Sunday, January 30, 2011

Patience and How I Don't Got Any

Okay, since this is supposedly a Witchy blog and we're coming up on Imbolc (that's a witchy holiday to you muggles) I thought I'd share my perspective on the season.  Imbolc is traditionally celebrated as a festival of the coming spring.  Ya know, the beginning of February being about the coldest time of year, it's only going to get warmer and fatter from here on out.  It's a time for purification, healing, weather divination, spring cleaning and the like.  For me, this is not a pleasant time of year.  

I know, I know, every season sheds light on an area of life and the cycles thereof.  But, I'll just come on out and tell you, winter does not agree with me.  I get cranky, depressed, refuse to leave the house except when absolutely necessary, and then I get impatient.  I hope to solve this problem with a slight change in geography at some point, but until then I guess I should learn the lesson.  This is the time when the sheep and our Mother is pregnant, about to burst with life.  I remember pregnancy.  I was impatient then too.  Oh, I wasn't unhappy like I get in cold weather, but I couldn't wait to get to the next step.  I didn't stop, breath, and enjoy pregnancy.  I sat brooding, so excited that it was a miserable wait to meet my baby. 

Imbolc comes this year to remind me not of rebirth, but of patience.  Yes, Spring will be here soon, but until then there is a season of waiting.  The theme of patience keeps popping up.  In comments from readers, in bedtime stories, in situations in my personal life.  This Imbolc, I am finally hearing the message.  It is a time of quiet preparations, a time to turn inward and plan, it is a time to wait, to actively wait with patience.  I suck at it.  But at least I'm starting to get the idea.

On another note.  My daughter turned 7 today.  So 7 years and a few hours ago, I was ushering this person into the world, into life.  What Magic it is to bring forth life?  She is turning out to be everything you could hope for in a daughter.  She has a strength in her, I can almost see the woman she will become.  Every time one of my girls has a birthday, I mourn a little, that they are growing up and away.  I try to remember the words of Khalil Gibran when he wrote on children:
       Your children are not your children.
        They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself.
        They come through you but not from you,
        And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.
I hope you follow the link and read the rest of this passage.  It's beautiful and wise.

2 comments:

  1. Oh Happy Birthday to your littleone!

    Imbolc, to me, is definitely an in-between time. Some years I struggle with that but most not. Ostara is usually a crazy time for me so I'm happy to hang around with Imbolc for a bit : )

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  2. Ostara, nearly sucked the life out of me last year! Hopefully you'll get the right amount of quiet before the storm this year.

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