Family

Daughter Kate, me, son Jonathon with my parents.

We are in the depths of winter, even though it is very mild today. Winter seems to be with us most years, I wish it wouldn’t keep happening. It’s not those sparkling bright days with the sunbeams playing on the light frost, or those times before a roaring fire cuddling each other while sipping hot tea and stuffing buttered crumpets that are objectionable but the dreary endless days with low light levels that just go on and on.

The only consolation I can find is that Spring follows Winter and I can already visualise my delight at seeing brand new leaves coating the trees. Hope can spring eternal. Imbolc, known to Christians as Candlemas, will soon be here, bringing the light to our lives. It's a time to light a candle in every room of your home, just for a short time, to mark the start of the new season. Winter will be going, Spring is nearly here.

The winter means family, probably because you spend more time together during those long cold months. The nuclear family, the mother, father and the children that are born to them and the extended family, of uncles, aunts, grandparents, cousins, nephews, nieces all play a part in the wider functioning and the wider purpose of the family system.

The family unit should have influence in the development of self, of shaping and forming you into a human being, an adult, who can live within the particular society and culture to which you have been born. This is the vital task for the family unit and it is the relationships within the family that decide how the child will be moulded. It would be marvellous if the family unit could always be relied upon to produce happy and stable adults. That is not always the case, although history seems to have determined that this nuclear unit is the best option available.

The needs of parents and of children work together to form a new person, hopefully in healthy and productive ways so that this new personality grows up and is able to fulfil their potential. Unfortunately that’s not always the case, and in this photograph the marvellous personality that welded this nuclear group together is missing (she was standing behind the camera).

Life is marvellous, allowing us to experience joy and laughter and freedom of spirit. It is that search for freedom that lies at the heart of human experience, to understand self.

Here's more detail about Imbolc - for those that are interested:
As we move towards February Brigid the Celtic goddess has her festival, known as Imbolc (Irish: I mbolg, in the belly) Oimelc (the lactation of ewes). That’s the substance of Imbolc, the end of winter, as the flow of milk heralds the return of the life-giving forces of spring.

In Britain February is the harshest month of the year. In Scotland this period was called Faoilleach, the Wolf-month or ’marbh mhiòs, the Dead-month. Signs of the end of winter begin to appear. Lambs are born and the grass begins to grow, the first spring bulbs flower.

The holiday is a festival of light, reflecting the lengthening of the day and the hope of spring. In many laces all the lamps of the house are lit for a few minutes on Imbolc. Traces of the festival of the growing light can even be traced to modern America in the Groundhog Day custom on February 2. If the groundhog sees his shadow on this morning, it means there will be six more weeks of winter. An old couplet goes: If Candlemas Day is bright and clear, there'll be two winters in the year.

The old woman of winter, the Cailleach, is about to be reborn as Bride, the young maiden of Spring. Young girl she may appear but she has the power of a deity. Brigid is the ‘Exalted One’ known throughout Europe with similar names, possibly coming from Vedic Sanskrit, where brihati means divine.

In Ireland she is the daughter of the Daghda of the Tuatha de Danaan. A woman of wisdom, the source of oracles. She has two sisters: Brigid the Physician and Brigid the Smith, all aspects of the one goddess of poetry, healing, and metal working. A goddess of dying, weaving, brewing she is the provider of plenty bringing natural bounties for the good of people. We have a book about the Daughter Dedannan

She has two oxen, Fea and Feimhean, whose memories are still locked to the landscape of County Carlow and Tipperary. She is the guardian of Torc Triath, king of the wild boar, who named Treithirne, in West Tipperary. These three totem animals raise a warning cry if Ireland is in danger.

Bride put her finger in the river
On the Feast Day of Bride
And away went the hatching mother of the cold.
— Carmina Gadelica

From Brighid's feastday onwards the day gets longer and the night shorter, as the effects of the winter solstice lessen. The mystical truth was that Brigid brought back the light. On the eve of Là Fhéill Bhrìghde (St.Brigid’s Day), the Old Woman of Winter, the Cailleach, journeys to the magical isle in whose woods lies the miraculous Well of Youth. At the first glimmer of dawn, she drinks the water that bubbles in a crevice of a rock, and is transformed into Bride, the fair maid whose white wand turns the bare earth green again.

There are other versions of this story, and today we must adapt these to make our own celebrations. Like so many pagan festivals and traditions the Christians took up these legends, and created Candlemas and Saint Brigid.