This is from my friend Barbara:
Happy Candlemas!
I know it is also Groundhog Day, but the origin of this holiday is the Pagan holiday of Candlemas, or Imbolc. Candlemas celebrates the coming of longer, warmer days, offering us the first glimmer of spring after a long hard winter. Traditionally, Candlemas is a fire festival, celebrated with torches and candles. Some people light candles and put them in every room, symbolizing the welcome return of the light.
I am inviting you to participate with me in a Candlemas ritual. As you may know, I am in the second year of an eight year art/life collaboration with Linda Montano and ten other artists. My piece is called Eight New/Ancient Sacraments of Pleasure and Change. I create a ritual/sacrament for each of the eight pagan holidays and each year has a different theme. This year's theme is security and the theme of this ritual is finding hope and security in the darkness.
It seems that lately nearly everyone I know is undergoing some intense or prolonged journey into darkness. Everyone's darkness is unique, but some common themes include disease, aging, death, rage at the government, lack of resources or security, loss of relationship, and of course, those long dark nights of the soul when everything you thought you were or wanted to be is suddenly in doubt or up for reevaluation.
Today I invite you today to make peace with that darkness.
Look at it.
Name it.
Let it be there.
Then find a tiny glimmer of light in the midst of that darkness.
Look at it.
Name it.
Let it be there.
Let it grow.
Spring is coming.
If you feel so inclined, please email me a line or two (or more) about your darkness and the glimmer of light you found within it today. (Feel no obligation to do this. You are collaborating with me just by doing the little ritual above.) I will publish some of the submissions on a page in my web site dedicated to this ritual. I will NOT use your name. All contributions will be anonymous.
To see some of the other rituals I have been doing, go to here and click on Eight Years of Living Art. Six of them are documented on the site and the last four will be up by spring.
Posted by jamye at February 2, 2021 06:02 PM