‘pagan’ Brigit became St Brigit, and Long May She Live in what­ever form She chooses to take through these dif­fi­cult times, when we sorely need Her Heal­ing Touch.

Hail Brigit!

There are many cel­e­bra­tions in hon­our of Brigit…as The GREAT  RETURNING gets under­way. As well as in Glas­ton­bury (where the God­dess Tra­di­tion is alive and well!), back in my ‘home town’ of Lon­don, Ontario (Canada), The Cir­cle up at Bres­cia Col­lege (at my old Alma Mater, Uni­ver­sity of West­ern Ontario) is spon­sor­ing a Brigid (Brighid) Fes­ti­val from 19–21 Feb­ru­ary: “Enter­ing the Matrix…Being Betwixt and Between”, fea­tur­ing the Irish scholar Mary Con­dren: “It will be a week­end of rit­ual, learn­ing, com­mu­nity, art, move­ment, work­shops and explo­ration as we reclaim the ancient female wis­dom tra­di­tions of Old Europe through the fig­ure of Brighid: http://www.brescia.uwo.ca/thecircle/brigit.htm;  Con­tact: The Cir­cle circle@uwo.ca “. My good goddess-pal Penn Kemp, with whom I have facil­i­tated a Great Return­ing work­shop last autumn in Lon­don, is also one of the work­shop facilitators.