Sitting with the Mothers: Getting to Know the Goddess Brigid
Of Water & Flame: Guidance through the Alchemy of Grief
An audio recording is included as an invitation to experience the sacredness held within the voice (and tradition) of oral storytelling. If it resonates, please enjoy at your leisure.
Mo ghrá go léir / All my love,
Erica
Entry #4: Told in Two Parts
Within this entry, Part 1 shares the sacred intention of this new series titled Sitting with the Mothers.
Part 2, shares some of my journey and personal reflections (thus far) in getting to know the Goddess Brigid.
So, without further ado, let’s take a journey together…
PART 1: The Sacred Intention of this Evolving Series
Within my life, the presence of the Irish Goddess is real. Even from across the sea, I can feel her embrace around me. I feel her in the gaze of the stars, in the whispers of the wind, and flowing through the rivers of my blood and bones. So, when I came across these words, I felt seen.
The gods and goddesses I know are not archetypes - they are living intelligences that weave through the fabric of reality. The realms these gods and goddesses inhabit - the places some call the Otherworld or the spirit world or the mythic realm - are no less real than the places we call home and are part of the reality we inhabit. They are no more abstract than the depths of the oceans or the tops of high mountains or the surface of the moon. The fact that most people do not see these places with their own eyes does not make them purely imaginary.
, Trouble With Talking About “Gods”While walking my own personal journey of re-membering, my intention with this series is to offer a glimpse into my ever evolving relationships with the divine feminine through The Great Mothers of Irish folklore and mythology.
A couple of years ago, a mentor and I were discussing a concept for a storytelling gathering rooted in our cultural stories. Initially, I recall a heavy pit in my stomach. Murky and grey, it beckoned to swallow me whole with shame, as I thought: I don’t know my cultural stories.
Today, my library grows with Irish books, podcasts, and resources; and I am grateful to be supported by a circle of Irish wisdom keepers.
But, I am no a scholar. And I approach these shares with no air of expertise.
I come to you as an artist. An intuitive. A seer. I come to you with a desire to honour what can be seen and felt with the Otherworldly eye - and for that reality to be know for more than symptoms of a creative imagination.
I believe the spirit of our mythology and folklore is alive and well. The medicine they provide ever changing. Ever evolving. Ever offering.
May these shares be a comfort, an inspiration, an illumination, or simply good company, for your journey.
That is what so many of the old stories are really about: they are elaborate hints leading us to consider that there may be more to existence than our limited, rational, brains would have us believe. So much of mythology is about breaking free from the stranglehold of society and our conditioned mind to embrace wider possibilities.
, Listen to the Land Speak [p.41]PART 2: Getting to Know the Goddess Brigid
The Majesty of Her Presence
To attempt to summarize Brigid in all her greatness feels too vast and too insurmountable a task. So instead, let us start with a few lines that attempt embody what I’ve come to know of her - so far.
Brigid. The Exalted One. Goddess of Poetry - diviner of illuminative imbas. Goddess of Smithcraft - forger of strength in the fires. Goddess of Healing - bean feasa of waters, keening, and herbs. Goddess of Midwives - bean ghlúine of life between worlds. What is a name? But only words themselves. She Who Rises is one truly felt.
About a year and a half ago, I had my first visitation with Brigid. Held within the ceremonial embrace of The Roundhouse (facilitated by Tara Brading), we gathered in celebration of Imbolc and journeyed inwards to connect with Brigid.
I recall the majesty of her presence. Great cloaks of greens and gold. Her essence emanating serene nurturance. She was a soft place to fall.
What surprised me though, was the lion that stood beside her - his regal mane a great crown upon his being.
In our time together, she shared:
A lion doesn’t convince or corral the other animals into believing or seeing his power. The lion simply is. Embodied. Lion allows his presence to speak for itself. His presence speaks to his power.
Initially, Brigid came to me as a reminder of my own power. To not fear my own strength. To feel and find the energetic balance of the gentle masculine and the empowered feminine within my own being. In her offering of a golden heart locket, she reminded to me stay true to my heart. To remain steadfast, open, and courageous.
The heart of a lion beating within my chest.
Midwife Between Worlds
Over time, an important part of my personal journey has been learning how deeply connected I feel to the ways of the Mná Chaointe - the keening women. Tradition shares that the Mná Chaointe sound, wail, and keen (during Irish wakes and funerals) as a sacred facilitators for a soul transitioning from this world to the next.
In The Second Battle of Moytura (quoted below), it is said that upon the death of her son, Brigid’s cries belonged to the first keen of Ireland. As Éire’s initial Bean Chaointe, one might say her grief made way for the soulful work of the Mná Chaointe and the Mná Ghlúine [soul midwives; directly translated as ‘kneeling women’ or ‘women on their hunches’] to follow.
… But he plucked out the spear and cast it at Ruadán, so that it went through him, and he died in the presence of his father in the assembly of the Fomorians. Then Brígh comes and bewailed her son. She shrieked at first, she cried at last. So that then for the first time crying and shrieking were heard in Erin. Now it is that Brígh who invented a whistle for signalling at night.
Of Water & Flame: Brigid’s Guidance through the Alchemy of Grief
Personally, what I find particularly poignant about Brigid is her presence is embodied through both water and fire.
Within the waters of grief, Brigid offers us the invitation to experience the duality of our humanness. Rather than muting ourselves by ‘holding it all together’; the process of grieving invites us to be present in our vulnerability and our strength. To honour our grief is to give ourselves the time and space to sound it. To have the strength and courage to breathe into it. To feel our way through it.
By sounding the voice, through the rivers of our rage or tears, with wails, cries, shrieks, keens, or laments, there is potential for an incredibly powerful and medicinal embodied experience - even if feeling ‘better’ seems unfathomable in the moment. In giving ourselves full permission to give way to the physicality of our grief we honour our body and spirit.
Brigid the Midwife is an incredible support here. Through the waters of our grief she can guide us through the process of loss. By listening. By sounding. By moving. By mourning. As we transition from who we were, to who we will become - because of it.
For me personally, Brigid has (and continues to) midwife me through my own grief [a story for another time]. And through her presence, I have learnt that when we are ready, we can honour our grief, we can honour our journey, through the stories we choose to tell.
There is powerful alchemy here; and these fires are tended to by Brigid the Diviner of Imbas and Brigid the Goddess of Smithcraft.
Alchemy [ al-kuh-mee ]
a form of chemistry and speculative philosophy practiced in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance and concerned principally with discovering methods for transmuting baser metals into gold and with finding a universal solvent and an elixir of life.
any magical power or process of transmuting a common substance, usually of little value, into a substance of great value.
any seemingly magical process of transforming or combining elements into something new:
Dictionary.com, Alchemy Definition
Within the flames, Brigid offers us the invitation to be forged and transformed through fire. Here, she has guided the hands of smithcrafts to create something new from the barest essentials of fire and metal. Through the sparks of imbas, she has guided the spirts of artists and poets.
Brigid guides the hearts and hands of those who seek to create. To transmute. To transform. To rise.
We all have this ability.
As a sacred storyteller and spiritual counsellor, I truly believe that when you bring your voice, when bring your body, when you bring your spirit, into a sacred space where you know you will be heard and held, it invites you to shift how you relate to your past experiences. By allowing your emotions (your embodied stories) to be expressed and witnessed you can begin to shift your relationship to pain, loss, and suffering. Moving from a place of feeling powerless; to one of feeling power-filled.
As matriarch;
As mother;
As midwife;
As healer;
Brigid waits for us here.
Through the waters of grief and the fires of spirit, we can transform what once hurt us into our sovereign freedom. Brigid walks with us here.
Brigid offers us the grace in strength to ride the waves of vulnerability. And then, when we’re ready, she can guide us through the alchemical process of weaving wonders of gold from rivers of tears.
Brigid of Water and Flame
Sometimes its a return to our fires
To alchemize
That we rise us from the ashes
Sometimes its a return to our waters
To rest within the womb and
Birthing space of our grief
Sometimes its a return to the
Restful embrace of the earth herself
The restful embrace of the rich soil of Her
Woven within our blood and bones
Let them hold you
Let them hold you
Let them cradle your burdens
Bones of wisdom
Bones of ancient ones
Bones of stars near and far
Bones of those walking with you
Now and before
Bones, bones
Rattle the echoes of the marrow
Trellised and holding you
Sing to your bones
Sing to the grief
Sing to the alchemy
Let the bones
Hallowed and whole
Within you
Speak
Being of Irish and French ancestry, I continue to be reverently grateful to the traditional spirits and land keepers [past, present, and forth-coming] of the unceded and unsurrendered territory of the Algonquin Anishinabeg Nation; where I was born and currently reside.
Culture, language, and stories run within the rivers and stones of landscapes. Míle buíochas, a thousand thanks, for the opportunity to live, create, share stories, and walk alongside you.
Interested in some of the additional resources that have supported me along my journey of getting to know Goddess Brigid? Click here for a downloadable PDF.
Interested in more information on my 1:1 counselling support or sacred storytelling?
Please visit my website at Into the Circle with Erica O’Reilly.
I would love for Weavings of the Wise & Embodied to be a gathering space to connect in community.
Please feel welcome to contribute or share by leaving a comment below.
What has been your personal experience(s) with Goddess Brigid?
How does she resonate and/or appear to you?
What else would you like to see, hear, or experience while resting within our sacred W&E space?
Until we meet in circle again, may grace and ease continue to find you.
Le dea ghuí / With good wishes,
Erica
go h-álainn!
So grateful for the chance to circle back to these wise words. You speak from the core of yourself and your learning, which always seems to echo across lifetimes, not just a handful of years.