The sight of flowers helps lift my mood when everything else seems grim, and March is when my garden starts to bloom with colour after the drabness of winter. As I write this, I see yellow daffodils, pink primroses and the buds of red camellia flowers as I glance out of my window.
One thing I love about February is watching the twilight time creeping later and later. The sunsets, and the sky just afterwards, can be beautiful with bare trees silhouetted against pink and purple. It’s one of my favourite sights and makes me feel full of hope for spring to come.
Mael Brigde is a devotee of the Irish goddess and saint, Brigit. She founded the Daughters of the Flame in order to rekindle the perpetual fire once burned by the sisters of Saint Brigit in Kildare, Ireland. She lit the Daughters’ first candle on Imbolc 1993, unaware that on the same day in Kildare, Catholic Brigidine Sisters were relighting it as well. Both flames continue still. As part of her devotion to Brigit, Mael Brigde strives to learn all she can of her lore and traditions and to share this with others who seek her. In addition to maintaining the Daughters of the Flame and two Brigit blogs, Brigit’s Sparkling Flame (2004), and a poetry blog, Stone on the Belly (2015), Mael has contributed essays and poems to a number of books, assisted others in their researches, led webinars on Brigit and Brigidine devotion, and created three online courses. The first, Discovering Brigit, introduces the saint and goddess and offers tools for learning more about her. The second, Stepping Into Brigit, guides the seeker into a deepening connection with Brigit. Journey with Brigit, Goddess of Poetry, is a longer, intensive class that explores reading and writing poetry as a sacred act, offering meditations, historical information, and the model of both ancient and modern Irish poets.
Valentine’s Day on February 14th is, of course, massively commercialised with all the financial and social pressures that entails. Oh, and it isn’t exactly pagan as it gets its name from a Christian saint.
In the title of her foundational text on Wicca, The Spiral Dance, Starhawk called Witchcraft “the religion of the Great Goddess.” Contemporary Pagan Witchcraft, of which Wicca is probably the most well known branch, is often called “Goddess religion” or “the religion of the Goddess” as well.
David Sparenberg has been a staff writer at OVI magazine for several years and has dozens of published contributions. OVI is an online daily with editors in London, Stockholm, and Helsinki. He has four ebooks published by OVI Books.
Kenn Day is a working shaman, with a full-time practice since 1989. He lives in Cincinnati, Ohio, with his beloved wife and daughter and offers workshops covering the teachings used in his practice.
News about new books from Moon Books and new courses from our authors this February!
February’s a short month, but sees a lot of change in the natural world in southern England, where I live. At the start of the month a few early flowers are blooming in my garden, including snowdrops, which I look forward to seeing but I don’t bring indoors as that’s considered unlucky. By the end of it there’ll be spring flowers everywhere. The festival that starts the month is Imbolc in the Wheel of the Year.
Roselle was brought up in the rural Westcountry of the UK where a hands-on knowledge of flora and fauna was an integral part of her life. She uses plant medicine, makes incenses and forages, as well as tending a healthy veg-plot and a woodland garden, and writes on myth, poetry, spirituality, psychology, creativity, veganism and sustainable living.
I’ve had a fascination with Loki since I was very small, and over the past couple of years, had tentatively begun exploring that fascination again.