The great Cailleach strides across the land. She is mountain, she is forest, she is sea. She walks out to meet the fire of spring with an apron full of boulders, hair wild and free. She is mother, she is maiden, she is crone.
Owl, bear, boar and deer.
It is said that if we have sun this day, she has made it so, left her fire smouldering in the grate and gone to collect firewood. She is not done with winter yet and it will be a few more weeks maybe even a month before Brigid is allowed to shine.
If the sky is grey with clouds then she has no stomach for the bone cold earth. Instead she stays by the fire, banks it up and pulls her woad, wool shawl closer around her. Spring is just around the corner.
If it is grey on this day, Brigid will bring the fire to melt the ice and lift the veil of wintertide. The landscape will once more hum with life, the snowdrops will push up through the hard ground, the celandines will create bright little suns in the verges, nettles will spring forth to provide nourishment in the hungry gap of March and the sheep and cattle will soon give us life and hope. We will have a wedding, a wedding to thaw the earth.
So let the fires die down, throw the window’s open, invite the birdsong in and brush away the last of the frost.
Sing north for the earth
Sing south for the sun
Sing east for the air
Sing west for the water
Doff your cap and bid the Cailleach adieu, turn to face the sun and speak poetry to Brigid. Stamp your feet on the earth and revel in the life that is to come. The life we play our part in. The life that sings in our bones.
I will sing this call to Imbolc all the day long!