Dearbhaile Bradley

Happy Imbolc!

Wonderful time of year this, all those green tips poking out of the ground everywhere you look. I guess what I love about Paganism is that we always seem to be celebrating something or other. Every full moon has its own excitement, its own flavour and gifts.  I celebrated Full Moons long before I knew what a Sabbat was. Personally I’ve never quite got the equinoxes energetically, there just isn’t the wonderful sense of the ‘Turning of the Wheel’ that comes with the cross-quarters and solstices.

Each Sabbat has its own magic but Imbolc for a Bard, well it’s all about Bríd, Bridie, Bridget, Breege. Those are my favourite variations but there are loads others. It always seems to me totally appropriate that there are so many different names for a Goddess with so many different aspects. She’s sometimes called ‘Triple Bridget’ as one aspect rules healing and midwifery, another the hearth fire and smithcraft and the third, poetry, writing and inspiration. Her importance for me is primarily as Bríd, Goddess of the Creative Flame that burns in each of us. (more…)

Hi.

I made a contract with myself that every two weeks in 2011 I’d post a blog. I don’t know much about blogging. But does that matter? I recall the incredulous response I got meeting Barry on the plane to India when he found out I didn’t know that the Taj Mahal was there. In fact I didn’t know the Taj Mahal existed, though I didn’t tell him that. The point of going to India then was to drop of the edge of the world as I knew it which is pretty much what happened when I got there. This is another version of me taking the plunge.

It’s now the sixteenth of January. Yes I’m a bit late. I’m calling it the ‘Bardic Blog’ because when they chaired me Bard of Glastonbury 2007, in my world that was the nine maidens I’d invoked giving me the job. I’m a Bard, actually for what it’s worth I’m the Elder Bard for poetry for the Bardic Order of Ynys Witrin. My job is to ‘elevate the word’. (more…)