Imbolc as a bastardized Pop-pagan Holiday

[TeaDidikai]

[ Message temporarily off-line ]  

[TheDisreputableDog]

It's interesting that many Neo-pagans complain about the Catholic Church "stealing our holidays" but of course no one could have ever possibly borrowed from the Catholic Church.

(There was something else I wanted to say but it's slipped my mind. I'll be back.)  

[TeaDidikai]

TheDisreputableDog

It's interesting that many Neo-pagans complain about the Catholic Church "stealing our holidays" but of course no one could have ever possibly borrowed from the Catholic Church.

(There was something else I wanted to say but it's slipped my mind. I'll be back.)

Likely the nature of "Candlemass" perhaps?

I think to say pagans completely stole from the RCC isn't quite accurate. I'm just amusing myself with the blending of traditions.

I'd likely have a little more respect for the pagans who celebrate the cross quarters if they did it... well, on the cross quarters.  

[TheDisreputableDog]

TeaDidikai

I'd likely have a little more respect for the pagans who celebrate the cross quarters if they did it... well, on the cross quarters.

//Makes a note.// I just kind of...don't celebrate any of them. I think about it, but never end up doing anything. In high school our group was usually limited to when we could do holiday rituals by the Saturday that fell closest to it; most of us lived on campus but there were other school obligations and so on.

I never really got a feeling for Imbolc. I'm not sure what it is, I just have trouble understanding and identifying with it.  

[TeaDidikai]

TheDisreputableDog

TeaDidikai

I'd likely have a little more respect for the pagans who celebrate the cross quarters if they did it... well, on the cross quarters.

//Makes a note.// I just kind of...don't celebrate any of them. I think about it, but never end up doing anything. In high school our group was usually limited to when we could do holiday rituals by the Saturday that fell closest to it; most of us lived on campus but there were other school obligations and so on.

I never really got a feeling for Imbolc. I'm not sure what it is, I just have trouble understanding and identifying with it.

I can relate. The Slavic Recon aspect of it is more focused on the Pyro Nature of Candlemass than on a breast feeding goddess.  

[TheDisreputableDog]

TeaDidikai

I can relate. The Slavic Recon aspect of it is more focused on the Pyro Nature of Candlemass than on a breast feeding goddess.

I suppose it might be that I don't have any sense of myself as a woman, which makes it difficult to identify with the "mother of god" side of it, but as a man neither do I have the desire to be mothered in that "breast feeding goddess" sense. I have respect for mothers, but currently (which is where I'm coming from) I don't see that I'll ever be one. In the generic Neo-pagan ideal that every woman is supposed to recognize the goddess within herself, that's just not me.  

[MST3Kakalina]

I celebrate the cross-quarters astrologically--the astrofeed RSS on my LJ friends page kindly has those listed as well all of the various other astrologica phenomenon. So for me, Imbolc wasn't Wednesday or Thursday, but yesterday. To me, it's silly to have a fixed date for ANY of the sabbats/whatever you call them--it should be based on when the various equinoxes (equinoces?) and solstices actually occur.

Someone on the LJ NFP community brought this up a while ago: that among the myriad of names for sabbats there's nearly always one or two that aren't REALLY connected with the day or are the old church names for them: Candlemas was one, I think Lammas was as well. A rose by any other name and all of that, but still interesting.

Not that I'm particularly strict in observances and rituals and such. I've made habit of using the sabbats as times to clean, and that's pretty much it. Sometimes meditation, dancing, prayer, etc. Nothing fancy.

ETA: It also seems very strange to me to just randomly hijack a deity for ONE particular holiday, especially when you don't normally worship them and know nothing about them. Brigit is one. Eostre is another, though apparently she isn't a genuine myth but was written into existence by a monk.  

[TeaDidikai]

TheDisreputableDog

TeaDidikai

I can relate. The Slavic Recon aspect of it is more focused on the Pyro Nature of Candlemass than on a breast feeding goddess.

I suppose it might be that I don't have any sense of myself as a woman, which makes it difficult to identify with the "mother of god" side of it, but as a man neither do I have the desire to be mothered in that "breast feeding goddess" sense. I have respect for mothers, but currently (which is where I'm coming from) I don't see that I'll ever be one. In the generic Neo-pagan ideal that every woman is supposed to recognize the goddess within herself, that's just not me.

~Twitch~ Neo pagan ideals my... ~fumes~

Why don't we go and recognize the reflection of the Banana in every man and woman. After all- at least we share 70% of our DNA with a banana. ~cough~

Sorry. Rant finished.

Could also have something to do with who/what you worship as well. I don't worship the Wiccan Goddess, nor do I worship Brigit (as some pop-pagans tie her to the holiday... as a breast feeding mother, again. stare ), anyway I can see where you're going with that- but I can relate to your dilemma and my answer was to research why I never connected with those holidays. The answer was pretty simple. The holidays I did feel anything about have legit counterparts on my path that spoke to me in a truer fashion than the generic pop-pagan holidays ever did.  

[TheDisreputableDog]

TeaDidikai

~Twitch~ Neo pagan ideals my... ~fumes~

Why don't we go and recognize the reflection of the Banana in every man and woman. After all- at least we share 70% of our DNA with a banana. ~cough~

Sorry. Rant finished.

Heh. I'm realizing that I worded that badly. I meant that the 'recognize the goddess within' ideal didn't make sense to me (except, I guess, as a self-confidence psych technique, which I suppose works for some people but not for me), not that the 'breast feeding goddess' was not my 'goddess within.'

TeaDidikai

Could also have something to do with who/what you worship as well. I don't worship the Wiccan Goddess, nor do I worship Brigit (as some pop-pagans tie her to the holiday... as a breast feeding mother, again. stare ), anyway I can see where you're going with that- but I can relate to your dilemma and my answer was to research why I never connected with those holidays. The answer was pretty simple. The holidays I did feel anything about have legit counterparts on my path that spoke to me in a truer fashion than the generic pop-pagan holidays ever did.

I see. I really don't know who/what I worship. Lately I've been focused on wind, weather, storm, but my personal feelings on the subject don't seem to match anything I've studied, so that leaves me pretty much where I started. Not in the pantheistic sense, more in the sense that...actually, I'm not sure how to explain it. If you can't see something but you can see its effects, you can hypothesize that the something you can't see exists? Although that's contradicted by the centripetal/centrifugal force argument. Drat.

But I'm getting offtopic.  

[Lotus Poem]

Please correct me if any of the following is wrong (not that I would expect anything less wink ) What I have always read/heard is that Imbolc was also known as the festival of the lactating sheep because this was the time of year that the first lambs were being born and nursed. The first signs of spring were starting to show themselves (i.e...baby animals, crocuses, melting snow etc..) And something about Brigit in a snake form rising from the womb of the earth to see if winter was over yet. I had also read that it is a festival of light and purification. Candles in the windows, besoms by the doors and things like that.

We cleaned the house, and performed a simple cleansing ritual. My daughter and I took a nature walk to see the signs of winter declining and spring arising. (which here it is we've had a very mild winter)

I hope that someone can shed a little more light on the subject for me. smile  

[Midnight Ana]

This year I celebrated Imbolc on the second ( stare ), because I'm still trying to get my footing with all these sabbats or whatever else you could call them. Still trying to figure out what works and what does work for me.

Anyway, I've discovered that Imbolc is not a holiday that I hold a particular connection with. Maybe because of all the connection with Brigit, a goddess I don't feel drawn to.

I know that everyone celebrates a little differently, some decide not observe holidays. I'd like to heard more, maybe it will give me some insight.  

[CuAnnan]

Ok, the connection between Imbolg and Brigid is an old one, but it has nothing to do with Breast feeding. That's one of the offensive results of crossing Wicca with ecclectic neopaganism and is probably the end product of a thought proccess along the lines of "Well, Brid is a triple faced Goddess, and she's pretty but wise, so let's make her the mother. After all, she did have sproggs".

People. Stop Pillaging my ethnic culture please.

Brid was a forger, a poet and a patron Goddess of women (note the lack of y, that's for a bloody good reason). She was NOT a neo pagan mother fluffy Goddess.

The Cross quarter points, from a lunar point of view, are the times when the major changes in agricultural needs of the land changed. This is why the Gods became associated with them.  

[Lotus Poem]

See I hadn't heard the Brigid breast feeding thing, I had heard about the animals nursing because the first offspring of the year were being born.

How can you pinpoint the cross quarters accurately?  

[TheDisreputableDog]

Beauhemia

How can you pinpoint the cross quarters accurately?

Well, unless you live on a farm where things like the harvest and first frost and the birth of lambs actually matter to you, look up the solstice and equinox, see how many days there are between them, divide by two, and count.

So, just for example, say the winter solstice was on December 20, and the spring equinox was on December 30 (just trying to make the math easier). 30 - 20 = 10, so Imbolc would be on December 25 or 26. Because the solstices and equinoxes (is that even the right plural of equinox?) are astronomical events, and you can find the exact date and time of this year's solstices and equinoxes in the newspaper, on television, on reputable astronomy and/or weather websites, or in an almanac, the cross quarter points are dependent on the relationship between solstice and equinox and not tied to any particular day on our calendar.

Because our current calendar fits pretty well with the Earth's rotation, you can guess the approximate window for the cross quarters because they're going to be around the same time every year, but not necessarily the same day. Ever notice how the same date every year rotates through the days of the week? With past calendars, I believe, the months weren't tied to the seasons like our current calendar. If you celebrated Imbolc on February 2 every year, you'd end up celebrating it in the summer eventually, but the lambs would have been born between the winter solstice and the spring equinox anyway. I suppose we've just gotten lazy, which can apply to a lot of things.

Whoever's job it was to keep track of astronomical events would have known when to have the various feasts and celebrations. It's unlikely that the common people would have known anything about it, given that they were (gasp) peasants and if the peasants know too much, they tend to not want to be peasants anymore. Although, if the lambs were born late one year because of weather patterns or something, I don't know whether the celebration would stick to the astronomically correct time to confer blessings on the yet-to-be born or delayed to give thanks for the already-born.

And forgive me if any of this is wrong. It's been awhile since I had this stuff, and I'm not Reagun.  

[saint dreya]

TheDisreputableDog

Beauhemia

How can you pinpoint the cross quarters accurately?

Well, unless you live on a farm where things like the harvest and first frost and the birth of lambs actually matter to you, look up the solstice and equinox, see how many days there are between them, divide by two, and count.

from what i've heard though, imbolc can't be calculated at all. A History of Pagan Europe says that imbolc was generally celebrated when the ewes began lactating, something which didn't happen the same day every year.