PaganSquare.com - WitchesAndPagans.com

I am thinking that anchors are probably cast iron which can corrode, but the earliest ones were huge rocks. Ancient Greeks are alleged to have filled hollow logs with lead. But iron was the first choice of metal for anchors. Which then led me on to the fairy tradition of being averse to iron. Iron is only used when they wish to sever ties with a particular realm or dimension forever. Which may be why they landed on Iron Mountain when the Tuatha dé Danaan pitched up in Eireann. Also why they are alleged to have been piking it back to Iron Mountain after their defeat at the Second Battle of Moytura and their subsequent shift into the sídh.

The global news in grim and it is understandable why you might be rubbing some haemotite and mumbling 'Beam Me Up, Scotty!."

Even if you avoid a lot of print and social media. Even if you don't own a television with cable news. Even if you have wifi at the whim of the fairies who ration your streaming. Even if, with all these provisos, you would have to live in an underground bunker to have missed the terrible news that the solar eclipse is bringing into the light.

And if you care about the treatment of children. Or if you just care about human beings. If you are a woman who has learned that certain powerful people who are employees of a government department are creating memes where a Member of the House of Representatives is felating them...because humiliation is what really rocks their rocks off in a secret Facebook group.

Happy Bealtaine! The sacred fires of Uisneach were relit on Sunday evening, on the cross quarter day. Summer is officially in, even though the temperatures were chilly.  But the hawthorn is in blossom, the cow parsley is frilling the lane, everywhere I look from my window is lush and green or in blossom.

For the third year running I have been away form home for Bealtaine or in transit. In 2017. (https://witchesandpagans.com/sagewoman-blogs/away-with-the-fairies/bealtaine-in-bloom.html), I was with Wise Woman Ireland at our weekend in Newgrange. Last year I was merry meeting on May Day in Glastonbury. (https://witchesandpagans.com/sagewoman-blogs/away-with-the-fairies/a-glastonbury-beltane.html.)

If this were a cinematic moment, there would be a scene where the wind blows the weathervane round to signify a huge change in direction.  Do you feel it, too? Ever since February (well, for me Imbolc, but for some friends a bit later on) it feels as if the huge 'stuckness' of 2018 was unclogged.Whoosh! And that whoosh! is the wind shifting the weathervane round.

These times of paradigm shifts are very liminal. Partly, we are responding to the celestial energies of Uranus and other planets stationing on the critical degrees of 29 and 0.  Endings and beginnings.  We have had a very potent New Moon in Picses to inspire visions and dream new realities. But somehow, I sense there is more than just an astrological explanation. There is such a powerful pulse of interconnectedness that I am sensing in the air, even as sleet and hail, thunder and lightening visit the landscape I inhabit along with tulips and hellebores, badgers and birds of numeous species. In a time where there is much to worry a body and soul, I feel as if we have been through a great clearing of energy. Now we have more power to perform acts of kindness, love and wisdom in the world. We are the channels.  And there is more space for us to fill.

Five years ago an Englishwoman, a Scottish woman and an American-Irish woman travelled together to Galway to attend the Spreading Brigit's Cloak conference at Brigit's Garden.  My friends Morag and Jo, and I had a memorable weekend celebrating the Feast of Brigit together with many other woman from across the globe. In the intervening years we have not always been able to celebrate together, but this year we all had day time available on Imbolc New Moon day, 4th February. So we three, the self-styled Cailleach Coven, met again at Imbolc.

At that conference we encountered the Crios Bríd and it's ritual. If you have ever read Seamus Heaney's poem "Brigid's Girdle", you will begin to understand. It is the belt of the goddess (or saint). I had seen one made once before, with the man trying to facsimilate the traditional way of weaving a straw rope with a hand sickle. It was tricky and it looked like a recipe for injury. At the Brigit's Garden conference there was a much more health and safety version one made from yarn. 

...and Brighid prepares to arrive in her Maiden rainment. In Ireland I always marvel at how the old tales still mimic weather wisdom.  The saying goes the Cailleach goes and gathers firewood on Imbolc for the rest of the winter. If the weather is sunny it means that she needs to stock up for more cold. But if there is precipitation then it will set fare and she needs not re-stock. Of course, the old people round where I live now used to say "A fair February crushes the rest of the year!" But old bachelor farmers are not life's optimists. Anyway, this was the way the Hag in the Mountain was extravagently garbed yesterday round my way.

Tis the season to prepare for the Festival of Brigid. Here in Ireland the customs of the goddess Brighid and St. Brigit, Abbess of Kildare, are often conflated. There was a Fire Temple at the Abbey until Henry VIII broke up the monasteries. Both the saint and goddess rule poetry, healing and craft. Both represent abundance, springtime, and returning light. In 'being both' Brigid (or Brighid or Brigit or Biddy or Bride) is a prime example of spiritual adapt and survive. Nothing is lost. It transforms a bit and moves with the times, but the essence is still there. What is important is to keep what is useful of the old and infuse it with up-to-date intentions as time rolls on, feeding the well spring of inspiration.

Back in 2017 I made my first brídeog or Biddy doll. I nicknamed her Activist Brigid. She eventually went to live in Co.Clare when she was a raffle prize as the last Wise Woman Weekend that year.