For kindling the first flame
Kindling the First Flame
- 1 Gather. A single candle. Something white—cloth, paper, milk, snow. A seed or stone to hold.
- 2 Sit in darkness. Let your eyes adjust. Feel the cold that still lingers. This is honest winter, not yet spring. Honor it.
- 3 Light the candle. Speak aloud or in silence: I kindle the flame that was never extinguished. Watch the light push back the edges of the room.
- 4 Hold the seed or stone. Feel its weight. Beneath the frozen ground, something is stirring that cannot yet be seen. You carry that same stirring. Name one thing beginning to wake in you.
- 5 Let the candle burn. Stay with it as long as you can. When you leave, carry the warmth in your chest. The light returns slowly—and so do you.
Kindling the First Flame
Imbolc means "in the belly"—the quickening before the visible. Ewes begin to lactate, though lambs are not yet born. Seeds crack open underground, though nothing has broken the surface. This is the holy waiting.
Brigid tends it: goddess of flame, forge, and poetry. She carries the fire through the darkest months and returns it now, cupped in her hands. In Ireland, her crosses were woven from rushes and hung above doorways to protect the home through the coming year.
This is not yet spring. The ground is still frozen, the nights still long. But something has shifted. The light stays a little longer each evening. The darkness, though deep, is no longer deepening. Imbolc asks you to notice the turn before you can see it.
Correspondences
- Materials
- Candle, white cloth, milk, snowmelt
- Plants
- Snowdrop, crocus, willow, angelica
- Moon
- Waxing crescent
- Time
- Dawn, or the first evening dark enough for candlelight
- Direction
- Northeast (between winter and spring)
I sit in the last of the dark.
I light the first of the returning flame.
What stirs beneath, let it stir.
What sleeps still, let it sleep.
I am the keeper of the slow return.
Brigid, tend the fire I cannot yet see.
Your intention: