Though beer has become a purely recreational drink over the last century and a half, as changes in food production, water management, and attitudes towards alcohol have phased it out of daily life, for many of our ancestors it was essential – as sacred as fire, bread, and the other building blocks of civilised life.
https://wildhunt.org/2025/02/in-praise-of-beer-the-source-of-civilisation.html
I had a bunch of short videos over the last few weeks- showing some of our #winter #weather- strong #wind, trees down #frost #snow etc + the Cross-quarter Day #Meteņi #Imbolc #WaitingForSpring
I pulled it all together in a blog post with videos, more pics and blabber.
#Alberta #Canada I'll post all the YouTube and Spectra links + extra photos in this thread 
#nature #GoOutsideForMe
https://cohanmagazine.blogspot.com/2025/02/winter-beauty-wind-snow-fallen-trees.html
Less than a week after Imbolc, and it's already starting to feel like Springtime here in Glasgow. This is today at my local crocus patch where they're rapidly emerging into bloom.
Calling all those who signed up for The Wheel of the Year - Imbolc Yarn Box, it's time for the big reveal!
Introducing 'Imbolc', a 100g skein of hand dyed 100% British Bluefaced Leicester 4 ply high twist sock yarn. There are two skeins in each box.
Included in the box is a snowdrop notebook, ginger and honey soap, ginger root tea, a Wendy Andrews Imbolc card and a bag of wooden flower buttons.
Happy knitting!
https://starhope.substack.com/p/imbolc
#Imbolc
..."Imbolg (im-bolk), arriving not on the 1st of February, but when our light bearer, Lugh (Sol) our star, reaches the middle of An tUiscedóir (tisk-a-door) (Aquarius), is that time in the North when the cold damp and frozen ground began to loosen, and new life stirred beneath the surface. It is neither the stillness of winter nor the abundance of spring, but a point of transition where change was inevitable yet still unseen.
Central to Imbolc is Brigid, ."...
For our Imbolc celebration last night, we did a small family ritual to 'call back the light,' which is something we've done for the past few years now.
The flame is passed around the circle clockwise from one candle to the next, 13 in total, one for each moon of the year.
Then, we write goals on slips of paper that will bring more joy into our lives during the long wait until spring, and burn them in the cauldron.
My Imbolc season goal: "I will replace time doomscrolling with singing to trees."
Lit a fire for belated #Imbolc and am following @MsHearthWitch ’s lead and baking while it snows. Just some chocolate mochi cake mix, but still!
(Resisting the urge to eat the leftover batter cause H5N1 is a bummer but I will attempt patience.)
Also having a cuppa Cinnamon Toast Crunch inspired tea which is keeping warm above the fire.
Breath condenses as mist rises from the meadow. Am I breathing the landscape, or is it breathing me? Meanwhile, the sky is falling in love with the crescent moon, blushes, and then goes up in flames.
#KBFPhotography #MobilePhonePhotography #Photograpjy
#KBFWotY #Spring #February #Imbolc
#UrbanNature
#Imbolc is not a thing outside of Celtic traditions. This is a liminal time in the Wheel of the Year: new life is struggling against #chaos. During #Carnival , we let the demons from the dying year loose one last time. We channel them through masks. At the end of the Carnival, we sentence them to death by fire.
From their ashes, new life will be born again.
"Jean-Claude Schmitt shows that medieval idioms used several words to designate the “mask,” each one of them meaning both the object itself and the “supernatural powers” that were associated to the ritual and the artistic use of masks: larva, persona, masca in medieval Latin, or, in vulgar languages, “faulx visage,” “fol visage,” “sot visage” in French, or visor/ vizor in English. (...)
But in Southern France and maybe in Italy, the word had a meaning that is capital for our study: “witch.”
|The #Mask of the #Witch: from #Ritual to Carnival and Theatre|
I didn't realize it was Imbolc until the day had already begun to wane, but it seems that Imbolc found me instead. Put cinnamon in my dairy yogurt. Attended a yoga class to focus on my well-being. Drove down to the river to see the ice. Lit a candle while I painted. Ate good mac'n'cheese. Cleaned the kitchen. Reassessed my 2025 creative goals. Rested, restored, and savored the growing light.
Joined! Happy Imbolc, have a wacky reimagining of the pagan goddess Brigid (the poetry one) 
#inkdrawing #irishartists #imbolc #mythology
midway between
snow fall and snowdrops
welcoming imbolc
Happy #Imbolc! We’ve survived the darkest days of the year and are halfway between the winter solstice and the vernal equinox.
Happy Imbolc!
A small light in dark times. Hope is a flickering thing. Maybe kindle a roaring, furious, antifacist fire with it.
Done well, such a celebration could become a major attraction for both locals and tourists, and bring people into the city at an otherwise rather slow time of year. I'll admit I have no idea how to make such a thing happen, or where the money would come from to pay for it, but what do people think? Would you support the idea of Glasgow having an annual festival of architecture and light to mark Imbolc and the start of Spring?
