February 3rd, 2007
Yesterday I was on the road most of the day so I never did get a chance to post an entry. So today I’d like to talk about Imbolc, the first of the spring celebrations in my religion – which was yesterday. In Wicca, (a.k.a. Witchcraft, the Old Religion etc.) there are three spring celebrations and three harvest celebrations with mid-summer in between. Imbolc is the first spring celebration and one of the fire festivals celebrated in the great Wheel of the Year. (The Wheel consists of eight Sabbats and begins at Samhain, October 31st – our New Year’s.) The other spring celebrations are the equinox and Beltaine, May’s Eve on April 31st.
At Imbolc, the house is decorated with loads of candles placed everywhere it is safe to place a candle, as we celebrate the first visual evidence of the light returning to our part of the globe. We make plans and wishes for the coming year of growth, and if we haven’t done so already, we plan our gardens. We start the first seeds of the year indoors, and gift others with seeds, preferably ones we collected ourselves from last year’s garden. If the weather permits, we begin winter clean-up. I like to use the energies of this time of year to start new projects, but recognize that ‘new’ doesn’t begin until ‘old’ is finished, or cleaned up, so I begin there, helpful that at this time on this year the moon is in it’s ‘wane’ cycle, with last Thursday as the full moon. The waning moon is an ideal time to ‘banish’ what you don’t want in your life – so a good time for cleaning up anything.
I usually leave the old stalks of plants in place all winter long, especially the hollow stemmed varieties. In these, many of my garden helpers over winter. I’m talking about the host of insects which benefit the garden in some way; hover flies, butterflies, parasitic wasps, lady bugs and the like. For Imbolc I leave these in place awhile longer, since early spring and winter are still very linked, and we could easily get another deep freeze before the next season really begins. So at Imbolc I like to begin garden clean-up by doing some pruning. It’s a good time to do it, before things actually begin to bud out, and plants and trees are still dorment.
In this location, I’ve got loads of native bushes which have already sprouted long water shoots. These must be trimmed off, and the bushes must be trimmed down so they don’t completely take over the garden. I usually hack them to the ground. Left alone, they’ll triple in size before midsummer. I will also inspect the small ornamental bushes and trees I’ve planted over the past five or six years we’ve lived here. I’ll take out all the weak or damaged branches as well as the branches growing across others. I do this to prevent the branches rubbing together in the wind and stripping bark. Some of these I shape conically and others are more suited to an ‘open vase’ arrangement.
After I’ve done all the pruning I can do – since I don’t prune spring flowering bushes and trees until AFTER they bloom, (otherwise I wouldn’t get any blooms) – I go around and check the mulch on all the perennials, bushes and small trees, checking to make sure it’s adequate in case there’s another cold snap. It’s this time of year we tend to lose plants to the freeze/thaw patterns which signal the coming of spring here. Many plants which are hardy to severe cold, succumb to ground heave during spring. If heavily mulched, they stand a much better chance of survival, since the mulch prevents the ground from thawing too rapidly, or the reverse.
Fence repairs frequently start at this time of year as well. I must walk the property and insure the fences are in good repair, fixing what winter might have torn.
It’s rather symbolic, my garden tasks, such as repairing fences. We can repair the fences of our relationships with folks we don’t keep in good touch with, but love by calling them up and renewing our contact with them, or by reminding family members how much we love them. We ‘clean up’ after the winter – starting life afresh after a long deep freeze, and preparing for the year ahead by ‘pruning’ what we don’t want to see in ourselves, in our lives. This is a good time to get rid of a bad habit and begin a good one, and a good time for general reflection on life, rejoicing in it’s cycles. We start new seeds, our hopes and dreams for the future, planted with love and our best optimism for what lays ahead, and hope the same for our loved ones, whom we’ve gifted with seeds for their gardens.
This is very early spring. Winter has not yet released it’s grip, but that grip is beginning to weaken, as one season begins to manifest from the old. Everything in nature boils down to the same thing: life feeds on death, and the great cycles of life always move along – one manifesting into another. The ever-presence of nature is the manifestation of the Goddess on earth. She is the imminent force of nature, and the God, her consort, the manifestation of the seasons.
I wish a happy Imbolc to everyone, regardless of whether you celebrate or not. May the coming year of growth be a happy and productive one.
