Imbolc

December offers a full moon as recompensefor the darkening, shorter days. 

…

Tonight, as the solstice arrives,the dark inhales the light and holds itin.

Robert Cording, Advent Blues (2020).

Robert Cording’s poem captures the ravenous darkness of winter—not just a state of being, but a force, that eats up the light, that gnaws away at our evenings, constricts our sunrises down to a few brief minutes of our morning commute.

As the sun is replaced by a light-consuming dark, we slow down. Days shorten. 

Our house, in summer, screams with sunlight streaming through the windows. Days expand, eking out every moment of the day, lingering through the blue twilights to luxuriate in the break from the day’s high heat. 

In summer, we are always out in the back garden, dirt under our fingernails, planting, weeding, watering, harvesting. The chickens kick up mud and dirt and fly larvae in the backyard, the air is thick with sunlight, fruit flies, house flies, mosquitos. Every inch of the earth is alive.

Winter is a time of rest, of hibernation, in Winter, the earth goes underground. The groundhogs that eat our kale hibernate. The flies and flowers are dead. On a warm, sunny day, I open up the bee boxes, praying that our little hive is alive. If we have anything to learn about nature, winter is about making it through. It’s about survival, having our cake rather than eating it all right away. 

Yet winter is also a relief. In our climate change-riddled world, winter’s cold is a respite from summer’s deadly heat. In many ways, heat is dangerous, life-threatening. A 2024 study in the Journal of the American Medical Association found that there were roughly 2,325 heat-related deaths in 2023. Winter is a time to come inside, to go inward, to think, write, contemplate under warm blankets on cold, snowy days.

On Sunday, February 1, Irish Christians celebrated Imbolc, an ancient Celtic holiday, as St. Brigid’s day. St. Brigid, a life-bringer and protectress of Ireland, the Emerald Isle. Imbolc is a moment in Celtic folklore, Brigid, representing the light part of the year, conquers the dark of winter. February 1—like the Catholic feast of the Presentation of the Lord (Candlemas) and the secular American folk festival of Groundhog Day—represents the halfway point between the winter solstice and spring equinox. We are almost out of darkness; we are making our way toward summer’s light.

On St. Brigid’s day, Irish families will traditionally light bonfires, make St. Brigid’s Crosses, or begin spring cleaning. Today, perhaps each of us can tap into that riot of spring inside of us, the force of life or light that lives, as “imbolc” means—in our bellies. We are all of us pregnant with the light that sings through creation each summer. Let’s give birth to it in some small way today. Break out the watercolors, bake an extravagant cake, write a poem for no one but yourself; sing, even though the birds are silent. Winter’s darkness has not blown out the spark.