The Vacant Space - Imbolc or Candlemas

The rebirth of the Earth - mycelium releasing golden nectar.

I was writing this month's newsletter when I was hit by the power of the word "culture" and how much is contained within it. I don't know if it's just because I like words, but it comforts me to know about the ancestry of the many people who created words, and who, because they felt so good in that act of that creation, couldn't stop inventing them; more and more words were born to describe the world we are.

But the word culture has a special flavor, because cultus is the Latin root that supports the word, and if we think of more words with this root, we are taken by the acts that wove together all peoples before and in the future.

Culture is not just the intellectual side of the arts, or how we might name a ministry, or even a section of the Saturday newspaper, although we can always cultivate our inner selves with bits and pieces we read there, culture is much more than the intellectualized side of civilization.

Culture is the cultivation of something; when we cultivate something, we are caring for it so that it grows, while something within us also grows. Reciprocity.

Culture brings cultivation and cult with it, and there were no traditional societies that did not make this union their daily rhythm of life. We honor what is sacred or divine to us through rites or celebrations because we know the importance of including everything in the process of gratitude, and therefore we worshipped the Elements, the Earth, and the Cosmos.

We cultivate relationships because we know that everything is interconnected and that without this harmony nothing would flourish. What connects the culture is giving time and space for mutual care, it's the conversation that has time to listen and time to speak.

Hence the need for celebrations, the imposition of time for leisure, for leaving the "us" empty so that we can dedicate ourselves to other "us" in a process of reframing things slowly.

Today.

Today is February 2nd, marked as Imbolc or Our Lady of Light.

During this pause in the calendar, time calls for us to care for ourselves as a community; it is a period where the present moment is the gift we give to those we respect most, the Ladies who watch over us and show us new ways. This month, the reminiscent moments of worshiping the Earth, which begins to awaken, are numerous, and show our desire to pay homage to the most living being of all, which has been dormant for a season. To that end, we tried to replicate externally what we want to be felt internally, because we are Earth.

Imbolc is the first in the procession and asks us to immerse ourselves in a personal thawing, to be prepared for the abundance of the earth's warming and the possibilities it brings within us as individuals,. What do we want to awake or leave back? It is a time to create space to allow new versions to grow and not fall into the inadequate pattern of repeating what we have already been. We used to clean our houses, our tools, give away things that were surplus and no longer needed, go to sacred springs to receive blessings, and thus begin a new cycle.

And what about Valentine's Day?

Why is it aligned with the beginning of the birds' mating season and the resurgence of insects? Do we want to be available for fertility in sync with the kingdom of birds and the Earth?

When we begin to look around us, we see the web in everything that surrounds us, and new ideas arise from others that are continually being created around us. We are part of a Whole, and culture is not relative to a country or social stratum, but to the common point that is Nature.

And where does this need to dress in colorful and flamboyant ways, to recreate the beings we would like to be, come from? Are we simply trying to mirror the abundance and creativity of nature to inspire it to vibrate with us again? A different way of cultivating the Earth, a cultivation that stimulates the growth of the other:

" Come on, we're ready to start over, look at how diverse we are, remember ? "

A celebration similar to Carnival took place during the festival dedicated to Osiris, the Egyptian god of the underworld and regeneration. This celebration marked the receding of the Nile waters and the possibility of beginning to sow in the lands fertilized by the minerals left behind by the waters. People danced in costumes to the sound of cheerful music, and instead of confetti, seeds were thrown into the air as an offering to this god; the first seeds had been sown.

Culture is about caring and honoring in this active way, because we want to participate in telling the story of the Earth, we want to listen and be Life. This is a time to free our minds from the purely intellectual and enter into ritual mode, because our first mother, the one we wish to emulate as a source of learning, is Mother Earth, and she is already preparing for our arrival.

"It is not sunlight that we lack. For millennia the great star has illuminated the earth, and yet we have learned little to see. The world needs to be seen in another light: the light of the moon, that brightness that falls with respect and delicacy. Only the moon reveals the intimacy of our earthly dwelling. We do not need the sunrise. We need the birth of the Earth."

Mia Couto in Tales of the Birth of the Earth

#celebrations #thoughts