Imbolc In My House
January 9, 2012 in Family Crafting
As many of us know most of our Pagan Sabbats are modern interpretation of ancient Pagan traditions. And that Christianity co-opted most of these holidays for their own. So celebrating many of the Sabbats come easy to us, especially if we come from a Christian background. Imbolc is one of the exceptions, and as such I have always have found this Sabbat hard to celebrate. But with the decision to raise my daughter Pagan, I had to figure it out pretty quick. So here is how we celebrate Imbolc in our household.
Imbolc is known as the return of the light, because the days are getting longer even if they are getting colder. At least in some places they are. The Sun King is on his quest to find the cure for the sleeping Maiden (the Earth Goddess slumbering beneath the cloak of Winter) and we are in a waiting period between Yule and Ostara. So with this in mind we decorate our house with the few flowers that can bloom at this point in the year, Daffodils, Daisies and Snowdrops.
We make corn dollies to represent the Goddess through the year. These we bury at Mabon to symbolize her journey into the Underworld. We also are planning this year for the first time to make sand candles from the scraps of candles left over from the year before.
But our plans for this Sabbat is just that, making plans. Like in our garden it is to early to plant anything but not to early to plan our plants and to till the soil, preparing for the coming Spring. The same can be said for our life, any goals we have usually take planning and preparation. This is the time to do this.
Hope you all have a great month and a blessed Imbolc and check back later for how our Imbolc went.
Blessed Be!
This post was written by
Patrick is a Pagan father of two wonderful daughters, hence why he is PaganDad. He runs the blog PaganDad and moderates the blogs The Pagan Household as well as the Pagan Village, the go to place for Pagan families to network on the web.
Nice thoughts on it. I love Imbolc. Our coven uses it as a time to get my kitchen messy and make lots of candles for the upcoming year.
Thanks for chiming in. Hope you have a Blessed Imbolc!
We are making corn dollies too! Very excited to start the tradition with my girls!
In my house. We make snowflakes in paper and decorate a table. We put snow in a bowl and light a lot of candles. The candles represent the sun and the snow melts. It’s a ritual that we do to celebrate the awakening of the earth and that spring is coming. Doing it this way makes our 9year old understand what it is all about
I always say as the United States New Year passes so does my baking season and from that point on my kitchen is always an utter mess from making candles. This is the time of year I make all different types of candles and include my children (though at 11 and 7 I have not talked too much about it as my husband and I both agreed early on that our children were allowed to find whatever path they want. Sometimes I talk about my own beliefs and other times they go to whatever church their friends go to). My favorate thing to do is to share out my candles though to help celebrate the return of the sun and because of what they are no matter what my friends’ faiths are I’ve never met someone that turns down a molded or hand dipped candle. Candles have such a broad role in religions and even if it doesn’t I live in tornado alley so having some candles around for when the power goes is always a good thing.