Inspired Imbolc | A Cross Quarter Festival Ritual Retreat
Friday, January 31, 2025
12:00-2:00pm PST
virtual retreat offered via Zoom
“May Brigid bless the house wherein you dwell
Bless every fireside every wall and door
Bless every heart that beats beneath its roof
Bless every hand that toils to bring it joy
Bless every foot that walks its portals through
May Brigid bless the house that shelters you.”
Connect with the rhythm of the seasons
and the calendar of the Earth that is on-going
within you and throughout the world with
Inspired Imbolc: A Cross Quarter Festival Ritual Retreat
Imbolc, observed on the first of February, marks the midpoint between Yule (Winter Solstice) and Ostara (Spring Equinox) in the Celtic Wheel of the Year. This sacred festival, also known as Feile Brighde, celebrates the first stirrings of spring as the earth begins to awaken from winter’s slumber. The word "Imbolc," meaning "in the belly," reflects the season’s promise of renewal, as the land, pregnant with potential, prepares to bring forth new life.
Traditionally aligned with the lambing season, Imbolc signifies the quickening of life—when ewes’ milk begins to flow and the first signs of spring emerge. This is a time of hope and preparation, as the world slowly reawakens, and the seeds of potential within us start to take shape.
Imbolc is also a fire festival dedicated to Brigid, the Celtic Goddess of healing, poetry, and smithcraft. Revered as a bringer of fertility, Brigid is honored as both a pagan Goddess and a Christian saint, embodying the nurturing and creative forces of life.
As we celebrate Imbolc, we are invited to reflect on what we are birthing this spring—what new ideas, intentions, and hopes are forming within us? This is a time to connect with the energies of renewal and creativity, honoring the light that is beginning to return.
This virtual, live mini-retreat will include:
Officiated ritual and blessings;
An overview and teaching on the significance of Imbolc and of Brigid, goddess from Celtic mythology, Christian saint, and a symbol of feminine power;
Live instruction for making your own Brigid’s Cross;
Guided personal reflection time;
Facilitated space to hear from and connect with one another;
Support to create your own personal ceremony to deepen into the sacramentality of this festival day.
Our time together will be a potent set-apart time, a time dedicated to the seasonal energies that are moving within and throughout us, in our own inner-nature, as well as throughout the wild world. Inspired Imbolc is a time for you to reflect on the spring-ing energies within you, and to engage with the symbols of Brigid as aids to support you as you cross the various thresholds of your own life.
Retreat Leader: Mary DeJong will guide and facilitate the Inspired Imbolc Mini-Retreat. She is a spiritual ecologist, eco-theologian, urban naturalist, and practitioner and guide of place-based pilgrimage. She specializes in the spiritual companionship of “rewilding.” Mary facilitates retreats and pilgrimages in the Pacific Northwest and in Iona, Scotland that strengthen the unique and mystical interconnection of participants, the sacred, and the natural world. She has studied and practiced within the Celtic Christian spiritual tradition, her own maternal line heritage, for over twenty years, and is influenced by the lives of Celtic saints, the post-Heroic Journey, and the emerging field of eco-psychology, eco-mythology, and, Christian animism.
A ceremonialist and ritualist, Mary is masterful at creating temenos circles, sacred clearings where one can expect to be met by enchantment and holy mystery. She has facilitated online retreats and webinars on subjects related to sacred rewilding, eco spirituality, eco theology, and more. She has also led many Brigid Cross workshops and delights in bringing people into the round of the Wheel of the Year.
To Register: Click on the provided registration links on this page. No previous engagement with retreat content required. New practitioners and curious seekers welcome! Registered participants will receive a preparation list of what to bring to this mini-retreat to ensure they have the proper materials to create their own Brigid’s Cross, as well as to foster their own sacred retreat space within their homes to enjoy this time personally within our virtual gathering.
The program will be recorded for those who register and cannot attend. ZOOM links are sent two days prior to the program to paid registrants.
