Have you heard them? The tiny voices in the morning sky? The chirping, the singing, the welcoming of the dawn? It has been a long time since the birds woke up before us. On the morning after Imbolc I heard them, the morning birds, the sign of spring.
Imbolc is the time when we experience the first stirrings of spring in the womb of Mother Earth. As the new seeds of the year’s light begins to grow all around us, we celebrate the return of the goddess to the land. The Cailleach, Goddess of Winter, she who has hardened the ground with frost and sent the seeds in the earth’s womb dormant, she who sent us into a time of nurturing sleep now makes way for the goddess of spring, known by many names. Some say that the Cailleach and the Goddess of Spring are one and the same, that the Cailleach turns to stone on this day and the Goddess of Spring steps out of the stone to welcome the light.
For now the light of the sun stands within the cone of darkness, the cold and bare months of the year. But this is a time of hope and preparation, this is the time of the growing of the light. The skies are growing lighter and lighter day by day and the earth gives forth the first signs of spring. The Child of Light might be small and helpless but it grows stronger day by day in the arms of the Mother.
I am looking forward to welcoming spring, snowdrops, crocuses, the birds singing in the trees...
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