Daughters of the Flame—30th Anniversary!

 

It dawned on me that this Imbolc the Daughters of the Flame are celebrating thirty years of tending Brigit's fire together. It has been so amazing connecting with, practicing with, and sharing joy and sorrow with so many women on this path.

I am grateful for all of you, what you have taught me, what you have allowed me to be with you, what you have shown me of yourselves. I had no idea how this decision to do 'one small thing for Brigit' would change my life. No idea how holding space for other women to honour Brigit would challenge me and shape me. No idea of the love and kindness I would meet through her.

I would love to hear from all Daughters, past and present. I'd love to know how you are, where your path has led you, what Brigit has meant in your life, even if you have moved on from her, what our group, Daughters of the Flame, has meant for you.

We are talking, some of us, about how we might celebrate this amazing anniversary. (When I started I hoped we might last three years.) Not the whole group — my computer is kaput and I can't access my email lists. But we have time.

So happy. 🙏🏼🔥💧❤️

Image: Cross-stitch of Brigit holding a sword in one hand and a branch in the other. There are lines of shamrocks and flames below her and two four-armed Brigit's crosses, one on either side of her head. She was designed by Daughter of the Flame Donna Amaral in the 1990s.

Podcast Mael Brigde, Founder of the "Brigit's Sparkling Flame" Blog and "Daughters of the Flame" Flametending Group, Discusses Her Work

Ah! Last spring I had a lovely visit with Amy Panetta when she came to Vancouver for the Celtic Studies of North America annual conference. Somewhere in there she managed to do this interview of me, and now it is up on her Celtic Feminine Podcast. You can listen now or download it for later.

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In this podcast, Amy has a conversation with Mael Brigde, about her work and connection with Brigid.  Since 2004, Mael has maintained the longest-running, most prolific blog about Brigid entitled, "Brigit's Sparkling Flame" where she collects a variety of different resources about Brigid, such as in links, books, music, and events. She also has her poetry dedicated to Brigid on her "Stone on the Belly" blog.  She founded "Daughters of the Flame," which is the first non-church-based flame tending group dedicated to Brigid, which interestingly enough lit their first flame on Brigid's Eve, January 31st 1993, the same year that the Brigidine sisters in Kildare Ireland relit Brigid's flame.  

Currently, Mael teaches online courses dedicated to Brigid.

Links:

Brigit's Sparkling Flame Blog

Stone on the Belly Blog

Daughters of the Flame

Mael's Brigid Courses:

Journey with Brigit - Goddess of Poetry

Stepping into Brigit – Goddess Activation Course

Discovering Brigit – Goddess and Saint with Mael Brigde

Intro and Outro Music from the album, "A Year In Ireland" by New Time Ensemble, Used with Permission

To support the many hours that will go into this podcast, please consider donating.  You may send a donation by clicking HERE.  Also, be sure to send me an email at apanettamusic@yahoo.com notifying me of this donation.  Thank you!

"Queering the Flame" by Erynn Rowan Laurie, A Review

        “Queering the Flame” is an as yet unpublished essay that will be released in 2015 in Laurie’s collection of essays, interviews, and reviews.

Herself a keeper of Brigit’s flame, Laurie is an amateur scholar whose work rests on diligent research and thorough citation, combined with a carefully thought out, ethical, and personal Polytheist sensibility. She carefully distinguishes between her own ideas and what can be discerned from the literature (hooray!), allowing the reader to reach informed conclusions of her own.

The impetus for writing this piece was a debate that arose within the Celtic Reconstructionist (NeoPagan) community when a mixed gender Brigidine flame-keeping group was proposed. Laurie asks, “What would make the act of tending a perpetual flame in the name of a particular Goddess problematic or contentious? What are the theological assumptions at work, and why is gender such a central issue within some of those assumptions? More importantly for this essay, what does queerness have to do with it? To address these issues, we need to look at the person and place of Brigit as Goddess and saint, the practice of flamekeeping generally, and the ritual traditions that surround this act. ”

Accordingly, in “Queering the Flame” Laurie examines the ethical and ideological issues as she sees them, and looks at perpetual sacred flames in historical Pagan religions and in medieval Christian Ireland.

“These sacred fires, both in [Pagan] Rome and in Ireland, were considered community hearthfires, regardless of the gender of the flamekeepers. Regional ritual fires were lit from the Irish flames, as were household flames on particular holy days, and if a household’s flame were accidentally extinguished, it also would be relit from the sacred flame. The hearthstone at Inishmurray is specifically cited as a source for the relighting of household flames, even after the church itself was long-deserted and the physical flame extinguished”.

Having shown that in Ireland both men and women tended perpetual sacred flames, and that Irish flame-tending practices may well not have had Pagan origins, she argues that in Celtic Reconstructionist practice the tending of Brigit’s flame ought to be open to both men and women, with women-only groups coexisting with those of mixed genders. “Queering” of gender roles is examined as well, including, for instance, cross-dressing among biddy boys and Bitel’s consideration of nuns as “masculinized” women in the context of their time.

 What separates Laurie’s examination of flame-tending from other works in the Academic category is her stated relationship to Brigit and her concern for the NeoPagan and Polytheist communities: welcome additions, in my opinion. She states, “Flametending has been a rhythmic, almost tidal support to my spiritual and creative life. The regular presence of the flame on the altar near my writing desk is a tangible reminder of Brigit and of her patronage of poets, of the accessibility of inspiration, and of the dedication necessary to nurture a life as a poet and writer. Each time I light the flame, I renew my devotion to creativity as a deep and necessary part of my spiritual path.”


“Queering the Flame: Brigit, Flamekeeping, and Gender in Celtic Reconstructionist Pagan Communities”, by Erynn Rowan Laurie in The Well of Five Streams: Essays on Celtic Paganism (Immanion Press, projected release 2015) 17 pp.

Daughters of the Flame: Shifts Available

 If you are a woman who is interested in tending Brigit's flame, there are a couple of shifts free with the Daughters of the Flame. Please comment below and I will contact you. (Comments are moderated so I will not publish your comment unless you want me to, but will just get your contact information from it.)

From our website:

On Imbolc, 1993, the Daughters of the Flame lit a fire in honour of the Goddess Brigit and the saint Bridget, modelled after the perpetual fire which once burned in Kildare. We share the task of tending the flame, on a twenty day rotation; each woman tends the fire in her own way, so that it is a solitary devotion linked to the devotions of a larger group. On the twentieth day the Goddess Herself keeps the flame alive. Instead of burning in one grove, temple, or monastery, it burns on personal altars, desks, and picnic tables in countries east and west, south and north.

The reasons for rekindling are many. It is a celebration in our own lives of Her triple aspects of poet, healer, and smith. It is one effort to address the need for a global network of magical prayer, with special emphasis on some of the traditional concerns of Brigit. These include peace and reconciliation, sharing of wealth so that all will flourish rather than protecting wealth for a few, guarding the land and the creatures which nourishes us and share our lives, being tender with and caring for ourselves and each other. It touches on the need of individual women for a focus and a community through which to develop our personal spiritual practice, to reduce isolation and aid in developing our thought and learning while maintaining the autonomy of working as a solitary, if that is what we prefer or how we find ourselves due to life circumstances. It is, however, very much a self-motivated discipline, both in terms of tending the flame and in connecting with others in the group.

Although members have primarily been Neo-Pagans, Daughters of the Flame is open to any woman who is called to light her flame.

Cill Badges for the Daughters of the Flame by Donna Amaral

Butter Lamp GIF

I hope this works! (I've borrowed this gif from the site Hindu Wisdom. Lots of interesting stuff there.)

Here you go, flamelovers:

Ghee Lamps for Brigit!

Brass Ghee Lamps
photo by Dushiayanthini Kanagasabapathipillai

This idea comes courtesy of Ogam Bear (of Brigid's Irregulars, a Celtic Reconstructionist Flame-keeping Group found on LiveJournal). Though not traditional, it is a neat idea for devotional flame-tending.

Mael Brigde: I suspect you have discussed this before and I have missed it, Ogie, but I am very interested in hearing more about this. When did you start using butter? How long does a pound of butter burn for, once clarified? What do you strain it with--regular cheesecloth? Very cool idea. Was it your own?

Ogie: On a trip up to Seattle (I believe it was before the trip that I got to meet you), I went with erynn999 to Traveller's for tea. I saw the brass Indian ghee lamps there, and realized they could reasonably be used for Flame-Tending. Unlike the Greeks' and Romans' olive oil, butter was an established part of the Bronze Age Irish diet. While they never actually melted butter down for lamp fuel like the Indians did, they at least had the means to have done so. Using a butterfat lamp ritually, one can have an active devotional practice of actual Flame-Tending (e.g. minding, refueling, trimming the wick). Thus, I decided to buy a small brass ghee lamp and a package of wicks to try it.

Clarifying butter—separating the butterfat from the milk solids and driving off the water—isn't difficult, just time-consuming, and using a slow cooker overnight makes the process very easy.

During a Flame-Tending shift, offer a pound of butter to Brigid specifically for use in a lamp. About an hour or so before bed, put the butter in a slow-cooker (mine is a small 1½-qt one) set on high with the lid on to melt it down. You'll never need to stir. As soon as the butter is melted and boiling, turn the temperature down to low so the milk solids are less likely to burn (ruining it), and remove the lid so the water can evaporate. The next morning, skim the foam off the top, discarding it. With a paper coffee filter in a cone holder set on top of a jar, carefully ladle the hot, clear butterfat into the filter avoiding the milk solids on the bottom. Discard the milk solids. You can store the butterfat unrefrigerated for months.

How much butterfat per pound of butter? I have not measured, but will do so the next time I make it. Irish Kerrygold and Plugra butters have higher fat & lower water contents than most brands and yield more butterfat. A pound of butter gives me enough butterfat for at least three Flame-Tending shifts. Note that butterfat from salted butter will burn with a yellower flame because of the higher sodium content.

It all starts with lighting a match.

A Letter from Erynn
Winter Solstice 1996

It all starts with lighting a match. A simple thing, really. When the match is touched to the candle wick, I offer quiet prayers with upraised hands before the altar. Quiet seems to be the focus of those days. To keep the flame has been a calming and centering process, a ritual of no-ritual, a meditation on quiet and the flickering quality of candlelight.

I have not had major revelations on the days and nights of my shift since I began, back at the founding of (Daughters of the Flame). Instead, the flame has been a steady, connective presence. I take the spark from the woman who precedes me and pass it with care to the next woman on the list. I imagine that the earliest priestesses of this light were bound together with similar silence, their only sounds the crackling fire in the sacred hearth, the murmurred prayers, the rain falling softly outside.

What did they do together in their devotion, I wonder? Did they lie at night in darkened chambers, composing poems? Did they tend a garden of healing herbs? Were the sparks of the sacred flame carried to a forge where bright blades were beaten out in her honor? Were their days spent carrying wood, or later, when the wood was gone, bringing dried peat into the enclosure to keep the flame burning? I think they knew the wisdom of chop wood, carry water as a path of spirit. I think, in some ways at least, they were like me. There are wild hazel nuts on my altar. They come from Lincoln Park, down the hill from my house. A red silk cloth, woven with gold, from the sari of a Hindu saint covers the small shelf that is my altar. There is a black and white photocopy of the triple Brighid from a Celtic League calendar taped to the wall above. Seashells, which are used in Ireland and Scotland to decorate the Brighid dolls of imbolc, are scattered on the cloth, piled at the foot of the red glass candle. Rowan and juniper berries are mingled in a small wooden bowl, for protection and for purification. There is a sprig of cedar here as well, with its tiny brown seed pods. This reminds me of the land on which I live, the spirits of Puget Sound. Ogham fiodh, burned into hazel twigs, lie in a pile here awaiting her pleasure, and a tiny cup of hazel honey mead. These are the tools of my poet's art.

I do no magic at this altar, I raise no power here. Instead, there is poetry in my house. Notebooks open, scribbled lines that try to capture the flash of a dream's image or the subtle light of an autumn afternoon. I meditate on the continuity of the flame, one hand to another, one match lit in prayerful attitude.

Sometimes I miss my shift for one reason or another. I look at the calendar a day late and feel a pang of regret, a little embarassment at the fact that I am human and fallible. Despite my flaws, I continue to tend the flame. There will be another shift in a few days, and I can redress the accidental neglect at that time. I've never felt that Brighid was unforgiving of my occasional lapses. Somewhere in the world, some sister remembers and carries on. She starts with lighting a match.

-Erynn

(Letter from Erynn Rowan Laurie. Art by Rowan Hagen.)