i'd like to give God a lake of beer...

"If we can hallow February," writes Christopher Hill, "we can hallow any time." For those of us living in North Country, truer words have not been uttered. Hill goes on to observe that in our part of the world:

... winter never actually ends. It hangs on interminably, miserably, through almost half the year, like a neurotic house guest you invited for Christmas who won't leave, filling ashtrays, piling up dishes in the sing, and leaving dirty socks on the dining-room table. Even in May, winter is liable to pop back up lie some gruesome jack-in-the-box... February is a sad month, when Christmas magic is a distant memory, the first grim weeks of Lent loom, and Easter isn't even on the horizon... Yet even here the Year of the Lord gives meaning to meaningless time with symbols and rituals that teach us to look contemplatively below the surface bleakness. (Holidays and Holy Nights, p. 104)

He is calling to mind two celebrations long neglected by the secular, bourgeois West - St. Brigid's Feast Day and Candlemas on the Purification of St. Mary the Virgin - blessed banquets I had never heard of as a young Prod and am only now learning to make my own. Both are obviously feminine expressions of the holy. Hill calls them midwife holy days, transitional bridges from one encounter to another, that are not dramatic masculine pronouncements like Christmas or Easter; but rather "holidays that have to do with the feminine dynamics of flow and growth. They remind us that the pointed masculine vision often misses the point... as living things grow from one stage to another... a continuum of growth, metamorphosis, and resurrection. (p. 105)

Brigid, along with Patrick, is noted for her commitment to evangelizing Ireland and Scotland. Simultaneously she is understood to have been a Celtic goddess, an abbess of the 5th century CE and present with the Blessed Virgin Mary during the birth of Jesus. Some see her as the gentle way one tradition can flow into another, each enriching the new synthesis, without any hint of violence or the new vanquishing the old. "She is a figure of in-betweens, the feminine both/and instead of the masculine either/or. She lives in the connecting places between the sharp points.Women in the Hebrides who called Brigid into their homes on the eve of her feast were not inviting in an historical personage, but a living presence." (Hill, p. 106) Her feast day comes forty days after Christmas and is celebrated by blessing the candles of the new year in a way that honors her essence: In Gaelic, her name means "fiery arrow." 

In Scotland and Ireland, St. Brigid's or St. Bride's feast day marks the cultural beginning of spring. Christine Valters Painter at The Abbey of the Arts puts it like this:

February 1st-2nd marks a confluence of several feasts and occasions including: the Celtic feast of Imbolc, St. Brigid’s Day, Candlemas, Feast of the Presentation, and Groundhog Day in the northern hemisphere! (Imbolc is August 1st in the southern hemisphere). Imbolc is a Celtic feast that is cross-quarter day, meaning it is the midway point between the winter solstice and spring equinox. The sun marks the four Quarter Days of the year (the Solstices and Equinoxes) and the midpoints are the cross-quarter days. In some cultures... February 2nd is the official beginning of spring. As the days slowly lengthen in the northern hemisphere and the sun makes her way higher in the sky, the ground beneath our feet begins to thaw. The earth softens and the seeds deep below stir in the darkness. The word “imbolc” means “in the belly.” The earth’s belly is beginning to awaken, new life is stirring, seeds are sprouting forth.  (https://mailchi.mp/abbeyofthearts/way-of-the-monk-path-of-the-artist-2227805?e=0b04125f1a)

On St. Brigid's Day here it was -6 below O F. We were in Tucson so missed the

surprise. There it was 72 F. Now it is 52 F and feels more like the start of spring. We all know, of course, that there will be more snow and cold to be sorted out. Still, new life and warmth is starting to rise up both from the very belly of creation as well in the wider cosmos, and its unique and loving manner offers us a measure of tenderness. Hill writes that "the winter-spring feast of Brigid is a legacy from long-ago mothers, from the realm of mother-wit and mother night, of grannies by the fire; a woman's wold of birthing babies and burying bodies in the ground." It is a spirituality grounded in the cycle of life, death and new life.

Not coincidentally, the day after Imbolc, Candlemas and Brigid's feast day is a day given to honoring the Blessed Virgin Mary: the Purification of St. Mary the Virgin. The unity of these two new/old holy days set 40 days after Christmas offers us a clue about how to live into the wisdom of God's first word: creation. Scripture comes much later. So as the elders of my traditions teach it, let us always remember that God's first word was the very creation of the world including its seasons, smells, tastes, experiences, feelings, rhythms, inhabitants, waters, air, fire, day and night and all the rest. On February 2 tradition tells us that Mary the Virgin "went to the Temple in Jerusalem forty days after the birth of Jesus for ritual purification." (p. 110) The Roman name for this month, Februa "means purification as this was the time for house-cleaning Roman rites of cleansing." It seems every spiritual tradition includes a time for birthing and a time for dying. A time for dancing and a time for mourning. A time for holding, beholding, and a time for letting go and cleansing. From the story of Mary's purification, the early Church cultivated a ritual to celebrate the reality of creation moving from the dark cold into the warmth of the light as well as our personal calling to gently let go of the old tenderly as we make room for the new. 

(There was) a procession of candles... every parishioner was given a candle. just before dawn, there was a long procession around and then into the church ending at the altar, where each candle was blessed with holy water and incense. At home, these candles were lighted and set on windowsills to bring luck to the household throughout the year. The ritual symbolized Christ as the Light of the World and the return of light to the natural world. (p. 111)

Back in the day, Candlemas also marked the time to take down the greenery of the Advent/Christmas/ Epiphany cycle - a time to cleanse the home thoroughly in order to prepare for the Lent/Easter /Ascension /Pentecost cycle. One path asks me to be still in the quiet darkness and watch for small signs of the holy being born into the most unlikely places. To respect and reflect on that part of the journey, the tradition gives us holy days like Brigid's feast and Candlemas. These feasts bring focus, gravitas and clarity to what has already taken place, and, they prepare us to look towards the new cycle with a sense of cleansing.

Today I am baking bread for Brigid and cleaning my house for Mary. I am preparing to get a new tattoo, too - St. Brigid's cross (pictured above as four strands of rushes woven together in the middle as the unity of the seasons) - to bring balance to my simple Jerusalem cross. I have added symbols, pictures of my extended family to my prayer wall and brought out fresh candles to bring light into the ebbing winter darkness. I'll chop up some of the ice that still lingers in the drive way, put on Old Blind Dog's as the bread bakes and dance around the house as I clean. Di and I will then spend this weekend taking another step in the dance of Brigid and Mary as we start the search for another home as the song of  downsizing and simplifying plays on. Selling this place will be filled with sacred transitions - and tons more cleansing - and now it feels right. When we drove back home from the airport in Albany after our Tucson retreat we both knew that now was the time. I suspect that St. Brigid got it right in this earthy ancient prayer from within her tradition: Lord, may it be so among us.

I'd like to give a lake of beer to God.
I'd love the Heavenly
Host to be tippling there
For all eternity.

I'd love the men of Heaven to live with me,
To dance and sing.
If they wanted, I'd put at their disposal
Vats of suffering.

White cups of love I''d give them,
With a heart and a half;
Sweet pitchers of mercy I'd offer
To every man.

I'd make Heaven a cheerful spot,
Because the happy heart is true.
I'd make the men contented for their own sake
I'd like Jesus to love me too.

I'd like the people of heaven to gather
From all the parishes around,
I'd give a special welcome to the women,
The three Marys of great renown.

I'd sit with the men, the women of God
There by the lake of beer
We'd be drinking good health forever
And every drop would be a prayer.