Happy Imbolc everyone! Also known as Brigid’s day, St Bridget’s day and Candlemas.
This is the first festival of the calendar year and the second of the Celtic wheel of the Year. It’s one of my favourite festivals of the Celtic year and it is traditionally celebrated as a feast of blessing the lactation of ewes, the return of the light (hence candles) and the flowing of springs and wells, though I associate it mostly with the mating of frogs! In other words, it is time to start thinking about the year ahead and asking for help to allow the fluid juices of growth and abundance to flow copiously. It is a time to propitiate the goddesses of old, the once and future Divine Queen. It is these sincere prayers, always both practical and spiritual (the theme of our new course – see below) that re-binds us to the wheel of life; of the land, the water, earth, weather, and the vagaries of life – the plants and animals that we depend upon are recognised in conscious supplication. We bow our heads, and anoint ourselves with earth’s sacred living waters.
Yet how many of us can say that our lives depend directly on springs, wells and indeed the breast milk of ewes. That unfortunate detachment from what sustains us leads to a forgetting of these powerful rituals, rituals embedded not only in the fabric and heartbeat of the land we inhabit, but also deep in our own hearts, in our bones – quite literally. The reciprocity of prayer and sacrifice acknowledges the interdependence of all beings – including us, and we remember Nature wants us too.
Up here in the ancient ‘pueblos blancos’ of the Alpujarras mountains, a region where the moors took irrigation seriously we find many water channels (Acequias), wells and sacred springs, they are marked on maps, they even have roadside signs to them, As I sit writing outside, I can hear the nearby spring gushing down the hillside. Our house is right next to the ‘Fuente alegre’ which translates as the joyful spring. Higher up the mountain we visited a very famous healing spring that was renowned throughout Andalusia – the ‘Fuente Cuesta Viñas’, a remarkable place where 4 springs all converge, each one with different healing properties. The water emerges from the ground almost warm, and in 3 of the springs the water oxidises on contact with the air, indicating its’ extremely high iron content, the grotto is rust red. The 4th spring emerges carbonated, it’s water fizzing with life and tastes of a cocktail of replenishing minerals that alkalinise the body, and flush out toxins. Unfortunately, like much of rural Spain, the area has become depopulated of younger generations, and the Spring has fallen into neglect and disrepair, the toilets and bar area broken and vandalized, litter and graffiti on the walls. It was so sad to see such a beautiful gift of the earth abandoned in this way, and we reflected that many people just aren’t that interested anymore, they care less about water from the ground, when they can buy it in bottles, and large multi-nationals like Coca-cola and Danone are gradually buying up the Spanish springs and draining the water table. Let’s hope that this spring stays open and free to everyone to discover its’ healing waters in the future.
Bless all the sacred springs and wells of the world and the joy and sustenance they bring us.
