Imbolc

 

I've long thought of this day as my private New Year's. It has always signified new beginnings for me.

Many years ago, the flu I thought I had was confirmed to be pregnancy. It seemed most fitting. When I raised Texas longhorn cattle and Appaloosa horses this day was an assessment - enough hay? enough pasture? who is pregnant? when due?

I've forgotten so much about pregnancies.

Now this day signifies other things.

My ex left me a few days after this date 14 years ago - I had to think of how to go on from the farm, the livestock, the endurance riding (my body couldn't maintain all of that anyway - the divorce was a blessing in disguise).

I met M a few weeks from this date 13 years ago. There was the new beginning I never expected!

I ordered my first saxony spinning wheelabout this time a decade ago - with the intent of spinning finer wools.

Big changes in my life...

 

Marge Piercy in her book What Are Big Girls Made Of? wrote this poem:

All Lovers Have Secret Names

 The day I forget to write

the day I forget to feed the cats

the day I forget to love you

the day I forget your name

and then my own.

 

Until then I will not cease

this spinning pattern: part weave

of skeins of soft wool to keep

us warm, to clothe our too open

flesh, to decorate us --

 

and part dance, through the woods

where roots trip me, a dance

through meadows of rabbit holes

and old ribs of plowing hidden

uner thick grass.

 

Until then I will whirl

through my ragged days.

Like a spindle, like a dreydl

I will turn in the center

of my intricate weave

 

spelling your name in my dance

in my weaving, in my work,

your hidden name which

is simply, finally,

love.

 

 

Comments

[PJ]

deep....love this post...it gives me hope...love the link!

[Anne]

I like it much better than the traditional New Year's Day - which seems kind of overhyped sometimes.