Today we had our family Brigid’s Day celebration. Our baby turned three months old on the 30th and so we also had a little three-month birthday ceremony in the woods in which we touched his feet to the earth for the first time.
Here are some pictures from the day (click for captions). We painted prayer flags (based on the “seeking” prompt from an earlier day’s sacred pause email) and then took them down to the woods to tie to the oak. We drummed and sang as the sky spit some freezing rain and a few snowflakes. We wrapped the baby in the silk painted “welcome” banner that we painted for him during the summer. I offered him a blessing and we touched his feet to the rock, to the leaf-strewn Earth, and to a tree. Then we hurried through the cold back to the house where we were cooking “hobo dinners” in the barbecue (I swooped him by the fire briefly to bless him with the flame also, but it was too cold to stay out longer). Inside, we made bread snakes and then enjoyed our dinners. We then had a Brigid/Imbolc ritual with a body blessing, house blessing, and “three blessings of Brigid.” We ate our traditional “fire and ice” trifle and then had a family drum circle! We also experimented with wax divination (dripping wax into water and reading the result). I had hoped to also do metal stamping on copper disks and art journaling, but we ran out of time.
As I’ve mentioned, ritual with kids is a challenge, but I think it is worth it. In case you think I am merrily sitting in the woods with my drum and then effortlessly priestessing my delightful family in harmonious ritual, know that my daughter mixed the sacred salt and sacred water from the body blessing into a paste and spread it all over the kitchen floor. The baby cried when a cold gust of wind caught his face suddenly. The boys made fart jokes at dinner. And, both my husband and I ended up briefly yelling at the kids about various frustrations. (Like doing one-handed cartwheels on the couch and almost kicking over candles, suddenly grabbing iphones and starting to play games, the list goes on!) It is always more wild and discordant and frustrating and stressful than I envision when I’m happily typing up my plans! Guess what? I do it anyway. Therein lies the mamapriestess lesson for me.
Oh! And, today I finished the final two assignments in my final class at OSC. I am now ABD (all but dissertation). I can hardly believe it! I’ve been working on this degree for a long time and I actually expected it to take me several more months from now to finish my final classes. Finishing my dissertation project is one of my biggest goals for the year (I have several others too). Today, I was reminded in multiple ways that I did just have a baby three months ago. It is okay to pace myself and to take my time. So close though! So close.
I have all the time I need.
(right? I made this one of my mottoes for the year in my Shining Year workbook…)
