Bursting back to life — and celebrating St Brigid's Day
Badger cubs, bluebells, and robin chicks: in February, badgers spring clean their homestead — called a ‘sett’ — after waking from hibernation. They are one of the first animals each spring to have their young
Today is Lá Fhéile Bríde — and next Monday, February 6, is Ireland's first ever St Brigid's bank holiday (and the country's first bank holiday named after a woman).
St Brigid’s feast Day on February 1 is a traditional marker of the beginning of spring. St Brigid was a Christian saint, noted for her dedication to animals, now recognised as a patron saint of Ireland, along with St Patrick and St Columba.
St Brigid’s Day, however, has been celebrated in Ireland long before the arrival of Christianity.
In pre-Christian Ireland, time was considered cyclical, as opposed to linear. Summer and winter solstices were significant as the longest and shortest days of the year, way markers of the earth's repeating seasonal cycles, where the position of the sun on the horizon could reliably predict the change of seasons.
Chambered cairns and stone monuments were aligned with the rising or setting sun on these solstice days, as well as on the spring and autumn equinox when day and night are equal.
The midpoint between each equinox and solstice were also calculated according to the measurement of the earth's position in relation to the sun, marked by ‘cross quarter days’: Imbolc, Bealtaine, Lughnasa, and Samhain. These were the four principal ritual festivals in the pre-Christian calendar, each representing the transition from one season to the next.
St Brigid’s Day falls on Imbolc, the midpoint between the astronomical winter solstice and the astronomical spring equinox, one of the ‘cross quarter days’. Imbolc derives from the old Irish i mbolg meaning ‘in the belly’.
It marks the end of the earth’s winter sleep, the turning point at which trees and plants are awakening from dormancy. It is a time that heralds in the transformation from potential to actual, when the natural world is preparing to burst back to life.
It seems likely that St Brigid’s Day is a Christian re-interpretation of Imbolc. St Brigid herself may also be a Christian adaptation of an ancient pagan fertility goddess. During the Neolithic period, which in Ireland occurred from 4,000 to 2,500 BC, people considered the earth to be female.
In their belief system, the interaction between the earth and sun resulted in fertility, growth and the bounty of the year to come. Rituals were performed to show respect for the Earth goddess, to maintain harmony between human life, the natural world and the celestial sphere. These rituals were believed to determine the success of each new agricultural year.
St Brigid was reputed to have had a deep affinity with the natural world, perhaps echoing the earlier beliefs about the goddess who was responsible for bringing plants and animals back to life each spring and ensuring the health of those creatures soon to be born.
The extent to which our ancient ancestors revered the interactions between earth and sun is entirely logical. It is, after all, the increasing quantity of photons of light shooting out from the sun at the start of spring each year, coupled with the fertility of the ground beneath, that fuels the chemical processes within plant cells which in turn lead to an eruption of fertility and growth in the months to come.
Each green leaf is designed and engineered specifically to capture photons of light from the sun. When these energetic photons interact with electrons inside each molecule of green chlorophyll, water, and carbon dioxide are dismantled so that plants can recombine them to produce the carbohydrates they need to grow. This process is the basis of every food chain on earth, as well as the source of all the oxygen we breathe. The cross-quarter day that is Imbolc, or St Brigid’s Day, marks the point in the annual cycle of nature when this miraculous chain of events begins again in earnest.
And as the growing strength of spring sunshine begins to warm the soil, soils begin to warm and a multitude of microbes and tiny organisms get going. These soil biota are chomping through the detritus of last year’s fallen leaves and preparing the ground for a new season of growth. Plant roots will soon begin to probe through spring soil for nutrients, establishing a steady footing for the year ahead.
Deciduous trees have been dormant through the winter too. As February unfolds they will be measuring the span of daylight hours and counting up the number of milder days as their way of knowing when it the seasonal shift will provide them with the right conditions to swell their buds and grow a new canopy of leaves. The real action won’t begin until after the spring equinox on March 20.
Over the coming weeks, the lengthening days prompt some flowers to grow, especially spring bulbs. Bulbs are a special adaptation of woodland plants such as wild garlic and bluebells, allowing them a head start in spring, before the tree canopy casts dappled green shade across the woodland floor. Beginning now, they produce strong green leaves from overwintering bulbs, so that they can produce flowers already in March and April, long before most plants begin to flower. These early starters provide fresh fodder for animals who need sustenance for nursing their young in the weeks ahead.
In February, badgers spring clean their homestead — called a ‘sett’ — after waking from hibernation. They are one of the first animals each spring to have their young, clearing out a nursery chamber in the sett to re-line it with fresh bedding of dry ferns, grasses, and leaves.
Robins, blackbirds, wrens, and thrushes are all preparing for another season of procreation. Resident birds such as these who have managed to survive the winter are already beginning to sing each morning, eagerly announcing their place in the world, claiming their territory, and seeking a mate.
St Brigid's Day has enormous value for us today, reminding us of our dependence on the balance between the sun and the earth and the natural cycles which make life possible.
