Fire in the head, heart and hand

NASA Picture of Ursa Major

This journey formed part of an Imbolc ritual. It has been suggested that Brigid: goddess and saint morped into a far older form of energy as the focus of a bear cult. Hers is a time of coming out of hibernation, when the bear was sacred as possessing the magic of dying and not just coming back to life, but to bring life back into the land.

I lead a journey which we became the bear. Pull your blankets tight around you and i'll tell you a story:

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Curl up foetus like, remember being in that dark place of our mother’s as we return to that dark place of the Earth. Imagine our covers an accumulation of day and night, of all the seasons past until they merge taking us back thousands of years.

The familiar stories we recognise in the stars are no longer relevant. This is a time far more ancient. This is a time when bears roamed in Scotland. You are now the last bear, a lone female. As you prepare to enter sacred dreamtime, returning to the belly of the earth, your dreams will be earth dreams.

Overhead nights chase days and you are emerged in dreamtime. You make your own stories to the constellations that will become ancient tales and will be shared by those who come after you and tell tales of how to live the way of the earth. Make your intentions known to the universe; make them known to every cell and every drop of blood. As you feasted on the autumn abundance feed from the universal abundance.

Brigid's Cross Paving

Paint your pictures in stars; name them, give them stories that you wish to live your life by. Give them stories that tell of how to live with our mother, with ourselves, with each other. Give them stories from your soul, how to live in love. Create what you need to work in this world, gather them together, gather them together. Pull all of this into your sleeping body where they will gestate and come to life when you awake.

There is a deep stirring in the earth, you can hear the whispering of tree roots as they wriggle in the soil. Slowly you are preparing to come back into consciousness, to return to your body. Outside the howling winter gales are taming. All winter that you gathered from sacred dreamtime has been growing inside you. You can feel the energy shift as the Northern Hemisphere slowly awakens. Rock yourself gently and slowly bring movement back into your body. Slowly, slowly make your way to the front of the cave. Make your way to face the East to bathe in the morning light.

Calleach

This is the time of Imbolc where the Calleach, the winter Crone gives up her reign. She can no longer stake her blackthorn staff and cull every sign of life, life now is growing in energy and her energy is weakening. She returns to Tir na Nog, drinking from the fountain of eternal youth. Turning around she has renewed the face of the goddess and now takes her form in Brigid. Brigid who is the bear awakening from her hibernation. She spreads her mantle across the earth leavening a greening hue.

As you reach the mouth of the cave. Brigid’s light greets you, washing your face in the dew. She is our midwife, assisting our rebirth as you emerge from the bearskins. Stepping naked into the new dawn Brigid takes your hand and recognising you as her daughter. She embraces you and you feel that fire within you smoulder. That fire ignites our head, swells in our heart and emanates from our hands are we are enthused in the work we must carry out. That fire ignites our plans, our loves and so Brigit will always be alive within us. She is that most ancient energy which has travelled life with mankind. Every night you look up to the dark skies recall those stories you spun out amongst them.

The mark of the witch

This lone blackthorn flower caught my eye shining out against the black tangle of thorny branches. A bright spark of blood appeared on my finger as I was nicked by a thorn. The very same thorns that the devil was said to mark witches with. The thorn marks that Witch Finder Generals (my flesh crawls even thinking about those twisted men) were looking for as they accused young girls, women, old crones and men alike in the medieval witch trials. The Blackthorn was so entangled with those supposedly involved in the ‘dark arts’ that their branches were cut and used as fuel of the pyres set to burn the accused alive.Its association with darkness is really just the oppressing hand of the medieval church in their attempts to overthrown those practicing an earth based spirituality.

In Scotland Calleach (the crone of winter) is said to have struck her staff of blackthorn into the earth striking down any sign of growth in her dark reign of the winter months.

Baba Yaga Rides

While modern attitudes might sneer at the idea of a tree encompassing a healing property or spirit I love that it’s existed for thousands of years, showing up in archaeological records going back as far as 8,000bc. Wither in spirit or metaphorically it can offer us the tool for overcoming negativity. It helps us to facilitate our rebirth bringing forth that which we may repressed from those long dark days where dreams fed from our unconscious to bringing our negativity into the light and begin to work with them.

One idea I’ve had for this blog is to talk to fibre artists – people who I see the soul of nature infused in their work. Feature artist’s I’ve met through workshops, Flickr, blogs etc and generate some discussion. I'd like to examine in this blog is when we consider the state of the world I want to question what what role does craft and creativity play in facilitate our relationship to our self, each other, nature and ultimately spirit, god, mystery (however you view the interconnection that is life).

Just now I feel quite infused with the spirit of the blackthorn. While I love the longer days I’m feeling quite naked separated from those winter layers that bathed us in darkness, it felt safe somehow, I was able to hide.

I’ve been working nuno felt scraps machine embroidered into layers, it makes me think of my Grandmother. She was a tailor working in an eminent dressmakers in Glasgow called Muriel’s, just off Suchiehall street. In the 1920's the rich of London Society would travel to Glasgow for tailored flapper dresses. Her embroidery was amazing as I remember as a kid not being able to work out which way down the embroidered tablecloths went!

As the machine stitches trails of gold and connects and merges the layers of nuno I feel like i'm bringing light to dark layers of my psyche. I need to explore them and recognise the patterns they, often unwittingly, weave in our life.