Imbolc 2003

by Valerie and Ron

The Toads rented a house on Bodega Bay for the Imbolc weekend, and it was wall-to-wall rituals from start to finish. Here's the program :

• Thursday: Ron, Valerie, Maura, Cynthia & Tracey arrive, build altars. Maura: West; Cynthia: South; Valerie: East, Tracey: north. (Cynthia and Valerie deliberately picked directions they aren't used to working in.)
• Friday: general laying about till late afternoon /early evening. Thrift-store run to get more altar cloths in Petaluma. Valerie leads a Feri workshop and ritual. Dinner by Ron.
• Artemis and Jim arrive 10 pm. Artemis leads us all in telling our personal myth around the fireplace.
• New Moon is at 2:28 AM Sat morning, so before crashing Jim helps us acknowledge the dark of the moon in a brief ritual (which does not involve releasing helium balloons).
• Saturday: Maura cooks breakfast. Gail arrives.
• Tracey and Cynthia provide the altar cloth dyeing workshop mid morning.
• Beach walk after lunch during which we collect shells and such for Maura's workshop.
• Imbolc ritual begins with a kitchen-magick workshop by Maura in the late afternoon and flows into the ritual and dinner. Dinner is stone soup (everyone brings a vegetable to add. Prepping the vegetable and adding to the soup is part of the ritual.)
• Sunday morning Artemis and Cynthia cook breakfast. Devoke and bid the gods farewell. Take down altars, divide leftover food, pack. Checkout is at noon, and we just make it.

Ron's Imbolc Ritual

Hi y'all. Here's a personal ritual that you can do when you arrive at the house for Imbolc. It will help get you ready by helping you to focus on your intent, and it's a house blessing as well. Also included is a formal house blessing and cleansing ritual for all who arrive on Thursday evening.

Imbolc, the threshold between winter and spring. It's the time of year we look for the first Crocus and Snowdrops to appear. It's the time of naissance and new beginning; the time when seeds get fat and swell, but before they sprout. It feels incredibly creative to me. Infinite possibility.
Being an urban witch doesn't mean I'm out of touch with the seasons. I can feel the days getting longer, but this year it's more in my bones than in my head. It's only mid January, yet my Camellia has put out a huge bunch of new buds, the first of which have already bloomed. And the early tulips are already popping out of the ground, some leaves almost a foot high! It's too damned early in the year for my head to get around this popping up and growing and stuff. But my body knows it has been a warm winter this year, and so it's perfectly natural to want to swell up a bit and strut your stuff, and to be joyous and hopeful, and to spread your shoulders and puff out your chest and say, "Yeah! Isn't life grand!"

...just hope a late frost doesn't settle in. Better prepare for it if it does...

All of the above is my intent for the weekend...

What to bring with you to cleanse and bless the house:

Being that this is the season of new beginnings, replete with all our hopes and fears and such, bring a magical cleansing tool or implement of your choice to the Imbolc weekend, in order to ritually clean our retreat. It could be a dusting rag, a broom or a mop. Maybe it's a wand, or an athame, or a rock. Or maybe it's a musical instrument, a dance, a song or a poem. Whatever -- you know what will make ritual space clean for you. Also bring a candle, which you will not burn this weekend, but will bless it and imbue it with good vibes, and then light it some other time when needed.

During the drive to the house take some time to meditate on your intent for this Imbolc weekend. Include in your meditation how best to cleanse and bless our residence. Distill it into a single declamatory statement. When you arrive do some variant of the following ritual:

Leave everything in your car except your ritual cleaning tool. As you cross the threshold of the house, light a candle (there will be candles and matches by the front door), use your tool to bless the house, and then state your intent; state it either loudly for all to hear or under your breath, being respectful of others, depending on time and circumstance. The object is to charge this magical space with your full intent when you enter the house.

The Thursday evening house blessing ritual, for the folks who are there:

The purpose of this ritual will be to cleanse the house and to dedicate it as a temple to Brigit.

When you arrive, cross the threshold, as described above, and then take some time to ground yourself, concentrating on the house and the moment. Feel in your body this ritual space. After grounding, let yourself be led into the house, according to your intent, to some place to be cleansed. Just trust your body to lead you there.

Spend whatever time you need to clean this place, using your tools at hand.

When you have finished your house cleansing, join with the rest of the coven to resume the ritual. As coven members gather after their personal cleansing ritual, respect the later arrivals and try to keep noise levels low while they perform their ritual. During this time chose a place for your altar, in some central location in the house, and then assemble it. Cynthia has sent the details of which person and direction. I'll distribute candelarias throughout the house.

After all have gathered and built their altars we will turn out all the lights, leave the house by a back door, and then assemble by the front door of the house. When you come to the front entrance of the house take a white candle in hand from the selection at the door.

Valerie will asperge us, and then I will offer Brigid's flame to light your candle before you cross the threshold, bringing her light into the house, according to your will. We'll assemble inside the door, and then proceed through the house, visiting each room and lighting candelarias as we go, while singing:

The darkness of winter and grave
Is the womb from which we are born.
Praise Briget, and welcome She
Who bears us into light and life!

[I was looking for a simple quatrain that we can easily memorize and chant while we move through the house. I found a NROOGD Imbolc ritual online, borrowed a bit from here and there, and managed to appropriate the refrain.

It contains most everything we want in an Imbolc house blessing: it invokes Brigit, and it evokes mystery of the change from darkness to light, death to rebirth.]

After filling the house with light we will assemble in the place where the altars were made, and then call the quarters. We'll invoke Brigit, and then the Green God, keeping in mind that we are asking them to stay with us for the entire weekend.

Create a cone of power, concentrating on naissance and beginning, of the cusp of the year between the dark and light, and of the power of growth. Let the light we create in the house magnify and explode into the multiverse, and then descend around our house and be with us for the weekend. Let the neighbors talk about this event for years to come.

We'll have a light cakes and wine, but we'll not devoke until after breakfast on Sunday morning when we leave the house, we'll just thank them for joining us.

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