Candles in the Windows

It is rather appropriate that Mercury went direct just before we lit the fires for Imbolg. There's a sort of poetry in seeing things set right just at the beginning of spring. Imbolg is a time for true beginning, for the manifestation of impregnation.

Many pagans who celebrate the Sabbats from a Celtic perspective have already celebrated their spiritual New Year, myself included. At Samhain we die, and acknowledge that death as the beginning of a new cycle, as nothing can renew itself until it is ended. Personally, I prefer to think of the death at Samhain as "La Petite Mort", seeing as how a renewal of the spirit is often exhilarating and refreshing (much like the namesake of that particular French phrase).

Yet however exhilarating or refreshing a renewal of soul may be at Samhain, it is still a death and we are still stiff and still in the ground during the winter chill. Winter, from Samhain to Imbolg, is a season of thought and stillness. We review the past cycle and think on the new. Our magics stay primarily internal a quiescent, leaning more into the realm of preparation than that of actualization.

And then there's Imbolg, the beginning of spring. Imbolg is the light at the end of a very long, dark, and cold tunnel. It marks the beginning of the reign of the Bright Lady, the Dame, the Muse. It is when our eyes open and our hands flex, wordlessly longing to start some project that waited out the winter.

It is also the time when the coming year finally begins to construct itself. We can begin to enact the goals we may have set for ourselves in the winter. We also attempt more exacting divinations. Questions were asked during the winter, of course, but the answers all relate to an internal landscape. The self is closed and still beneath the ground at this point. It is difficult to look into the next plot. But just as the winter has us waiting in the soil, Spring has us blossoming. Once above the ground we are free to look around. Spring, like autumn, is a season of transition. Unlike autumn, of course, we're transitioning to life, not death. Beginning, not ending.

So we act. We divine. We look to the coming year. A lot of spellwork in this season is meant to illuminate a path. Spring may be here in spirit but the weather still says winter, and we need to find our way back to the warmth and the sun. A great deal of time was recently spent in the Underworld, where we looked at ourselves and took stock. Now we take our findings to the Upperworld to flesh out the details of our base desires.

Now we venture out of ourselves again and into the world. We join our friends and family in prayer to the Lord and Lady of Sun and of Fire, and we ask for their guidance.

It is often said that when we place a candle in the window at Imbolg we urge the Sun to return. I think, rather, that we are calling the Sun back to us, like an invitation to a lost lover. I think that by the end of the winter the Sun needs the candleflame, that dancing little point of light, to find a way back to us, just as we need the light to find our own paths out of the dark and cold.

Sun and Star that burns so bright,
Can you find your way by candlelight?
These dancing flames in my window burn
So that to me you might return.