New Header After Sixteen Years!

I have been learning Canva recently, and decided to take on designing a new header. I was happy enough with the old one, except that there was no way to format the title in the way I wanted it. It was always glued annoyingly close to the edge of the image. Well, here is a brand new one, which employed a lot of patience as I tried to find the right photo, and as I fiddled with colour until I was satisfied. The image is one of mine, of my shift candle in front of a Saint Brigit holy card. It's a pretty simple design, but the more complicated one I made first just felt a touch uncomfortable with the busy blog wallpaper.

So, voila! I hope you enjoy it.

Saint Brigid’s Night Procession (Poem) by Mark Granier

Night Walk by Elizabeth McClung

Saint Brigid’s Night Procession

No sign of Faughart on the roadmap. Our dark

island kept itself to itself, each high-hedged bóthar

headlit, the same as another. Then, out of nowhere,

it came to us as a long-acre of parked cars

we added to. Nothing for it now but to go

with the cattle-press of the procession, its shuffle

a low-voiced, slow, inevitable river uphill.

Nobody minded us, disbelievers suspended in the flow

of candles and wobbly torch-beams. Our wariness lapsed,

shrinking as the night-eye opened. Through an unhedged

                                                                            gap,

a softly trumpeted, familiar tune doodled

across clouded moonfields. Forgotten, remembered:

Faith of Our Fathers. As if it wasn't “if” but “when”.

And your whisper in my ear: “Were going to Heaven.”

                                       Mark Granier

St Blaize's Brigit Doll

St Blaize is an inspired craftswoman and photographer with a lovely Flickr series featuring her Brigit Doll. Her comments under each photo are worth reading, as well. Here is a sample, but do go have a look at the whole set:
St. Brigid in her Spring Cloak

The greens represent the dark evergreen colors at the top, contrasted with the new bright growth of spring.

Materials include: Willow branch, manzanita branches, pearly everlasting flowers, and dry chaparral grasses and flowers. Her head is stuffed with the lichen usnea.

Techniques include: stuffing, tying, machine applique, and machine piecing.

This is an interpretation of a traditional "corn dolly", using materials from the local chapparal ecosystem of the Central Coast of California. The willow branch is from a riverbed, part of the watershed of the Monterey Bay.

St. Brigid's Day is celebrated on the first or second of February in Ireland, and coincides with Imbolc, one of the four seasonal celebrations of the Gaelic calendar.

Do You Recognize This Brigidine Church?

I found this photo on the internet, on a Russian site--I am quite unable to read Russian. Do you by chance know where this building is, and what it's called? Ta!

(Here's the link.)

Brighid.org.uk -- A Brigit Site to Treasure

Brighid Goddess and Saint is a fine site compiled by Paul Williment. On it you will find information on customs, Brigit sites in Ireland, The Isle of Man, Scotland, Wales, and England, books and CDs, links to related sites, and information on both Her goddess and saint aspects.

It's wonderful stuff, expertly and beautifully constructed, with lots of photographs to fill out the picture of modern Brigit devotion.

Thank you, Paul!

"The banner above depicts Brighid against Eilean Bhride in the Hebrides. The scroll honours all those who have preserved Her story throughout the ages. The red hot iron spiral represents the goddess and suggests a crosier as a reminder that St. Bridget was consecrated as a religious using the form of the ordination of a bishop."

Paul Williment