Houston's "Brigid’s Place": A Sanctuary for the Female Soul

From the Brigid's Place webpage.

Mission Statement

Brigid’s Place provides education, dialogue and celebrations to foster women’s spiritual and personal transformation.

Our Organization

Brigid’s Place started with the financial support of the women of Christ Church Cathedral. Now more than 15 years later, seekers from all over South Texas and Louisiana, members of Christ Church Cathedral and people from other churches and places have been taking part in Brigid’s Place events. Many of our event participants are people who have become uncomfortable with certain aspects of organized religions yet are hungry to continue their spiritual growth and are searching for the sacred in their lives.

We believe that people with a spiritual hunger are looking for a place where they can ask questions about the meaning of life and their spiritual journey. There are no membership requirements. Many programs are offered free of charge and scholarships are often available for those who need them.

Brigid’s Place has often been called “a sanctuary for the female soul.” We offer opportunities to pray and meditate, alone or in community, find support and direction in small groups and conversations within community. Our academic aspect emphasizes a broad range of topics such as women’s voices, gender roles, women’s spiritual histories, theology and the scriptures, women and work, women and families, and all of the issues confronting women and men in our evolving society.

We were named after St. Brigid, a fifth-century Irish Celtic saint who founded a monastery for men and women who were known for their wisdom, compassion, hospitality and healing. The monastery was based on the social concept of equality between women and men.

St. Bride's Chapel-of-Ease in South Uist

From the Hebridean Parishes of Ardkenneth and Bornish:

Fàilte!

Welcome to our parishes. Situated in the beautiful and windswept island of South Uist in the Outer Hebrides, Scotland - we are two parishes and two chapels perched on the edge of the Atlantic. On a still day you can sit in our churches, made holy through generations of prayer and listen to the faint singing sound of 3000-mile-old Atlantic breakers. Please stay a while and explore - and one day please come and visit us!

St. Bride's, Gerinish

St Bride's, Gerinish, was opened in 1966. It is a simple 'chapel-of-ease' for Ardkenneth Parish. The Church bears the name of one of the patron saints of the Western Isles - St Bride. Inside the Church we have a large St Bride's Cross and artwork by our parish artist, Michael Gilfedder, depicting the Sacred Heart and the Blessed Virgin Mary.

Brigid’s Blessing by Joanna Powell Colbert

Thanks to Becky of the Daughters of the Flame for this one.

From the SageWoman blog

Brigid’s Blessing

Posted by Joanna Powell Colbert on Thursday, 30 January 2014 inSageWoman Blogs

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(Brigid speaks:)

May you accept this offering of my Sacred Fire. 

May your heart and hands burn with creative passion.

May you bring forth poetry, music, and art!

May your head burn with the fire of seership, marking you as shaman or bard.

May your hands be healing hands, glowing with inner light.

May you allow yourself to be transformed in the flames of my forge.

Celtic Beer--From the Digital Medievalist

This posting comes from a blog I follow, Scéla: A Digital Medievalist’s Blog, by Lisa L. Spangenberg. My editing hand twitches a bit as I read it, but what the hey--enjoy!

·         January 19, 2014 by Lisa

Celtic Beer

2,550 year-old barley grains, post malting, from Eberdingen-Hochdorf

Ogma was a brewer, and so was Goibhniu, the smith god. Brigid was also a brewer, and there a many references to the consumption of beer in medieval Celtic texts. In that context the recent find that six specially constructed ditches previously excavated at Eberdingen-Hochdorf a 2,550-year-old Celtic settlement, were used to make high-quality barley malt, an essential beer ingredient. (You may recall Hochdorf as a principle Celtic site, where among other important finds in the museum is the grave of the Hochdorf prince.)

Archaeobotanist Hans-Peter Stika of the University of Hohenheim in Stuttgart has published a paper in which he discusses the results of chemical analysis of some of the thousands of charred grains of barley found in the six ditches. The paper, published on January 4, 20 in Archaeological and Anthropological Sciences is titled “Early Iron Age and Late Mediaeval malt finds from Germany—attempts at reconstruction of early Celtic brewing and the taste of Celtic beer.”

You can read the abstract, linked above, or download the .pdf of the paper, but the analysis of the malt, in the context of what we know about early brewing in the La Tène Period, fifth –fourth century BCE, Stika suggests that the beer would like have been somewhat smokey in character, with a sour taste (keep in mind that beer in this era would not have used hops).

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Brigit & Her Sister

To my surprise my nonreligious mother last week requested that I get her a statue of Brigit because she likes mine so much. So here she is.

Dance of Bride - Jana Runnalls

I have mentioned before the CD "Songs of Bride" which was produced by the Friends of Bride's Mound as a fund-raiser. Here is one of the tracks, an instrumental by Jana Runnalls called 'Dance of Bride'. The image used in the video is by Kat Brown, and is from Jana's website.



You can learn more about Jana Runnalls at http://www.sacredhome.co.uk.
To buy the CD, click here.

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

Did Brigit Love Animals Like a Good Celt Should?

Drawing by Giraldus Cambrensis in his Topographia Hibernica. British Library, Royal MS 13 B VIII, fo. 10v

I'm reading an interesting article by Cristina Olsen, "Did Brigit love animals like a good Celt should? An inquiry into Cogitosus's 'Life of Saint Brigit'". It touches not only on Brigit but on our understanding of the Celtic (most particularly the medieval Irish) attitude toward animals and nature. I got the article through an interlibrary loan; innocent that I am, I only recently learned that I could access these buried-in-vaults articles this way, when I don't have direct access to a university library that carries the particular journal I need.

To give you a sense of what it's about, I will quote a few paragraphs. She begins:

"The analysis in this paper stems from an examination and critique of a genre of modern-day literature that makes broad claims concerning a universal Celtic appreciation of the natural world and a love of animals.* The term "love" itself is problematic. Today in the western world loving nature subsumes principles of aesthetic appreciation not necessarily shared by peoples from other times and places. Given the scarcity of information concerning Celtic societies, it is impossible to draw broad conclusions regarding how ancient Celtic people viewed nature.

"A perusal of the history of western thought concerning the natural world suggests that a burgeoning love of nature is a relatively new phenomenon in the development of western human conscience. While the ancient Greeks and Romans were interested in nature for agricultural as well as aesthetic reasons, it was not until the late eighteenth century that the educated elite, fleeing the spreading cloud of urban industrialization, discovered the "Delightful Horror" of the wilderness and the mountains...

"By the mid-twentieth century, as we awakened to the possibility of nature's annihilation, human imagination attached itself to the elusive Celts, hoping to find amongst the dim vestiges of the ancient people wise counsels concerning the proper stewardship of the natural environment. In other words, the notion that Celts (Pagan or Christian) loved nature is unlikely to be other than a romantic projection reading back into the distant past the present sense of nature's impending demise...

"It is true that there are depictions of nature in Irish literature that intrigue us. However, I am not so sure that we have a clear understanding of what constitutes the Irish or Celtic "approach to the natural world"...In this paper I critique these tendencies to romanticize the ancient Celts and suggest an alternative approach to understanding the Celtic sense of nature by analyzing three animal stories in Cogitosus's seventh-century Life of Saint Brigit. If we truly wish to understand the relationship of the ancient Celts to their natural environments, we need to set aside our mythmaking and return to the primary sources, in this case the text."

In her conclusion, Olsen writes:

"...the animal stories in the Life of Saint Brigit are not about the animals but about Brigit's power and authority over all aspects of rural life in the environments of Kildare and, if Cogitosus would have his way, over all of Ireland. The animals are merely pawns in Brigit's hands in order to demonstrate the strength of her God-given power, and nowhere is there any evidence that these animals elicited concern in their own right.

"That the Life of Saint Brigit is replete with animal stories indicates that they were important; the analysis presented above demonstrates in what sense they were important...they were the center of the Irish rural economy."

Of course there is much more than this but I shall have to leave it here. For those interested in hearing her arguments in full, the bibliographical information is all below.

Blessings on you and your animal friends!


* "A full bibliography of the genre is too vast for footnoting, but the trend is best represented by Caitlin Matthews, The Elements of the Celtic Tradition...and Peter Beresford Ellis, Celtic Inheritance..." She then lists a large number of "works with a specific Christian outlook" beginning with Esther de Waal's Every Earthly Blessing: Rediscovering the Celtic Tradition.

"Did Brigit love animals like a good Celt should? An inquiry into Cogitosus's 'Life of Saint Brigit'" by Cristina Olsen. COMITATUS--A JOURNAL OF MEDIEVAL AND RENAISSANCE STUDIES  Vol/Issue: 33, Date: Jan 1, 2002, Pages: 1-17

Notes from Lady Gregory's "The Story Brought by Brigit"

Though it would be unwieldy to include the whole play, Lady Gregory's notes may prove of interest to readers. I include here the opening pages to whet your appetite, then move on to the notes at the back of the book.

The play was published in 1924, and first performed at the Abbey Theatre in Dublin. Fans of Irish theatre, check out the original cast listed on page 90.

For my review of the play click here.

Bealtaine Study Day with Woman Spirit Ireland

Bealtaine Study Day

Mercy International Centre, 64a Baggot Street Lower, Dublin 2

Saturday 29th March 2014

10:30 - 5:00

(tea at 10:00)

WomanSpiritIreland

Exploring ancient Irish Mother Daughter Sites and Stories

Mirroring one another into creativity:

Celebrating the mother-daughter relationship.

 In the past, WomanSpiritIreland has celebrated Brighid, Goddess, Saint, and Wise Woman at her Springtime festival of Imbolc, February 1^st. Over the years, we have learned that Brighid of Imbolc is but one manifestation of the Old Wise Woman, The Cailleach, whose traditions are found all over the world, and have been especially honoured and preserved in Ireland and Scotland.

Brighid, therefore, also appears in various guises at the other three quarterly festivals: Bealtaine, (May 1^st); Lughnasadh, (August 1^st) and Samhain  (November 1^st).

At Bealtaine, May 1^st, Brigit appears as the Inion Buí (In yeen Bwee), or Daughter of the Hag or Cow. Throughout Ireland, we find sites dedicated to The Cow and the Calf. Sometimes these are called Inion Bui, and sometimes they are related to Bláthnait, (The Little Flower), who comes into bud at this season.

Our study day this year will also begin to explore, excavate and celebrate the mother-daughter relationship in its excruciating joy and ambivalence.    

For many years now the feminist movement has yearned to recuperate a symbolic system and ritual tradition that honours and brings to consciousness the dialectic between mother and daughter.   Against the cultural resonances of mirror, mirror on the wall, who is the fairest of them all - that attempt to set women in permanent opposition -- stories of the Cailleach and of Saint Brighid  (who freed her own mother from slavery) offer new images and potential. Drawing on such stories, personal reflections and BodySoul work, we will attempt to mirror one another - beyond destructive envy -- into creativity and liberation.

Who should come?

It will be of particular relevance to teachers, community and parish workers and those leading women's groups who wish to recuperate rituals, symbols and other resources to celebrate the mother daughter relationship at Bealtaine and to nourish their communities. 

What will they come away with?

Resources including songs, dances and stories from mythology and folklore, which will support them in developing and leading events in their own communities.

What to bring: 

Bring a packed lunch and a hand mirror.  Please also bring any Maytime traditions from your local area  - stories, songs, images and photographs of the Cailleach and her daughter, to share during the day.   Tea and coffee will be provided on arrival (10:00) and at lunch.

Resource Persons

Ann Concannon is a Sister of St. Louis who works in facilitation and leadership training.  She is interested in learning and sharing the Circle Dance tradition.

Mary Condren, Th.D is director of WomanspiritIreland and teaches at the Centre for Gender and Women's Studies, Trinity College Dublin:http://www.tcd.ie/cgws/staff/mcondren.php  

Fiona Rooney-Fitzpatrick, B.A. An archaeologist, for 13 years Fiona's work has been informed by Authentic Movement, Bodymind centring, Tai Chi and Ki-Aikido.  She has engaged in BodySoul professional training for many years.

Also contributing:    Fionnuala Bates, Brid Buckley, Joy Powell, Chris Neylon.

 Venue:  Mercy International Centre, 64a Baggot Street Lower, Dublin 2

 Subscription:  70 euro for the day;   Early Bird, 50 Euro for bookings received before Tuesday 18th March.   Tea & coffee provided on arrival (10 o'clock) and at lunch.

 Pay by Paypal: https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_s-xclick&hosted_button_id=RD2WERQL63EVJ

 or by cheque, to WomanSpiritIreland,

 60 Belgard  Green, Cookstown Rd., Tallaght, Dublin 24, Ireland       

 Contact:  Instfr@gmail.com : Please note: our website has been hacked and stolen,  and we are awaiting its rebuilding.

 (Scroll down for images)

(Tao Cross of Kilnaboy, Co Clare)

(Hag's Chair, Cairn T, Loughcrew, Co Meath)

(Pictish Mirror Stone)

Dumb St. Brigit Joke

Knowing well my affection for the sacred woman, my niece told me a joke about St. Brigit that she got out of a book I gave the family years ago in the hopes of bestowing a cultural blessing of some sort.

The book is The Cut-throat Celts from the Horrible Histories series by Terry Deary and illustrated by the lovely Martin Brown.

Now, I don't have the book in front of me, so I have to give you my niece's version, but I suspect it's close.

Q: Why is Saint Brigit like a lonely teacher?

A: Because she only has one pupil.

Thanks, FJ!

Brigit Reviews (Series Five): Nonfiction, Popular (Neo-Pagan)

This post follows rather belatedly on the earlier reviews of children's Picture Books, etc. When I have completed the Sixth and final series (Academic/Popular Academic) I'll pin them all to the Pages tab below the title banner, in order to make them more accessible to later readers. In the meantime you can find the previous reviews and introductory material at these links:

Brigit Book Reviews (1): Introduction

Brigit Book Reviews (2): List of Books to be Reviewed

The Reviews, At Last!

Brigit Reviews (Series One): Picture Books

Brigit Reviews (Series Two): Novels

Brigit Reviews (Series Three): Plays and Poetry

Brigit Reviews (Series Four): Nonfiction, Popular (Saint)

Brigit Reviews (Series Five): Nonfiction, Neo-Pagan

Candlemas: Feast of Flames, Amber K and Azrael Arynn K (2001) Llewellyn Publications

“The Well of Her Memory” in Red-Haired Girl from the Bog, Patricia Monaghan (2003) New World Library

‘‘Imbolc—Brigit”, Alexei Kondratiev,  in Devoted to You, Judy Harrow (2003) Citadel Press

Brighid’s Healing: Ireland’s Celtic Medicine Traditions, Gina McGarry (2005) Green Magic

Ogam: Weaving Word Wisdom, Erynn Rowan Laurie (2007) Megalithica Books

Brigid: Goddess, Druidess and Saint, Brian Wright (2009) The History Press

Brighid and Me: Experiences with the Goddess, Hollee Swann, ed. (2010) copyright Helen Roberts Hollee Swann

Brigit: Sun of Womanhood, ed. Patricia Monaghan and Michael McDermott (2013) Goddess Ink

Pagan Portals—Brigid: Meeting the Celtic Goddess of Poetry, Forge, and Healing Well, Daimler, Morgan (2016) Moon Books

Introduction

We have a mixed bag in this category, some excellent, some I don’t recommend at all, and some I recommend with certain reservations. A few of these reservations crop up repeatedly, in particular the failure of authors to cite their sources and the mixing of fact with guesswork—their own or that gleaned from other writers.

A useful guideline for dealing with one sub-category of the latter problem can be found in the concept of UPG. (See below. ) It is a variation on a basic principle of nonfiction writing: only present as fact what can be established as such. Represent your own ideas and those of “the popular mind” as what they are. This does not make them less important. Insight and innovation nourish our growing appreciation of and connection to Brigit in the modern world. Delineating between our own ideas and defensible traditions simply allows each individual to draw their own conclusions, in possession of as much clear, and clearly sourced, information as possible.

The Ks’ book, Candlemas, suffers from a lack of citations—there are some but not many and they aren’t all useful—making it frequently impossible to check their statements. It also suffers in offering unproven assumptions as fact, particularly annoying when they are in doubt or disproven elsewhere. Despite this it is a lovely jumping off point for thinking about Brigit and the festival, with lots of warmth, imagination, and ideas for celebration, Neo-Pagan-style.

Monaghan’s essay, “The Well of Her Memory”, offers a well written and interesting personal perspective on Brigit and her modern celebration in Kildare. A couple of her statements, again not cited, are dubious, however, and I would verify elsewhere any new ideas you find here that you want to embrace.

Kondratiev, too, at times presents imagination as fact in ‘‘Imbolc—Brigit”. Yet he does have a good background in Celtic studies and it is a pleasure to imagine along with him. He offers numerous ways to celebrate a Neo-Pagan Imbolc, as well. Worth the read.

I can’t speak to McGarry’s herbal information, which may be solid, but, despite her obvious goodwill, as a book about Brigit or Celtic tradition Brighid’s Healing: Ireland’s Celtic Medicine Traditions is very unreliable. Nor does it have much obvious to offer around actual Irish herbal traditions. Not recommended.

Laurie has done an excellent job in Ogam: Weaving Word Wisdom. This book is not specifically about Brigit, but she appears frequently in its pages, placed to an unusual degree in the context of the Celtic mindset from which she emerged, and the Neo-Pagan landscape in which she now finds herself. It is well-footnoted and carefully distinguishes Laurie’s own ideas from tradition, offering modern innovations and explaining how they adhere to or differ from what is known of the beliefs and values of the Celts.

Despite some interesting photos and tidbits, I can’t recommend Wright’s Brigid: Goddess, Druidess and Saint. Instead of distinguishing his hypotheses from known facts, he puts forward his own imagined history, unsupported by evidence, quite forcibly as reality, thereby giving a very misleading picture of things.

Swann has put together a nice little pamphlet of personal essays by various Neo-Pagans on their relationship to Brigit in Brighid and Me: Experiences with the Goddess. I like it, and was pleased to be asked to write an essay for it, so I leave it to you to decide if I am biased.

I’m going to cheat and not actually review Monaghan and McDermott’s Brigit: Sun of Womanhood. It was published after the writing of the other reviews here, which have been long delayed in publication due to health issues in my life. Rather than delay yet longer as I read and review Sun of Womanhood  I will say only that it exists, and that it is a collection of largely Neo-Pagan writings, though there are offerings from Christians as well.

Daimler’s Pagan Portals: Brigit is a short (112 pg.) and very focussed look at the goddess Brigit. If you can afford only one book about Brigit, this is it.

Useful Terms:

When discussing books written by authors of a spiritual bent, the terms UPG, SPG, and CG can come in very handy.

UPG (Unsubstantiated Personal Gnosis): Information gained through meditation, intuition, visions, etc., which cannot be substantiated by lore or research but is usable in the individual’s practice. Labelling as UPG helps prevent misunderstandings about verifiable sources and preserves intellectual honesty. “UPG” specifically indicates beliefs arrived at via mystical means, not ideas or intellectual conclusions reached from academic research.

SPG (Shared Personal Gnosis) — A mystical vision and belief shared by a number of people.

CG (Confirmed Gnosis) — Substantiating evidence for UPG or SPG may later be found in the lore, rendering it CPG (Confirmed Personal Gnosis). These instances are highly valued, and have served to bolster individual and community faith in the Deities, spirits or ancestors from whom the information was received. Instances of CG are also very important in that over time they help us learn to distinguish true imbas from imagination. (Imbas is the Old Irish word for “inspiration.” In Modern Irish it is spelled iomas. )

                                                   Distilled from the CR FAQ (available online or in book form.)

Click below to read the reviews.

The Meaning of the Word: Imbolc

Cross-Stitch by Donna Amaral

Don't be misled by bold and simple assertions of what Imbolc means. We really are not sure. Scholars give various tentative definitions of the word:

“The exact meaning of ‘Imbolc’ or ‘Oimelc’ presents considerable difficulty, and Pamela Berger suggests gently that cleansing of the fields after the winter and preparing them for sowing the grain in spring may be fundamental in the idea underlying the term. She refers to the theory which separates the term ‘Imbolc/Imbolg’ into two words: im and bolg, im meaning ‘around’ and bolg ‘belly’—the belly of that goddess—that is the land, the farm...”

         The Rites of Brigid, Goddess and Saint, Séan Ó Duinn, pg 19-20.

Ó Catháin reads things differently.

“Imbolc/óimelc the ancient name for the festival of Brigit is defined thus in the ninth-century Cormac’s Glossary:...‘that is the time when the sheep’s milk comes’...Though condemned as ‘a fanciful etymological explanation’ this statement has, nevertheless, inspired oft-repeated assertions that the pagan name of our feast, as imbolc/óimelc is said to be, has something to do with the period of the coming into lactation of sheep. Eric Hamp...has shown that the word simply means ‘milking’...”

          The Festival of Brigit, Séamas Ó Catháin, pg 7.

Ó Catháin goes on at length to examine the philological evidence and theorize about what the name—if it even IS the true name of the feast—means and what it may tell us about the festival. 

For an unorthodox and intriguing interpretation of the word Imbolc, see my upcoming review of  Phillip A. Bernhardt-House’s paper “Imbolc: A New Interpretation”. (Or better yet, hunt down the paper itself. You'll find it in Cosmos: The Yearbook of the Traditional Cosmology Society 18 (2002): 57-76.

 A hint here: If im has as its basis “butter”, olc is generally derived as “evil, bad, wrong” in Irish, both Old and Modern. But Kim McCone traces this word back to the Indo-European root meaning “wolf”. Joining these two, Bernhardt-House offers “Imbolc as the 'butter-wolf'”, hoping to “shed some light on further images in Irish sources, as well as connecting this to a further complex within Indo-European ritual” (60).

All of which simply shows that the details, roundabout though they may be, are infinitely more textured and fascinating than the boiled down versions we often receive, and that there are many more possiblities out there than the simplified story we often receive begins to hint at.