Reflecting on Brigid today, on Imbolc (plus, I sing!)
"Brigid" ©2012, C. Marvel
Available as a Prayer Card or Poster
from The Magical Druid
Today, Imbolc day, is a bit of a strange day for me. There's a lot going on, but the best thing I can say is that the Brigid piece to the right encompasses my day today: healer, smith, and poet.
The beautiful artwork is by the lovely C. Marvel, a member of our Grove. She did it all up in black and white, and then I went at it with some color, trying to capture that flame that burns in my head when I think on her. It came out beautifully and powerfully, I think.
The prayer on the back of the card touches each of her aspects. I wrote it in part of the "storm" of prayers I created for the prayer cards a few weeks ago, and I rather liked it a lot. It is:
Lady Brigid
Healer, Poet, and Smith:
Brighten my life with the healing flame!
Let my touch bring comfort and joy,
And let me be comforted in turn.
Bring to my life the fire of poetry!
Fill my cauldron with inspiration
And deepen my voice and song.
Temper my life with the heat of the forge!
Mold me and strengthen my being,
And let my work be good and true.
May these three arts you give to me
Reside in my heart,
My head, and my hands.
On the way home from Trillium last year, seamus_mcnasty and I were listening to some bluegrass on the radio. As we were listening, a song came on, and I started to think, "Wow, that could really be turned into a great Pagan song!" Of course, like most Bluegrass, it was actually a song firmly rooted in Christian symbols (okay, extremely rooted in them: it's called "Remember the Cross"), but it fit so damn well that I had to work on it. The result was a song called "Remember the Forge," which I sang at Wellspring for a small audience, and then recorded a couple of times a few months ago, but haven't shared since.
So, now you get to hear it, because I found the recordings the other day and uploaded them. This is the primary verse in my not-so-in-tune voice (it's only 20 seconds of me singing, though, so most people should be able to manage it):
The verse's lyrics are:
"Remember the forge Brigid has worked,
The flame that tempers our lives.
She works night and day, deep into the night,
And brings forth our souls anew!"
I want to do a verse for each of the aspects. "Remember the well. . ." (inspiration) and "Remember the touch. . ." (healing), perhaps.
Now, I'm in the process of trying to wrap my head around our Grove's Imbolc rite on Sunday. It's something we've got to get planned, but with only three people at our liturgy meeting (the lowest number ever, matching our first planning meeting for our first Imbolc), things just couldn't get planned there. Fortunately, this is our most well-rehearsed rite of the year, so we really all know what we're doing already, because the rite hasn't change substantially in 10 years of doing it (hey, when you hit something that works, you keep workin' it, right?).
I'm also in the process of making things. . . all sorts of things. We just had a wholesaler order a few items from us, so we're gearing up for production on those items. Yes, this is The Magical Druid going global. We're still feeling our way through things, but you're quite likely to see some of our stuff at Pantheacon (for instance), even though we won't be there ourselves this year. So the forge aspect of Brigid is hitting us pretty hard, which is awesome.
The biggest thing right now is Brigid's healing aspect. It strikes me that today I have so many friends and people near me entering surgery, coming out of surgery, nursing weird problems, and getting through stuff on this particular day, and I feel that to pray to Brigid, in the midst of all this, is almost entirely the natural reaction to everything. And so, today I lit the candle on our altar at home in the morning, and I will end the evening by lighting the Grove's Kildare flame at the shop.
And for every moment between the two flames, I will have healing, inspiration, and smithcraft on my mind.