Create a Brigid Prayer Painting in Mixed Media Collage

Lady of the Radiant Flame: Create a Brigid Prayer Painting in Mixed Media Collage

Join me for “Lady of the Radiant Flame,” an online sacred art workshop for lovers of the Divine Feminine, especially those who are drawn to Brigid, the Celtic Goddess of Poetry, Healing, and Transformation.

We’ll go into the virtual studio and I will lead you, step by step, into creating a prayer painting — a unique collage portrait of Brigid and her sacred symbols (especially her sacred fire of creativity).  The sample collage shown here is just one example of what you can create in this workshop.

Artistic experience isn’t required for this project. I’ll be taking you through the process, so even if you think you have no artistic talent (don’t believe it!), you can still create a beautiful icon. You’ll learn mixed media techniques and play with paint, paper, ink, glue, and more. I’ll provide imagery that you can download and incorporate into your piece (including the face of Brigid from my painting “Brigid’s Fire”).

Best of all, the collage prayer painting will become a focus for your heart’s yearnings, hopes, and dreams, all the secret places inside you that need healing or expression. The finished piece itself will be an offering and a talisman, a focus for prayer and transformation.

For every act of creation is an act of magic.

I’d love to have you join me! Together we will create our devotional offerings to Brigid, the Radiant Flame of Gold, the Summoner of Spring.

“Lady of the Radiant Flame” is open for registration now. The workshop materials (videos and PDFs) will be delivered on February 5th.

   $97.00  ~ EARLY BIRD PRICE through January 28th! ~  $75.00

How it works:

On February 5th, you’ll receive an email with links to the videos and instructional PDFs. The workshop is designed to take place over a couple of weekend afternoons, although you may work more quickly (or more slowly!) than I do.

You’ll also receive an invitation to join a private Facebook group, where you can ask me questions about the process and share your work with others in the class. The Facebook group will be open for three weeks, until February 26th.

Between now and February 5th, you can gather your supplies and get ready to make some magic!

We will cover:

• Beginning with intention and ceremony.
• Learning about Brigid, and how you resonate with Her.
• Gathering imagery and text. (Some of each will be provided.)
• Working out a composition.
• Choosing a color scheme.
• Creating a background with papers, paint, and stencils.
• Adhering collage elements.
• Adding visual and symbolic interest with stamps, pastels, paint, ink, fabric, ephemera, and natural elements.
• Telling the story of your prayer painting.
• Practicing visio divino with your prayer painting.

You will need these materials (click here for list).

This is the first in a series of Sacred Art Online Workshops I’ll be offering this year. It makes a nice companion to “30 Days of Brigid.”

   $97.00  ~ EARLY BIRD PRICE through February 28th! ~  $75.00

- See more at: http://www.gaiansoul.com/work-with-me/ecourses/sacred-art/brigid-prayer-painting/#sthash.265tWclS.dpuf

Thirty Days of Brigit with Joanna Powell Colbert

“30 Days of Brigid” is an ecourse for those who want a daily inspirational touchstone during Brigid’s season of the Prelude-to-Spring (known as Imbolc or Candlemas).

On the surface, it’s about beautiful photos, art, quotes, and journal/photo prompts landing in your inbox every day for 30 days.

But really? It’s about connecting more deeply with the creative fire of the Celtic Goddess Brigid as she begins to awaken the land from its winter sleep.

The course is designed for people who don’t have much time, but still want to take a sacred pause each day to find a fresh breeze of nature, art, and poetry wafting into their inboxes.

It’s for those who want to connect more deeply with Brigid and contemplate the themes of her season — emergence, dedication, cleansing, creative fire, and the first faint hints of Spring.

By the end of the 30 days, you’ll be reconnected to your own creative core, with a daily practice in place for taking in beauty and responding to it in your journal or with your camera or paintbrush.

Best of all, you will have taken a divine pause each day to experience the presence of Brigid and to align yourself with her season.

Sound good? I’d love to have you join us.

30 Days of Brigid is open for registration now. Your daily emails begin on Monday January 26th, one week before the holy-day of Imbolc / Candlemas / Brigid’s Day on February 1st.

   $19.00

How it works:

~ You’ll receive an email every day for 30 days, beginning Monday January 26th.

~ You respond, in the privacy of your own journal, or share online. I encourage you to set your timer for 5-10 minutes, and free-write in response to the journal prompt. Some days you won’t have time, and that’s OK. Other days you’ll write more.

You can also pick up your camera or smart phone, and take a photo each day in response to the photo/art prompt. Or you may want to sketch or make art in an art journal.

You’re most welcome to share your writing, art, or photos on social media using the hashtag #30daysofbrigid.

~ At the end of the 30 Days, you’ll receive a PDF with all 30 of the quotes and prompts.

This is one of my new “30 Day” courses that have grown out of the “Gaian Soul Seasonal Practices” courses I offered for several years. Watch for other courses throughout the year.

   $19.00

If you have found this page after January 26th, you can still sign up for this course. But your emails start the day after you sign up, and you won’t receive the ones you’ve missed. At the end of the 30 Days, you will receive a PDF with all 30 of the quotes and prompts.

- See more at: http://www.gaiansoul.com/work-with-me/ecourses/seasonal-ecourses/30-days-of-brigid/#sthash.6IzNm5sK.3i2iRo4j.dpuf

Brigit on the Burren: A Snippet from Lady Gregory

A Book of Saints and Wonders – Lady Gregory, 1906.  p8

She Remembers the Poor
But if Brigit belonged to the east, it is not in the west she is forgotten, and the people of Burren and of Corcomruadh and Kinvara go every year to her blessed well that is near the sea, praying and remembering her. And in that well there is a little fish that is seen every seven years, and whoever sees that fish is cured of every disease. And there is a woman living yet that is poor and old and that saw that blessed fish, and this is the way she tells the story:

"I had a pearl in my eye one time, and I went to Saint Brigit's well on the cliffs. Scores of people there were in it, looking for cures, and some got them and some did not get them. And I went down the four steps to the well and I was looking into it, and I saw a little fish no longer than your finger coming from a stone under the water. Three spots it had on the one side and three on the other side, red spots and a little green with the red, and it was very civil coming hither to me and very pleasant wagging its tail. And it stopped and looked up at me and gave three wags of its back, and walked off again and went in under the stone.

"And I said to a woman that was near me that I saw the little fish, and she began to call out and to say there were many coming with cars and with horses for a month past and none of them saw it at all. And she proved me, asking had it spots, and I said it had, three on the one side and three on the other side. "That is it" she said. And within three days I had the sight of my eye again. It was surely Saint Brigit I saw that time; who else would it be? And you would know by the look of it that it was no common fish. Very civil it was, and nice and loughy, and no one else saw it at all. Did I say more prayers than the rest? Not a prayer. I was young in those days. I suppose she took a liking to me, maybe because of my name being Brigit the same as her own."

The Boy that dreamed he would get his Health
There was a beggar boy used to be in Burren, that was very simple like and had no health, and if he would walk as much as a few perches it is likely he would fall on the road. And he dreamed twice that he went to Saint Brigit's blessed well upon the cliffs and that he found his health there. So he set out to go to the well, and when he came to it he fell in and he was drowned. Very simple he was and innocent and without sin. It is likely it is in heaven he is at this time.

The Water of the Well

And there is a woman in Burren now is grateful to Saint Brigit, for "I brought my little girl that was not four years old" she says "to Saint Brigit's well on the cliffs, where she was ailing and pining away. I brought her as far as the doctors in Gort and they could do nothing for her and then I promised to go to Saint Brigit's well, and from the time I made that promise she got better. And I saw the little fish when I brought her there; and she grew to be as strong a girl as ever went to America. I made a promise to go to the well every year after that, and so I do, of a Garlic Sunday, that is the last Sunday in July. And I brought a bottle of water from it last year and it is as cold as amber yet."

Boundaries Between Goddess and Saint: A Review of Miranda Green's "Celtic Goddesses"

This is a book I reviewed in A Long Sip at the Well, but this is a review I wrote the year the book came out, which I just stumbled across. Slightly longer than the other, it has a more "hands-on" perspective, too. So I offer it here.

Celtic Goddesses: Warriors, Virgins and Mothers
Miranda Green (1996)
Reviewed 24 sept. 1996

Miranda Green, a senior lecturer in archaeology and early Celtic studies at the University of Wales and recipient of the National Library of Wales' John Legonna Celtic Research Prize in 1986, has a new book out called Celtic Goddesses: Warriors, Virgins and Mothers (1996).  The last chapter ends with a few pages on Brigit.  She discusses primarily the distinctions between and blending of the goddess and saint, and offers some interesting in sights.

I'm pleased with some of the revelations because of their connections to my life.  As a goddess, Brigit acted as a mediator between the Tuatha De Danaan—the deities of Celtic Ireland—and the Fomorians—some of their greatest foes.  Her interest, despite being a tribal deity, was not only the winning of wars for one side or the other, but was "the future well-being or Ireland" (pg.198).  This makes her an especially good deity to turn to when mediating between warring aspects of the self or between individuals or groups that do not understand each other well.

A feature both goddess and saint shared was "liminality": being associated with boundaries, particularly between this world and the next.

“Brigit's liminal imagery is intense and manifests itself in various ways.  She belonged to both the pagan and Christian worlds; she was born at sunrise, her mother straddling a threshold at the precise time of her birth; one parent,her father  Dubthach, was of noble lineage, while her mother, Briocseth, was a slave. Brigit was nourished on the milk of an  Otherworld  cow... and this increases her  symbolism  as  a being linked to two worlds (pg. 199).”

This aspect is particularly enticing when thinking about making inner journeys such as meditation or trance-work, which involve moving from the mundane world to a world of symbolism and magic.  It suggests that performing such rituals on the day one is tending the flame could strengthen the crossing.  (See Circle of Stones, by Erynn Rowan Laurie.)

A thought-provoking passage refers to the paradox of Brigit's sacrifice of her own sexuality (in order, as a saint, to maintain autonomy and be able to do her life's work) and her deep connection to fertility and birth, her ability even to "cure frigidity in women" (pg. 200).  Although the text here seems to be referring both to goddess and saint, Green states elsewhere that the goddess was married to the Fomorian Bres, and I recall reading somewhere that the keen originated with Brigit, who used it in mourning her dead son (see Cath Maige Tuired, The Second Battle of Mag Tuired, translatedby Elizabeth A. Gray, paragraph 125) so it is possible that her fertility function carried over from her less virginal pagan state, although in another sense of the word "virgin"—an autonomous woman—she was always such.

Green offers another explanation. “The strength of Brigit's fertility-imagery is suggested by the medieval carvings of Sheela-na-gigs in Ireland, interpreted by some scholars as grotesque depictions of Brigit with the entrance to her womb wide-open, even though the saint was a virgin.  As we saw with some of the Welsh goddesses... it may be that it was because Brigit was sexually-intact that her fertile power was so concentrated (pg. 200).”

Sheelagh-na-Gig, Dunaman, Co. Limerick

Sexually intact.  Interesting choice of words.  Because of course intactness denotes wholeness, completeness: an essential part of healthy sexuality.  The image that suddenly arises for me is of a very sexual, completely whole and autonomous woman, who may or may not have children, a spouse, a lover, but who certainly has her own sexuality, thank you very much.  The sheela-na-gig would suffice as a symbol for her, indeed.

A little disconcerting, as the organizer of the Daughters of the Flame, is Green's assertion that our belief that Brigid was a fire goddess is based on her saintly association with fire—a common association among Christian saints which symbolized their close connection to god.  She doesn't rule out that Brigit may have been a solar deity; a healthy dose of caution is advised.  She discusses the perpetual fire at Kildare—“a symbol of hearth and home but also of purity” (pg. 199), but does not assert that it originated with pre-Christian worshippers, although she does cite the argument of others that Brigit may be connected with Minerva, who did have a perpetual flame burned in her honour.  In citing it this way I get the impression she doesn't lean strongly in that direction herself, when weighing the evidence.  Yet earlier in the book she lists as one of "a few unequivocal references to priestesses attached to specific temples in early Celtic literature" the legend that the monastery at Kildare was built on the site of a pagan temple.  It was “apparently tended by women who kept vigil over a sacred fire which...was never allowed to go out” (pg. 143).

Be that as it may.  The intact picture of the goddess Brigid is long lost to us, and it's true that our vision of her is shaped not only by “Lives of the saints” written by Christian scholars over hundreds of years, but by our modern life and personal interpretation and experience of her.  As Green herself concedes, many of the elements of the saint's description and mythology seem lifted straight from Pagan symbolism and tradition, and it is possible that the picture we can glean of her from the “Lives” is an illumination more than a distortion, if we eliminate the purely Christian elements.  I'm not married to this idea, nor am I worried.  In the many centuries before Christianity she must have altered many times as cultures rubbed against each other and new meanings were absorbed into her cult.  If we are paganising a Christian ritual, or repaganizing a christianized Pagan ritual... It is a fair exchange, at the very least.

The Hymn to Saint Brigid of Brogan-Cloen (Broccan's Hymn)

I like to reread the Lives of Saint Brigit from time to time, and other ancient writings such as prayers dedicated to her. Even more, I like to be read to. So I have recorded a couple and listen to them from time to time, and am always delighted by bits I had forgotten.

To further that end, today I recorded Broccan's Hymn, and in my zeal decided to add a visual aspect (still images of the manuscript and an icon of Saint Brigit) so that I could upload it as a video. I still don't know how to simply upload a sound file to the blog, or I'd do that.

Here is the "video", for those who are interested. Apologies for any fumbling of the Latin and Irish. Most of it is English and I manage that fairly well.

For a writeup on the hymn and the translation that I have used (by Whitley Stokes) please visit the excellent blog Trias Thaumaturga, which is dedicated to the three patron saints of Ireland.

Broccan's Hymn is mostly a poetic summing up of many of the tales from the earliest Life of Saint Brigit, by Cogitosus. If it doesn't make complete sense to you it will if you read that Life.

Well, I'll be darned. I can't find a free download of it online. I do have a pdf, so if you want a copy leave your email address in the comments (I won't publish it) and I'll email it to you.

"We put trust in my Brige — may she be a protection to our host !

May her patronage work with me ! may we all deserve escape !"

Brigit & Beer Baths: Notes on a Tale by Cogitosus from the Perspective of a Beer Historian

"St Brigid's Lake of Beer," Michael O'Neill McGrath*

As often happens, while searching an unrelated topic I stumbled across an interesting article connected to Brigit. It tells a tale from Cogitosus regarding Brigit and beer. No self-respecting Brigit-Beer article should go without the famous poem attributed to her. So let us begin there:

I should like a great lake of beer for the King of Kings.
I should like the angels of Heaven to be drinking it through time eternal.
I should like excellent meats of belief and pure piety.
I should like the men of Heaven at my house.
I should like barrels of peace at their disposal.
I should like for them cellars of mercy.
I should like cheerfulness to be their drinking.
I should like Jesus to be there among them.
I should like the three Marys of illustrious renown to be with us.
I should like the people of Heaven, the poor, to be gathered around from all parts.

excerpt from 
St Brigid and the Bathwater

by Martyn Cornell

...While I was putting together the order of service, I even found a suitably beery quote fromThe Life of St Brigid the Virgin, written by a Kildare monk, Cogitosus Ua hAedha, around AD650, to use as one of the readings:

On another extraordinary occasion, this venerable Brigid was asked by some lepers for beer, but had none. She noticed water that had been prepared for baths. She blessed it, in the goodness of her abiding faith, and transformed it into the best beer, which she drew copiously for the thirsty. It was indeed He Who turned water into wine in Cana of Galilee Who turned water into beer here, through this most blessed woman’s faith.

Cogitosus, of course, was keen to chalk the bathwater-into-beer event up as a miracle, just like the one at the wedding at Cana, but there is, in fact, a possible non-miraculous explanation for how St Brigid was able to make the thirsty lepers happy. A record of a fire at the monastry of Clonard in Ireland around AD787 speaks of grain stored in ballenio, literally “in a bath”, which seems to mean the grain being soaked as part of the initial processes of malting. What St Brigid drew off, I’d suggest, may have been water from the ballenium where the grain was steeping in the first stage of malt-making.

Quite possibly, if the grain had begun to sprout wild yeasts had already started multiplying in the water, and making alcohol. Cogitosus heard the story, already more than a century old, about Brigid giving the lepers water from the ballenium to drink and, presumably because he knew nothing about brewing, thought this ballenium was an ordinary bath for washing in. While water from the grain steep might have made a passable ale substitute if you were a thirsty leper, for “bath water” to taste like ale must have seemed a miracle to the confused Cogitosus.

Ale was an important part of Irish society: the Crith-Gablach, an Irish law book compiled about the middle or end of the 7th century AD, declared that the “seven occupations in the law of a king” were:

Sunday, at ale drinking, for he is not a lawful flaith [lord] who does not distribute ale every Sunday; Monday, at legislation, for the government of the tribe; Tuesday, at fidchell [a popular Iron Age board game]; Wednesday, seeing greyhounds coursing; Thursday, at the pleasures of love; Friday, at horse-racing; Saturday, at judgment.”

Who’d be an Irish king, eh?

For the full article, including an old Irish poem on the best ales of the country, go to Martyn Cornell's Zythophile: Beer Now and Then. Click here for his article "Ancient Irish Ales". Martyn is the author of Amber Gold and Black: The History of Britain's Great Beers.

* "St. Brigid's Lake of Beer" by Bro. Mickey (Michael O'Neill McGrath) an Oblate of St. Francis de Sales.

Making Brigit's Cross with Young Caítlín

Caítlín shows beautifully how to gather your rushes, make, and trim your cross. (All to the tune of a penny whistle.)

There are gadjillions of videos on YouTube demonstrating how to make Brigit's cross, including this silent one by a faceless expert, and this by Una Casey of Faughart. (See previous post.) But despite the odd technical difficulty, I rather like this one.

(Click here to watch on YouTube.)

Brigit's Birthplace: RTÉ Documentary on Faughart, Ireland

From Geolocation

At St. Brigit's Shrine in Faughart, Co. Louth, pilgrims have long come to pray the stations and tie up offerings of cloth in order to leave their troubles behind them. Blathnaid Ní Chofaigh of RTÉ explores the area to learn more about St. Brigit and her cult.

From Brigit of Faughart Festival

An impressive moment in the film is watching local woman, Una Casey, making a rush cross while chatting with Blathnaid--one strong enough to kick to Dundalk without it coming apart.

Cross Making with Una Casey in the County Library

Una has been making Brigit's crosses since childhood, and gives workshops in the craft, above at the County Library, and also at the Brigit of Faughart Festival.

(Click here to watch on YouTube.)

RTÉ Ireland's National Television and Radio Broadcaster (2011)

The Brigidine College of St Ives, New South Wales - History & Today

"Fortiter et Suaviter - Strength and Gentleness"

From aMUSine  "The museums, galleries and collections zine by interesting people for interested people:

The Brigidine New Arrival Story

Kerri Genovese

Archivist, Brigidine College St Ives.

On April 16, 1883 six brave young Brigidine Nuns left their convent in Mountrath, Ireland to travel to Coonamble in New South Wales.  They were chosen from 17 volunteers at the convent to set up a catholic school at the request of Dr Murray the Bishop of the Maitland Diocese which included the Parish of Coonamble.  Their journey took just over 2 months, leaving London on April 20 on a small 5,000 tonnage ship ‘The Chimborazo’. They arrived in Melbourne for a short stay on June 3 after only two stops at Naples and Port Said. The Sisters continued on to Sydney then Newcastle by ship and finally reached their destination of Coonamble on June 21 after many days travelling overland by train and coach.

Coonamble was a small town of some 800 residents many of whom went out many miles to meet the nuns and lead them into town to the welcoming peals of the church bell.  A grand dinner was held and after grateful speeches the nuns could retire to their new home, the small four room presbytery.  The kitchen would serve as the refectory, community room and high school classroom while the primary school would be held in the humble slab church building.

After the warm welcome the nuns set to work opening their school on July 9 and by the end of the year a wooden building was commenced which would house day students and boarders.  The reality of their situation would soon hit home as the long hot summer rolled around, water could only be bought by cask and lighting was by candle or kerosene lamp.  One sister wrote home, ‘the heat ranges from 110 to 117. Violent dust storms rage from 2 to 36 hours at a time….at times the dust clouds look like moving walls’.  The difference between their beloved green Ireland and this harsh brown land would have been enormous.

Despite the tough conditions the sisters led by Mother John Synan would be joined by other young women wanting to be trained as a novice before becoming a Brigidine nun.  Sadly five of these young novices would die in the first few years.  However, after hearing about these courageous women other Catholic communities were asking the Brigidine sisters to establish schools for them.  In 1887 five sisters went to Cooma, seven were sent to Cowra in 1894 and another six to New Zealand in 1898.

As the community grew the Brigidine sisters realised that Sydney offered greater opportunities for the training of the novices.  Therefore, another convent, novitiate and secondary girl’s school were established in Randwick in 1901.  However, within forty years it was decided the novices should be moved to a more peaceful area and so the search began for land in the countryside of St Ives.  In 1949 seven acres of land was purchased on the corner of Mona Vale Road and Woodbury Road with another three acres acquired in 1951. 

The Brigidine sisters established a secondary girl’s school in St Ives and on February 9 1954 classes began with nine students.  Although the new two storey building was for the school, the nuns would also live here until the convent was also built.  Upstairs consisted of four classrooms, however, the last room was partitioned off into four sleeping quarters and a community area for the sisters.  The ground floor had a store room, cloak room, toilets, chemistry lab, kitchen and laundry.  The kitchen of course was used for the students learning home economics but also for the sisters own cooking.  Two sisters taught the secondary girls here and another two taught the primary students at the local Catholic Church, Corpus Christi.

The Convent and Novitiate were completed by the end of 1958 and the Brigidine community steadily grew over the years.  The college added more buildings and took over the novitiate building in 1978 when it closed.  The sisters enjoyed many happy years at St Ives until they too moved out in 1994 relinquishing the convent to the college.  Although the Brigidine order is diminishing their legacy continues through the ethos and teaching of the Brigidine schools throughout the world.

Brigidine College St Ives now has over 900 students but acknowledges and appreciates the heritage given to it by the original Brigidine nuns from Mountrath, then Randwick and the new arrival of students in 1954.  The original students formed strong friendships being a small group and still join together each year for a ‘Pioneer’ lunch and reminisce their fun times.

_______________________________________________

The Brigidine College of St Ives is still going strong*. From their website:

Brigidine College St Ives is dedicated to the education of girls in the Catholic tradition. Founded by the Congregation of Sisters of St Brigid in 1954, the school models the charism of St Brigid and Bishop Daniel Delany, strength and gentleness.

The College prides itself on providing a holistic education for girls, combining the spiritual, academic, physical and cultural dimensions of learning, creating women of spiritual, moral and ethical strength.

Girls at Brigidine are challenged to think and experience beyond their boundaries, to have the courage to question their world and model Christ’s teachings in their lives.

They are challenged in their learning to see possibilities, grow in understanding and value success.

Browse through our website to gain a deeper understanding of our community or join us onsite for a tour. There is a spirit in this school worth experiencing.

Brigit Book Review PDF Now Available as Download

The PDF of the Brigit book reviews is now available through the Daughters of the Flame website, saving you having to leave your email address here and wait for me to send you one. Much simpler.

  Enjoy!

The Druids -- On BBC 4

I have only the slenderest excuse for putting this discussion on a Brigit blog--she is mentioned, very briefly, with regards to her father, Dubhthach--but it is such an interesting look not only at the subject of Druids through the eyes of the scholars who make their livings contemplating them, but also at a few of the scholars who, for most of us, are names in a book, not voices, laughter, and interplay.


The discussion is from BBC Radio 4's excellent In Our Time with Melvyn Bragg. BBC has a habit of chucking podcasts after a while so I downloaded the program and set it into a video format to present on Blogger. Once you have seen the first image you will have seen them all. I'll add the credits and so on here, to spare you searching them out on the screen.

http://youtu.be/ajCRV5CcEZQ

Enjoy!

First broadcast: Thursday 20 September 2012, BBC Radio 4.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01mqq94


Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss the Druids, the priests of ancient Europe. Active in Ireland, Britain and Gaul, the Druids were first written about by Roman authors including Julius Caesar and Pliny, who described them as wearing white robes and cutting mistletoe with golden sickles. They were suspected of leading resistance to the Romans, a fact which eventually led to their eradication from ancient Britain. In the early modern era, however, interest in the Druids revived, and later writers reinvented and romanticised their activities. Little is known for certain about their rituals and beliefs, but modern archaeological discoveries have shed new light on them.


With:


Barry Cunliffe
Emeritus Professor of Archaeology at the University of Oxford


Miranda Aldhouse-Green
Professor of Archaeology at Cardiff University


Justin Champion
Professor of the History of Early Modern Ideas at Royal Holloway, University of London


Producer: Thomas Morris


Further Reading:


Miranda Aldhouse-Green, ‘Caesar's Druids: Archaeology of an Ancient Priesthood’ (Yale University Press, 2010)


Justin Champion, ‘Republican Learning: John Toland and the Crisis of Christian Culture’ (Manchester, 2009)


Barry Cunliffe, ‘Druids: A Very Short Introduction’ (Oxford University Press, 2010)


Miranda J. Green, ‘Exploring the World of the Druids’ (Thames and Hudson, 1997)


Michael Hunter, ‘John Aubrey and the Realm of Learning’ (Duckworth, 1975)


Ronald Hutton, ‘Blood and Mistletoe: The History of the Druids in Britain’ (Yale University Press, 2009)


Stuart Piggott, ‘Ancient Britons and the Antiquarian Imagination’ (Thames & Hudson, 1989)


Sam Smiles, ‘The Image of Antiquity: Ancient Britain and the Romantic Imagination’ (Yale, 1994)

Icon by Lewis Williams

ST. BRIGID OF IRELAND (B. 451 – D.527AD)

Artist: 

 Lewis Williams, SFO, website: eyekonz2u

About Lewis Williams:

Moved to learn to paint icons from Robert Lentz after viewing his Apache Christ, Williams has gone on to paint striking images of his own, including those of Canyons of the Ancients National Monument during a stint as artist-in-residence.

I like the simplicity of his Brigid, a serious young woman with work to do and the power and inspiration to do it. I like also his magnificent Our Mother of Sorrow, depicted below with one suggestion of where her sorrows' sources lie: with the falling of the Twin Towers. The image is available through Bridge Building Images.

Artist's Narrative on St Brigid Icon:
Most revered of all of Ireland’s early female saints, Brigid was born of pagan\Christian parentage, and raised in the fosterage (early Irish practice of youth education) of a druid. She converted to Christianity at age 17. Noted for her prayerfulness, compassion, humility, and generosity, she founded the earliest known Celtic double monastery, housing both men (renowned for a school of art in illuminated manuscripts) and women (expert in wool industry and weaving of cloth).

She professed a profound belief in “anam cara,” or soul friends, unique persons God offers us as companions on our pilgrim road. This extended to the idea that love and intimacy were essential to a sound marriage, also quite unique for her time.

Exceptional in another aspect, St Mel of Ardagh, inebriated by her virtues or by ‘spirits’, ordained her a bishop and she was respected as such. A perpetual fire was kept in her honor from her time till extinguished by King Henry VIII’s order in 1540 of the Dissolution of Monasteries. Recently it has been rekindled.

In this icon she is noted for her beauty, holding the crosier (based on the famous Lismore crosier), symbolic of a Bishops staff and shepherds of men. Her clothing is the fine wool work of her sisters. She also holds a ‘Brigid Cross,’ an ancient solar symbol traditionally made to welcome Spring (Feb.1, in Ireland). Dawn barely touches the sky over her right shoulder, a time when the veil between worlds is very thin, and her perpetual fire burns through the night.

Also known as ‘Brigid of Kildare’ (“Kildare”= church of the oak) and ‘Bride’ (“bright or exalted one”).

Her feast day is February 1.

  

"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.

Priestess / Priest of Brighde Training

I just stumbled across Marion van Eupen's site:

Priestess / Priest of Brighde Training, Glastonbury UK

Van Eupen is coming from a Wiccan, Four-Elements, Maiden-Mother-Crone perspective rather than a strictly Celtic based one, and her posting "My Journey With Her" describes her evolving sense of Brighde, arising through personal gnosis. Through that evolution she has come to see Her most clearly as Britannia, "Sovereign Goddess of these lands".

Van Eupen, who offers workshops in Dutch and English, moved to Glastonbury and committed herself deeply to her spiritual path. She is offering a two year Priestess/Priest of Brighde Training 2015/2016, in association with the Glastonbury Goddess Temple. Year one begins on the 14th and 15th of February 2015.

In Glastonbury we recognise Brighde in the landscape as Her Sacred Swan stretching Her long neck along Weary All Hill and spreading Her wings over the Glastonbury town hills. She flows in the waters of the sacred wells and the river Brue, which is called after Her. But foremost She is revered on Bride's Mound (part of The Beckery) where St. Bridget stayed at a little monastery which was then dedicated to Mary Magdalene. Later on a chapel dedicated to St. Bridget was built on Bride's Mound.

Becoming a Priestess or Priest of Brighde is a journey of healing, connecting and walking with Her animals, the Swan, the Snake, the Cow, the Wolf and the magical Unicorn and Phoenix. It is expressing Her energy through poetry, songs and creativity, weaving your soul’s desire into being. It is experiencing Her fire and shining Her light out into the world.

Venue: all training weekends take place in The Camino Centre Glastonbury. The training is non-residential.

When: Saturday and Sunday 10am – 5pm

with breaks for lunch and refreshments.

Fee: The training is set up as a two year training to 
become a Priest/ess of Brighde. It is however possible 
to pay separately for the two training years or to pay 
in installments:

The options are:

£ 950 when paid in full

£ 1000 when paid each year separately

£ 1080 when paid in installments

Britannia by Marion Brigantia Van Eupen

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