Celebrating Brigid

"Ritual can help you face together what's too hard to face alone."

Many years ago, in a year not so different from this one (the year Ronald Reagan was first elected), may of us in our then-seedling Reclaiming community found ourselves in a state of political despair. Being Witches, we conceived the radical notion of offering a public ritual to transform despair into some other more positive state.

With Reagan's inauguration planned for January 20, we chose the festival of Brigid on February 1 as the time for our ritual. Brigid, Brigit, Bridghe, are all names for the ancient Irish Goddess of fire and water, the holy well and the sacred flame. Brigid is the Goddess of the forge, of the fire of inspiration that is poetry, and of healing. She seemed a fitting power to address the prospect of our country being led by someone who believed nuclear war was winnable.

On the eve of Brigid, also called Imbolc, we gathered about a hundred people in a large, open room in the college I was then attending. We grounded, cast a circle, called directions, and sang a chant to the goddess Brigid. Then we asked people to break into small circles. Each circle passed a bowl of salt water counterclockwise, and people named their feelings of powerlessness. We raised energy to transform the water, and passed the bowls back, sunwise this time, as people shared where they felt power in their lives.

"I feel power dancing, birthing, when I make art, when I speak a difficult truth to my partner." Listening to the voices, my own thinking about power crystallized into a new understanding that more than one kind of power exists. Power over, or domination, is limited: If I have power over you, you don't have power over me. I can control your resources or options and punish you if you do wrong. But the kind of power I heard in that second round was power-from-within, creative power, akin to what we call spirit. And that kind of power is unlimited. Indeed, if I find power in speaking my truth to you, it may awaken your power to speak truth to me, and others.

We darkened the room except for a cauldron in the center. As our fire blazed up, we drummed, and people took candles, came forward, and lit them from the cauldron while making pledges to Brigid. Light after light was kindled, and we danced with our candles like stars wheeling and spiraling in the night.

The ritual worked in the way magic works: It brought opportunities to take actions that would transform our despair. Later that year, a blockade was called at the Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Plant, built on an earthquake fault in central California. Many of us participated, offering rituals in the camp, on the blockade itself, and eventually even in jail. By the next year's Brigid feast day, which fell on the eve of a blockade at the Livermore Nuclear Weapons Lab, our ritual was transformed into one of empowerment.

Continued on page 2: »