St. Brigid's Anemone - A Lovely Windflower for Your Brigit Garden

 I wrote this up in answer to a question on Facebook. The asker wanted to know if there were any flowers specifically associated with Brigit. I thought other might like to read about this, too.

There is a windflower named St. Brigid's Anemone. It is lovely, though it refuses to come up whenever I plant it. It is the conditions of my garden, I suspect, not the bulbs themselves, that are the problem.

This video tells you how to plant them.

While searching just now I came across a variety I didn't know of. The Anemone St Brigid The Governor. I like to think of this as evoking her Abbess days, when she pretty much governed the place.

I don't know how new the St. Brigid Anemone is, but I suspect it is relatively modern. 

Image: Photo of a bouquet of red, white, blue, and purple open-faced flowers, from Garden Seeds Market. Second photo of bright red open-faced flower, the Anemone St Brigid The Governor, from Longfield Gardens.

The Brigid Alliance - they make choice possible

 

In this time of fear and action, when Roe v. Wade faces overturn by the Supreme Court in the United States, the work of The Brigid Alliance of New York is more important than ever.

I recall as a young woman being advised (by a nurse in a general hospital) to go from Canada to the States, as it was easier to get an abortion there. It may soon be, for a short but awful time, the other way around.

In Cogitosus's Vitae Brigitae, "Life of Saint Brigid," the following passage appears:

Of the Pregnant Woman Blessed and Spared the Birth-Pangs

 

1. With a strength of faith most powerful and ineffable, she blessed a woman who, after a vow of virginity, had lapsed through weakness into youthful concupiscence, as a result of which her womb had begun to swell with pregnancy. Inconsequence, what had been conceived in the womb disappeared and she restored her to health and to penitence without childbirth or pain.

This passage is often interpretted to mean that Brigit performed an abortion. It is also interpretted, and I am inclined to this understanding, much as I like the former, to mean what it says: that she removed the "sin" of the woman's sexual act and reversed the consequences of it. No abortion occurs because the foetus now never was.

Either way, it is a wonderful illustration of Saint Brigit's caring and compassion. Whether the young woman has sinned or not, she should not have to suffer a pregnancy and birth that she doesn't want.

The Brigid Alliance cannot possibly take on this moment alone, but here is what they do. There are likely many ways you can support them, if this mission speaks to you as one the Brigit you know would support. Contact them here if you want to know more.

From their site:

 

The Brigid Alliance arranges and funds confidential, personalized travel support to those seeking abortion care in increasingly hostile environments. In partnership with a network of funds and providers, we are closing the gap between the right to an abortion and the ability to access one.

Image: Stylised red-haired woman (head only) from The Brigid Alliance website.