An Imbolc Birthday

I guess it's no coincidence that birthdays for me are a time of renewal. I always feel particularly melancholy in the days leading up to a birthday. Not because of my increasing age though, and it's not a sad kind of melancholy. Can you be melancholic but not sad? Hmmm... I think so. To me it's a kind of reflective emotion, and one that allows me to process what has happened in the previous year, and then simultaneously wave it goodbye and let it go.

My birthday always falls around Imbolc, but it's only been this year, that in my reflection I have come to realise that I have always felt the presence of this occasion without really knowing why. Imbolc is the first festival of spring on the Pagan Wheel of the Year and is celebrated to welcome the first buds of life that come with spring and the dwindling winter cold. It's a time of beginnings, and a time to plan carefully what the coming year might have in store for you. Instinctively this is something that I have always done, and it is empowering to know that I have been subconsciously in touch with this celebration all along.

This birthday Imbolc of mine was particularly sacred. I spent twenty fours alone. Some of the time I just spent looking and thinking. It might sound boring to some, but there isn't a lot of time left during a normal week, for me to just 'be'. I also did some intuitive tarot readings for myself. They were particularly interesting and confirmed exactly what my contemplating had brought forth. I also wrote. I did a lot of that actually, and I wrote 'my' story. Eight pages of it! Writing is always cathartic for me, but this story allowed me to purge myself of so many emotions and thoughts. It's not a story I wish to share with anyone though, and tonight under the moon, I will burn each of those pages. There's a lot of finality that comes with burning, and I hope that my own little Imbolc ritual will help me to welcome in what ever it is that I am go on with this year.


Imbolc literally means 'in the belly', and that is exactly where I feel I have been over the last few days. I've been in the belly of the Great Mother, up in the most majestic of rainforests, and I've contemplated my birth, and my emergence from the belly of my own mother. Mostly though, I feel I've been in my own belly. I've danced with my soul and now I'm ready.