“At Imbolc we see, feel and hear the beginning signs of Spring. Winter is over, Spring cometh. It may well still be very cold but the energy has shifted. It is the time we see new growth following the seeming dormancy of Winter. Imbolc is a time of hope, a time filled with the excitement of new possibilities for the future, either brand new possibilities or those we’ve dreamed up, ‘seeded’ over the winter . . . At Imbolc, the seed, held in the dark Earth over the Winter has germinated, it finds it’s way through the Earth’s surface to see the light, to show itself, to grow.” Jane Hardwicke Collings
I think Imbolc would not be the same without a good snow storm, or at lease some kind of reminder that it is still winter. Our second good–ok, semi good–snow storm came last night, and left a blanket. By mid afternoon the snow on the grass was mostly gone, whatever was plowed are now lonely snow piles on corners of the street.
Our day was filled with learning to knit. I had hoped 3 years ago that I could teach my kids how, and we could all be knitting friends. However, many things derailed that, and right now, I am just happy that yesterday we walked into a yarn store to kill time, and my youngest wanted to buy needles, yarn and wanted to knit RIGHT NOW! So we are on day two, and the oldest has had some practice and kinda gets it, same with the middle, and for the youngest I have had to buy a lucet because he is a little to young to knit with two pointy objects.
And as you can see, it is easy to do, and time consuming. I told him that Vikings used to do this all the time, and he is all excited about doing something soo coool!
Our initial plan of doing a play was interrupted by life, and we would have done this ritual, but we will hold off to another day. Instead we made pipe cleaner Brigid’s Cross. Tomorrow I will have more time to do a ceremony, a story, and a craft with the kids. Stay tuned!
Pagan Family Sabbats and Esbats 