Yielding time

It’s Imbolc and my garden is yielding flint. Rock is floating, resting on the soil that is sighing with its first breath… this time, so much is resting on the small signs. Life is here, it is happening and taking shape. That flint, heavy and cool in hand, is seeking the light. Flint, out of which we make weapons, with which we build shelters, by which we summon fire; is rising.

This moment, this year is like no other I remember, I have always hungrily awaited the brave blossoms and sweet tubers, succulent and vulnerable… And yet, I am harvesting flint. Strength, indomitability, promise that that which is emerging from the deepest part of our earth, ourselves, will be seen, will lend its gifts to the season of promise and of new beginnings. The darkness of deepest winter is behind us, despair and folding in, chaos in the dark. It is from this slumbering time which we must rise, upward, always focused on the Light. Resolute and propelled by the dark and secret earth, we move in trust. Faith informs action, ignited by the awareness that we must move forward; there is no going back. Though our creations are as yet undetermined, they are our own and we have an opportunity to shape our future.

Brigid is Mistress of the Forge and so she calls us to forge anew, to create a way of healing and new life. We live in uncertain times and life is demanding our presence, not as passive onlookers but as participants. The urge for new life is quickening and we have choices to make, weighty ones. What will we dedicate our energies to? What will we fashion from these gifts of earth and fire?