Half Way 'Til Spring

I was hoping to do a post on the lore behind Imbolc, but I guess that will have to wait til next year. Instead I have been really busy the last little while painting, cleaning the house, and do all sorts of other things in preparation for and in celebration of Imbolc.

While across the pond the first stirrings of Spring must be happening by now, we are only half way through the deep freeze of our Northern Ontario Winter.But according to a few groundhogs, including Shubenacadie Sam and Wiarton Willie, it might just come early this year. If you ask me, it can't come soon enough!

I painted my kitchen, which was a pain in the arse, but the new colour is luverly, methinks.

I also cleaned the house from to to bottom. I made a "spiritual cleaning tea" with a mix of plant pretties that have excellent magical cleaning and protective properties. Below is the recipe:

Sweet woodruff, rowan berries, birch bark {fallen!}, juniper berries, cedar, lemon balm, peppermint, sweetfern, thyme, dandelion root, witch hazel, st john's wort, and sage. Boil water and pour over ingredients in a glass jar. Let it steep for a few hours. Drain liquid through cheese cloth {and I put the plant stuff in the compost after}. Mix tea in with cider vinegar and keep in a clean jar. It can be refrigerated for about 3 months no problem. To use mix with 3 parts water in a spray bottle.

On the eve of Imbolc I got our altar set up and ready for our ritual the next day. Before going to bed I left some colcannon and whiskey outside as an offering and a piece of ribbon in for Brigid to bless.

I got up in the hours before dawn {best cure for too much whiskey the night before: strong coffee and a cold shower!} to get everything else ready for the day. I baked bairín breac to be used as offerings with a little left over for us to nom. I also scored some local homemade Amish butter for the same purpose, and of course the obligatory whiskey and honey too.

I have been promising a couple of our blog readers for some altar peektures for a while now, and looky, I am finally living up to that promise. ;)

{Deities' altar}

{Brigid's altar, which is temporary} {Ancestral altar}

I did the house blessing ritual that I usually do on the cross quarter days and I also made a new rowan and red thread charm. This one is just a very simple one of bunched leaves and berries and I hung it over the house door way.

Oh, I suppose I should mention that this bunch was found on the ground by a tree that is in one of the places I frequent for wildcrafting. It is traditionally bad form {and bad luck!} to cut a rowan outside of the "two days of Bealtaine", which I am in agreement with Seren of Tairis who thinks that this is between the new date of Bealtaine {May 1st} and the old {probably May 5th}. As she points out as well, there seems to be no lore against picking the berries outside of this time.

Sláinte!

Laurel