Why, what’s the matter,
That you have such a February face,
So full of frost, of storm and cloudiness? – William Shakespeare, Much Ado About Nothing (V,iv)
Today is the ancient festival of Imbolc, celebrated by the Celts as the beginning of spring and the day sacred to Brigit, the goddess of fire and healing. The Irish drove their cattle between two sacred bonfires on this day in the belief that it would help to keep them free of parasites, and when the festival was Christianized as Candlemas the association with fire and healing remained: this is the day on which all the candles to be used in the next year are consecrated, and the candles are used tomorrow (St. Blaise’s Day) to bless churchgoers so as to protect them from ailments of the throat.
Due to our continental climate, few North Americans can imagine this day as anywhere near spring; accordingly, we celebrate the beginnings of the seasons on the solstices and equinoxes and perceive the cross-quarter days (Imbolc, Beltane, Lammas and Samhain…or as Americans call them, Ground Hog Day, May Day, August 1st and Halloween) as the midpoints of the seasons rather than as their beginnings. Indeed, where I live February is often the coldest month (unlike South Louisiana, where it’s usually very spring-like). As I explained in my column of one year ago today, the Celtic and Germanic peoples believed that the cross-quarter days could be used as inverse weather predictors for the next six weeks, and though the tradition has been forgotten for the other three days it remains alive and well for this one, so much so that Americans name it after the sacred animal used for the weather-forecasting ritual.
We always celebrate Imbolc with a feast, and since it’s in the middle of Carnival season (Mardi Gras is February 21st this year) the center of that feast is always a big pot of chicken and andouille gumbo made from my sister’s recipe. Like king cake, the dish is best when the initial stage is completed a day in advance, and since many of you enjoyed seeing that recipe I’ve decided to give you the one for gumbo as well this coming Tuesday (unlike king cake, it isn’t seasonal; gumbo can be eaten any time of year, and some old Cajun ladies still make it every Sunday). It’ll require a full column, not because it’s especially complicated (it isn’t), but because some of the culinary terms may be unfamiliar to many of my readers and will thus require a bit of explanation (and photos I’ll take today).
I pray that all my readers, no matter what your individual beliefs, find renewal in your lives at this time; I ask that negative things die away like weeds in winter, and that positive things appear and grow for you like leaves in the spring. Blessed Be!
Thanks for the wonderful greetings. It’s great to see such a worthy holiday remembered.
One note, though.
Why is it when wonderful Celtic imagery is brought up, the visual symbols of this are always ethereal-looking women?
Celtic imagery was filled with male images, too. Usually, they were virile, often dangerous, and hyper-masculinized males. These days, celticy things seem to be associated with witches, female goddesses and elfin female magicians.
What about the druids, swords, naked men beating each other over the head and, most of all, painted warriors?
Where, oh where, are the painted warriors?
Celts weren’t all mystical babes and long tresses. Or, at least, some of the long tresses were sported by big hulky guys with swords.
If you take a look at the websites of real pagans, you’ll see plenty of that; it’s mostly the New Age pseudo-pagan types who seem to see Celtic religion as entirely feminine.
The reason I personally use the feminine imagery for the holidays should be obvious. 😉
You’d think that you, Maggie, would have more appreciation for, say, large males with swords and tattoos and a hankering to conquer small countries or at least engage in some light cattle raiding.
Oh, I do; but they’d hardly be symbolic of me or my profession, now would they?
I agree. Real Celtic pagan and Ancient Irish Pagan theoology and religion was often full of violence. It was usually the men, but often enough the women who were violent. Ancient Irish Paganism is a part of Ancient Celtic Paganism and both were very much more masculine than whatever is practiced today. To use one example of this, the Old Irish word for man and warrior was the same exact word. However in Middle Irish and Modern Irish the words of warrior and man are two distinct words. In ancient Ireland, to be a man meant you were also a warrior. It gets confusing because ancient warrior females such as Queen Maeve of Connaught, Ireland, were alternately called women and men(warrior) depending on the context in the Old Irish language.
Gorby, come down to the French Quarter on February 20th – maybe I’ll don a loin cloth and paint myself BLUE. 8)
On Bourbon Street that day – I won’t even look unusual!
I was going to “oil up” and do the Chippendale’s thing – but Maggie, ever the “bubble buster” … says chicks don’t dig that. 😥
It’s VERY “spring-like” here and it has been thus for nearly the whole winter. I’ve gone to bed several nights this week with my air conditioning turned ON – it’ll get up to 76 degrees in the house without it. I’ve actually had to mow my grass two or three times – it’s still green. 😮
Looking forward to the gumbo recipe – I make shrimp gumbo and, to tell the truth – it’s not that great but I’ve found people will love it all the same if I just load it up with shrimp. So it’s more like shrimp in a sauce or something when you spoon it out. I think it’s the only gumbo South Louisiana that you can eat with a fork … actually one look at it and you wouldn’t even think about using a spoon! twisted:
Dear Maggie,
Brigit (Bride in her Celtic spelling) was also a goddess of poetry and wells. Robert Graves writes about her extensively in his dense book “The White Goddess.” It’s dense because he takes so long to get to the crux of his argument, which is about the Irish tree alphabet. It’s much more interesting than it sounds.
Tree alphabet? That does sound interesting.
great history. …now where do you get all the cool looking drawing you use in your writings?
I use Google image searches and dig around until I find something I really like. It’s funny you asked that, though, because it’s the subject of my column for a week from tomorrow (February 10th). 🙂
A very interesting last picture; it’s very similar to the cross stitch pattern I’m doing now. (To the point where It’d say it’s very likely that the pattern is based on it…)
Happy Imbolc/Candlemas/St Brigid’s Day/ Groundhog Day, Maggie!
I like the ethereal Celtic ladies. The painted warriers may be authentic, but they’re not as fun to look at. 🙂
By the way … O/T but …
The new version of “The Woman In Black” is supposed to be in theaters tomorrow. 🙂
http://www.womaninblack.com/#/trailer
This one has the Harry Potter guy in the main role I think – so we’ll see if he can break out of the typecast.
Racliffe was in a stage play of Equus, and if you can get past all the cracks about “you can see his wand!” it seems he did a fine job.
It’s 68 degrees here today (it shouldn’t be) and the smell of fresh roses wafting from the office building landscaping makes it feel like mid spring.
o/t I’m a wide and voracious reader and like to keep up to date with all sorts of people/groups and their concerns/issues. I got this in my in box today. Even before I opened the mail I knew, just knew, what some of it was going to be about:
“Super Bowl XLVI: Real Battles Off the Field – SojoMail 02.02.12”,
I was going to forward it but can’t find an email so I tracked down the link on their site. http://www.sojo.net/sojomail/2012/02/02
There’s actually a TRAINING PROGRAM on how to spot traffickers? Do they have like, special tattoos or maybe hand signals – like gang signs? 😛
This is the most IMPOTENT and pathetic statement I’ve seen yet. If … you are of the mindset that all prostitution is sexual slavery – wouldn’t you at least include those who traffic 16-18 year old girls too? I mean, I understand “age of consent” … but if we’re really talking about “sexual slavery” shouldn’t these minors be protected also?
Which brings me to this … IT SOUNDS like they believe HUNDREDS of little kids are going to be sold off into sexual slavery – they’re getting ready for something big!
Sooooo … if they’re right – would that not mean that NFL FOOTBALL FANS are some perverted people? Why aren’t NFL Fans upset about this? We all know that supply follows demand right?
I mean – where’s the NFL commissioner (do they have one?) on this? Why isn’t he standing up for the people who make him a rich man?
By the way … I played football every year from like 3rd grade all the way through high school graduation – I really loved the sport. However, I pretty much tanked on Pro football when the good guys like Johnny Unitas retired. I mean … I like Peyton Manning because of his SNL skits (funny as hell) and I like Mike Vick just because so many people shit on him and he ended up stuffing it down their throats! But the rest of NFL can kiss it!
The taxi driver “citizen corps” reminded me of my uncle. when he was younger he was a cabbie in a formerly communist european nation. Lots of cabbies, especially on sensitive routs, were trained ( and paid ) to spy on people, to report on conversations, destinations, baggage carried, etc. He had two children to feed. While he was alive he claimed he never reported anything useful. I never really believed that. I tend to think he just never had the opportunity. Not anyone or anything useful in his cab.
Anyways, they weren’t really trained to spot enemies of the state but to notice and lead the mark in conversation based on suspicious behavior. And of course all behaviour was suspicious; being a cabby gives you a priveledged eye and ear on people. But then again pros of any stripe already know that.
That’s a point I’ve been arguing since high school, though few people in the general population ever accept it: the reason we have to aggressively protect the rights of “criminals” is that the government can define anything as “crime”. And if the police are allowed to brutalize and railroad “real” criminals, that permission is automatically extended to the entire population…as anyone ever “suspected” of drug possession, taking the “wrong” pictures or “contempt of cop” will tell you.
In my household, I cannot light a candle in the public space without the risk of getting a lecture about fire safety, so I’m stuck lighting a candle(s) in the privacy of my own room instead. Which is an option, but not quite the same.
I rather resent getting this lecture when the Jewish member of our house can light hanukkah candles without getting grief about it. One of these days, I’m going to call them out on their hypocrisy. Hopefully sooner rather than later.
Maria,
the picture shows Sophie Scholl, a Munich student, who opposed the Nazis and was executed 1943 together with her resistance group. She is revered in Germany, several schools are named after her, a film (2005) tells her story. It is highly inappropriate to link her to a Super Bowl Game.
Xerxes
Hello,
The image to the right of my post/name is the gravatar that I use with this name. It is not related to the link I posted regarding the Sojourner Super Bowl opinion piece.
I’m very aware of who the people in the imageare.Sophie, her brother Hans, and Christoph Probst. There is no disrespect intended by the use of the image.
It’s my respect for them that made me start using the image on sites that deal with topics of freedom, liberty, and resistance. The quite final sacrifices the White Rose made, the naive and bittersweet hopes they embody, the resistance and stubbornness they represent, the force of will that carried them, and the forces of history that still do; all this is precisely why I use it. The image reminds me, and hopefully others, of what can be the ultimate payment when going up against a system that has so thoroughly corrupted itself and why we must not let a system become that vile in the first place. (Whether it has, in some ways, is another topic of debate.)
Personally I doubt that I could be as brave in the face of overwhelming forces as they were and I wish never to find out.
Maria
Damn straight, every Sunday! 🙂
But we make the seafood gumbo. I have to “contract out” for my king cake because I am crap in the kitchen when it comes to desserts and pastries.