NMR ISSUE 29

An Urban Wicca
Astrological Forecast 29
Editorial 29
Flamingo, Centipede & Falcon
Gratitude
Letters 29
Mari
Media Manipulation
Outing Children
Spirit of the Night
The Goddess of Writing Speaks
The Magical Flute
The Magickal Diary
The Split Between Spirit and Nature

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An Urban Wicca: Imbolc

By Alex Miller-Mignone

February 2, Imbolc, or Candlemas, celebrates the midpoint of the Winter season. In the Northern Hemisphere this is often a period of bitter cold, despite which glimmers of the warmer seasons to come can be sensed. In many traditions this was a period which focused strongly on light and its temporal referent, fire.

In Old England, the Catholic saying goes something like this: If Candlemas be fair and bright, winter will have another flight. Compare this to the Ground-hog Day tradition in the German Protestant sects, also celebrated this day, which states that if the ground hog emerges and sees his shadow (therefore if it is bright and sunny), there will be six more weeks of winter. Actually, ground hog or no, there are still six weeks until the Vernal Equinox ushers in the first day of Spring.

Both these gems of Christian folklore probably have their roots in the original Roman Februa, a purification festival that revolved around the extinguishing and relighting of the hearth fire. In any case the metaphor relates to the Sun's passage, which now, at the Aquarius Cross Quarter, shows the days gradually lengthening.

Snowdrops and chionodoxa are often in bloom now in temperate zones or sheltered city gardens, and crocus or even daffodils have begun to poke their tips out of the snow-clad earth.

Wicca, being a nature religion, is often very centered on the interplay between the masculine and feminine energies. Sometimes this is rather graphically depicted as the physical sexual union of male and female. Perhaps at no season is this more apparent than at Imbolc, also known as Bride's Bed, a fertility festival that is one of the earliest harbingers of spring.

Maybe it's a reaction to my Fundamentalist background, so focused on the letter of the law and a literal interpretation of God's Word; maybe it's that, as a gay Wiccan, male/female symbology sometimes leaves me feeling a little left out; but I have never viewed Wicca in such literal terms. I may call upon Artemis or Apollo, Hecate or Dionysos, but I never really envision them as real, as objectively existing somewhere out there in the physical Universe.

Rather, I think of them as anthropomorphisms, convenient human-sized labels for the broad plethora of energies that we as humans encounter in this Universe, both within and without ourselves. I see Persephone, for example, as a label for that regenerative, transformative power which can be sensed in our innermost being and in the world around us. My evocation of that name is an attempt to awaken that power within me, and bring it into balance and accord with the portion of that power which is outside of me, so that I may find my place in the greater scheme of things, and align with it for the higher good of all.

At other times of the year, I can more easily accept that these references to the union of male and female are perfectly applicable to a union of those energies within each individual; but at Bride's Bed, the traditional symbology is overwhelmingly heterosexual.

So, we've opted to celebrate the season with a story of male and female interaction which is about the closest you'll get to overt gay imagery in the Pagan tradition. In case you haven't guessed, this is the story of Attis and Kybele, one of several myths of the Goddess and Her Son-Consort. In one popular version of the myth, Kybele is so consumed with love for Her son Attis that She asks Him to swear eternal loyalty to Her. Attis, to show His good faith, castrates Himself and presents His severed genitals to His mother.

OK, it's still not a very positive gay image, but you work with what you've got. Again, choosing to view myth as poetic imagery instead of physical fact, we can see the story of Attis and Kybele as a metaphor for the ways in which we can become so enmeshed in our loyalties to others on the earth plane that we cut ourselves off from our (pro-) creative spiritual sources.

Attis' colors are red and white, a convenient tie-in with that other festival of often-chaste love, St. Valentine's Day, just two weeks away. And so, as the Yule greenery which has decorated the house since Winter Solstice comes down the night before Imbolc, to be strewn over the Needfire, we add art-tissue hearts to hang alongside the still appropriate winter snowflakes, their red and white figures reminding us of Attis' sacrifice. Crepe paper streamers of the same colors are hung above the dining table, with a large black crepe bow added to pay homage to the Triple Goddess (whose colors are red, white and black); and the golden Sun plaque is again hung in the place of honor, where it will remain for six months, until replaced by the corn wheel at Lammas.

Seafood has become our food of choice for celebrating this Sabbat, and we often begin this feast with a hearty New England clam chowder, thick with potatoes, and, if we are lucky, sprinkled with the first tips of our own chives just coming through their winter mantle of fallen leaves and evergreen branches in the herb garden. The entree may be a pasta dish with scallops or shrimp in a pale pink blush sauce, created by adding a few tablespoons of tomato paste to a classic béchamel. The interplay of pink/red and white pays homage to the colors of the day. Fresh breads warm from the oven and perhaps a lightly sautéed dish of asparagus and lemon (to remind us of Spring's approach), round out the meal, which is topped off with a rich raspberry cheesecake (its red and white swirls yet another token to Attis).

As February wanes we mark our calendars for the Pisces new moon, when we will start our indoor seeds; the Vernal Equinox is just around the corner, and we like to get a jump on spring! But there is plenty of time now, as the Sun climbs slowly higher, to sit back in a padded chair with a good book at your elbow and a cat in your lap, looking out now and again at the still snowy patches in the shaded areas of the garden, and remember winters gone by.