Of Imbolc and the Rudeness of Jonquils
23 Jan 2011 Leave a Comment
in Jay Bull
Imbolc means “in milk” and the term comes from the days when there were still a lot of sheep herders around who often said things like, “Hey, these sheep are lactating.” Sheep herding must have been mind-numbingly boring. There aren’t as many shepherds anymore, possibly due to the fact that it required a lot of sitting around and commenting on sheep lactation. In fact, looking out my window here, I see a lot of houses, billboards along an interstate, and some very tall buildings in the distance. No sheep at all and no shepherds.
Still, even with the conspicuous sheep shortage, Imbolc will be celebrated here as a time of celebration of the coming of the spring. We’ve survived a long December, where we finally saw darkness start to roll back and light take over. Then came the incredibly cold and snowy January, which still has a week to go and promises even more snow and cold. January can be a bit of a bastard.
Yet even with the cold and the snow still covering the ground, I’m starting to see signs of spring. The light is lasting appreciably longer. The cold doesn’t seem as harsh. Very soon, the more suicidally optimistic jonquils will be poking up out of the snow, telling the snow to bugger off because it’s jonquil time.
On February 2nd, we’ll pull the chubby rodents out of their holes and make proclamations. We’ll head outside in the cold and listen for the birds we haven’t heard in a while. We’ll look for the rude and early jonquils. We’ll see that the sun is taking longer and longer to set. We’ll wonder where the time went. We’ll laugh at how quickly things change. We’ll begin to dream the new spring. Brigid will heal us body and soul, give us the opportunity to reforge ourselves in her fire, and teach us to write the poetry of our lives.
Who needs sheep anyway? Spring is the thing. It’s jonquil time!
