Arts
Mark and Sandra had so many other things on their minds that they were both surprised when they discovered a pressing commitment on the calendar: the Wiccan festival of Imbolc was only a few days away, and before that, they had a class to prepare. Their Wheel of the Year class for Imbolc had already been scheduled and advertised for the last day of January. For several days their kitchen table at home became their joint workspace, as they spent their free hours planning the class—together if their schedules permitted, separately if necessary. The weather cooperated, for once, and the evening of the class was clear and calm (though bitterly cold). They had a good turn-out at the church. They lit candles in the Fellowship Hall, and Sandra opened by talking about the ritual use of candles in her tradition: how they generally began rituals with a lighting of candles and closed them by extinguishing the flames. (“Christians do just the same,” she had said to Mark while they were planning. “They’ll see the connection, don’t you think?”) Mark then spoke about Candlemas, an important Christian celebration corresponding to Imbolc. The Corwin Congregational Church didn’t celebrate Candlemas, so the whole concept was new to many in the audience. Mark taught about the Candlemas ritual of blessing the year’s candles for the church, as practiced in many other branches of Christianity, in town and around the world. “Do Wiccans bless all their candles for the year at Imbolc?” he asked Sandra. She didn’t do so, she said, but she blessed and anointed candles for various purposes throughout the year. The other Christian celebration at this point in the Wheel of the Year was Saint Brigid’s Day. Mark told about some of the legends of Saint Brigid, one of the three great patron saints of Ireland, emphasizing her generosity and her healing miracles. She was said to be the founder of the double monastery at Kildare. Mark showed people a Brigid’s Cross—a little cross woven of green rushes, with four equal arms—and he told one of the legends of how St. Brigid had come to weave the first such cross. Then he said, “Now, that’s a sweet story, but I suspect that they were weaving these crosses in Ireland, long before the time of Saint Brigid, and indeed before Christianity ever came there. Sandra?” “Thank you, Mark,” said Sandra. “See, folks: Mark and I can agree—that makes twice this week.” There was a laugh. “Now,” she continued, “let me tell you some of the ancient customs that involve Brigit’s Cross—customs that I think go back to the days long before the Christian religion came to Ireland.” In Sandra’s hands, the story of Saint Brigid became the story of the goddess Brigit, and the rush-woven cross became a symbol, not of the cross of Christ, but of the sun, and of the quartering of the year. Sandra tried, as always, to emphasize the rhythms of nature. Imbolc was a cross-quarter day: roughly half way between the winter solstice and the spring equinox. That made it a natural time to start thinking about the spring season to come. The first signs of spring were, perhaps, a bit hard to read at the start of February in Illinois; they would have been more obvious to the ancient Germanic and Celtic peoples of Europe, with whom many Imbolc customs originated. For them, it was lambing season. Herd animals that conceived in the fall would give birth now, and the time of planting was not far off. And there was a critical question on many people’s minds: will our stores of food and fodder and firewood last the winter out? Will winter be long or short? That, of course, led neatly into a discussion of Groundhog Day. At the first mention of that name, Mark triggered a little clip from the movie: That’s right, woodchuck chuckers … it’s Groundhog Day! “Hey, can you guys sing ‘I’ve Got You, Babe?’” called someone from the audience—Terri, of course. “Sorry, no, we didn’t think of that,” said Mark. “Well, you should learn it!”