Imbolc

Had in interesting Imbolc today. Well, a short one, anyway. Had to take Jon's father to a podiatry appointment this morning. Which - wait for it - was deemed by him a "waste of time". And indeed, **Emily's** time WAS wasted, as she only got half a day's festival. Still, she enjoyed what time we did have.

We decorated the tree with salt dough snakes, wiggly snakes and kidney bean and bead chains. Snakes are sacred to Imbolc as a sign of rebirth. We talked about how the seeds are beginning to grow now and about how the days are lengthening and the promise of spring is everywhere. We gathered lots of different twigs from the garden to put in water to sprout. We did that last year too, with great results. Emily also decorated her god and goddess figures; the goddess in fire colours to represent the growing strength of the sun, the god in green to represent the new life all around us, both with a crown of candles. Finally, Emily wrote down some of her goals for the year ahead and we planted the pieces of paper, together with lots of seeds, in little pots to go on the altar. Each one has a candle in it too, so as we watch the candles burning we can be reminded of the light coming back into the world and the fire energy bringing initiative and enthusiasm to our goals for the year.



We would have done more, had we had time. Rolls eyes. Emily's old enough now to get rather narked at being constantly last on the list when it comes to Grandad and his priorities. I can't say I blame her.

**Changed my mind about making the rest of this post public**