IMBOLC REVISITED


But I can grow
despite what you know
you might not recognize me tomorrow
yes, I can change, inspite of all they say
become something strange
and beautiful
like joy!
like joy !
-- Liz Phair

I think I heard that there’s gonna be rain today. The sky is a deep grey like a thick blanket and the white of the snow is dulled by the absense of light. I don’t mine because for the first time in a long time it is actually warm. The fact that I would call 37 degrees warm points to just how could it has been. Second day in the season of Imbolc and I can feel the breath of Kore as she ascends up from the land of the dead. After a long season living below amongst the shadows the goddess begins her return.

I know the feeling.

Sometimes the mythology of the faiths before resonate more with me than Christian myth. I am not sure what others call “religious faith” or religious truth, but to me it is what you recognize, what resonates with you. In a few weeks Lent will begin again. I’ve only known of a Roman Lent, never experienced it as an Episcopalian. For six weeks the generally offering up of things we didn’t really need in the first place, heavier than usual Catholic guilt trips, drummed of tears and emotion for the death of Jesus on Good Friday, and then a quick and speedy resurrection we don’t know what to do with. Three days in the tomb, and it the three days don’t even last three full days. Easter comes, we eat chocolate, and after this no one really knows how to apply this to real life.

The season of Imbolc is different. Death and resurrection are not once and for all things. They come and they go, and resurrection is not an easy task, it is a long, seven week one. There is repentance, but there is little guilt. Guilt must serve a purpose. Acknowledged, it is time to put it away. Not put away, it only enslaves, or else it makes us callous. We learn to live with it while not choosing to change. The repentance does not come before the death and resurrection. It begins at the moment of resurrection, the moment when the Queen of the Dead in the underworld is given her cosmic green light, and begins her ascent back to the land of light.

Repentance, starting over again, waking up... that’s a slow process. Repentance IS the resurrection.