Edinburgh was coated in light snow on that February day, twenty-five years ago, the air a raw biting cold, as I set out to explore the ancient city. The National Gallery of Scotland lured me within, down a narrow staircase to an explosion of beauty, wildly out of proportion to the size of its modest rooms, its small wall space. I hold vague memories of standing in awe before landscapes, clusters of children in a garden, beautiful women, solemn portraits of men whose painted faces gazed back at me.

But one image remains etched in rich detail in my mind. I stopped, breathless, before John Duncan’s 1913 painting called, “St. Bride”. Two angels in gloriously patterned robes, whose miniature tapestries held scenes from Celtic mythology, were carrying a white-robed maiden, her hands joined in prayer. One angel supported her back with his hands, as her golden hair falling in great waves towards the sea. The other angel held her ankles while her knees rested on his shoulders. The angels’ wings were a symphony of colour from scarlet to rose to pale pink, shaded with greens, golds, midnight blues. The angels’ toes just brushed the surface of the sea where a seal swam ahead of them.
I had no idea what I was seeing.

“St. Bride” by John Duncan 1913

That evening, in the home of the friend with whom I was staying, I learned the story of Brigid. Legend tells that she was carried by angels across the seas from Ireland to Bethlehem in Judea, to be present at the birth of Jesus, that she became his foster mother. Other tales add that Brigid served Mary as mid-wife, and that when Herod was seeking the Child to destroy him, Brigid distracted the soldiers by running through the streets, allowing Mary and Joseph to escape with Jesus.

As I am sure you recognize, we are in the realm of story. But as I hope you realize, it is the story that matters, that lures us, inspires us, teaches us what we need to understand about life, about the sacred feminine aspect of the Holy.

Brigid, who was born in Ireland in 457 AD and founded a double monastery in Kildare sometime before her death in 524 AD, left no writings of her own. But there is a cauldron of stories that were carried in the oral tradition until Cogitosus, a monk of Kildare, wrote his “Life of Brigid” around 650 AD. At the time of his writing, Cogitosus noted that in the Kildare monastery, the nuns still guarded her sacred fire.

According to Cogitosus, Brigid was the daughter of Dubhthach, a pagan noble of Leinster, while her mother Brocseach was a Christian. Baptized at an early age, Brigid was fostered by a Druid. The stories of Brigid reveal her spirit of compassion for the poor: one day when she was a child, after she had milked the cows, she gave away the milk to some poor persons who were passing. She feared her mother’s reproof, but when she arrived home, her milk pail was found to be even fuller that that of the other maidens.

The adult Brigid approached a rich landowner, asking for land where she might grow food for the poor. The landowner agreed to give her as much land as she could cover with her cloak. Brigid lay down her cloak and it expanded until it covered many, many acres. Another story tells of Brigid’s father preparing for her marriage to a nobleman while Brigid herself wanted to become a nun. Through the intervention of the Christian King of Leinster, Brigid’s desire was granted. With seven other young women Brigid was consecrated to Christ. In a wonderful tale, during the Ceremony for Consecration of a woman to Christ, the very old Bishop Mel of Ardagh mistakenly read for Brigid the words for Consecration of a Bishop. When his mistake was pointed out to him by co-presider Bishop MacCaille of Longford, Mel insisted that the Consecration would stand, as it must have been the work of the Holy Spirit, and that Brigid would be the only woman to hold the episcopal office in Ireland.
In the book Miniature Lives of the Saints, I came upon this explanation for Brigid’s title, “The Mary of the Gael”: At a synod held near Kildare, during the lifetime of the saint, says an old legend, one of the fathers declared that he had seen a vision, and that the Blessed Virgin would on the morrow appear among them. Next day Brigid arrived with her companions, and the father immediately exclaimed, “There is the holy Mary whom I saw in my dream.” Brigid accordingly came to be called “The Mary of the Gael,” that is, of the Irish; for so pure was she in spirit, so holy in every action, so modest, so gentle, so filled with mercy and compassion, that she was looked on as the living image in soul and body of Mary the Mother of God. (London, Burns and Oates, 1959)

Legend says that Brigid’s mother gave birth to her on the doorstep of their home, one foot within, one foot outside the home. This would seem to be a prophecy for a life that would become a threshold, bridging pagan and Christian, woman and man, rich and poor….Goddess and Saint.

For the story of Brigid, founder of the Christian Monastery of Kildare is interwoven with the ancient Irish goddess who shares her name. As goddess, Brigid is known as maiden, mother and crone. And the Feast of Saint Brigid, February 1st, coincides with the ancient Celtic Festival of Imbolc, the beginning of spring. It is Brigid who “breathes life into the mouth of dead winter”. It is Brigid who holds the Cailleach energy, the energy of the cauldron where our lives, individually and communally, need to be transformed through the power of her fire, her water. We are now halfway through the dark time of the year, the feminine days within the transformative cauldron. This is the time when, as Celtic teacher Dolores Whelan says, winter is pregnant with summer.

As we celebrate Brigid’s Day we turn our eyes, our hearts, towards the maiden aspect of the sacred feminine, awaiting the return of the young days of spring, the promise of new life within as well as outside of us.

Mary. Waited.

I write these two words, and come to the end of what I know about this time in Mary’s life, as she awaits the birth of her promised son. It is not possible for me to imagine myself into her time of waiting, nor to summon up any experience in my own life that might help me to understand what was in Mary’s heart as she waited.

Frustrated, I put on high boots and a warm jacket. I go outdoors on this snow-blessed day to walk along the Nature Trail that winds between stands of evergreens to the ruined railway bridge above the Bonnechere River.

What I notice first is utter stillness. Not only the trees, their limbs, branches, twigs and needles, but even the left-over tall weeds of autumn are motionless.

Waiting, I think. They are waiting. But for what? for whom? and why?

As my boots sink deep into wet snow, creating a fresh pattern beside the marks left by animals, I continue to wonder about the trees. There is a quality of presence in these woods that speaks of quietly-held strength, invisible energy.

A memory returns from late last winter, when there was still no visible sign of spring. I was standing beside a delicate silver maple that hovers just at the river’s edge. I had placed my palm on the strong slim trunk that erupted above me into a rack of apparently dead branches. I wondered how the tree felt knowing she appeared to be so lifeless. As though she were responding to my question, I suddenly knew that the tree’s sense of herself came not from this barren outer form but from her inner life, her sap already rising, preparing for the new life of spring. She knew herself by her energy, by the movement of life within, only barely contained, ready to push beyond this apparent death out into fullness of life.

That evening, I came across a poem from the 12th century Sufi Mystic Hafiz, a promise to the tree, to me:

Light
Will someday split you open
Even if your life is now a cage,
For a divine seed, the crown of destiny,
Is hidden and sown in an ancient fertile plain
You hold the title to.
Love will surely bust you wide open
Into an unfettered, blooming new galaxy…
A life–giving radiance will come,
The Friend’s gratuity will come…..

(Daniel Ladinsky trans. in The Subject Tonight Is Love)

Now, today, as I begin the walk home, the early darkness already rising around me, I feel I have begun to understand something about waiting: the trees’ waiting, Mary’s waiting and my own. Expectant waiting is an active experience. It is rich with joyous anticipation, strengthened with deep trust in the promises given, and busily engaged in the work of nurturing the “divine seed” that Hafiz speaks about.

For “Love will surely bust (us) wide open into an unfettered blooming new galaxy” bringing “a life–giving radiance”, bringing “the Friend’s gratuity”.

This time of waiting in Mary’s life invites us to wait with her, companioned by her barely-contained anticipation.

But there is more.

For, if we can begin to know that Mary has become for us in our time, when our need is so great, an expression, a manifestation, a presence of the One in whom ancient peoples lived and moved and had their being, our waiting is turned inside out! Then we glimpse that the winter trees, the snow-covered earth, the entire aching planet, and we ourselves are held within a womb, nurtured from the life, the body, of the Great Mother. And that what we are each awaiting is our own birth into the fullness of life to which we are called.

The mystic-poet Jessica Powers expresses this beautifully:

I live my Advent in the womb of Mary.
And on one night when a great star swings free
from its high mooring and walks down the sky
to be the dot above the Christus i,
I shall be born of her by blessed grace.

I wait in Mary-darkness, faith’s walled place,
with hope’s expectance of nativity.

I knew for long she carried me and fed me,
guarded and loved me, though I could not see.

But only now, with inward jubilee,
I come upon earth’s most amazing knowledge:
someone is hidden in this dark with me.
(Jessica Powers 1948)

We. Wait.

Mohammed has arranged a private time for our group in the shrine of Sekhmet. As our group regathers, makes its slow way through the intense heat towards the shrine, there is an air of quiet, expectation, reverence. We come to a small stone building with two tiny rooms. Jean invites those who feel a particular connection to Sekhmet to join Peg and herself in the ritual.

Sekhmet is a mystery to me, one I have never sought to understand. My drawing has been towards the light, the loving feminine presence I have encountered whether as Mary, as Isis, as Hathor. Sekhmet, the fierce dark side of that sacred energy, has no allure for me. I wait outside with the others who, like me, move restlessly, aware that something sacred is happening within. I hear Jean’s voice and Peg’s in snatches of prayer, words of ritual.

Then something rises in me, some fierce desire to be part of this. I place my hands, palms down on a stone table, an ancient altar that stands just outside the open door. I say silently to myself,” I am here as high witness.”

A stillness rises among those of us who wait outside, as if the group has become one in that same desire. We are united in a space of utter soundlessness.

After a while, the members of our group who have been inside come outdoors and the rest of us are invited into the tiny sanctuary of Sekhmet. The room is so small that some of us must wait in the antechamber for our turn to enter the shrine.

When I enter the room, I look ahead to where she is seated, a woman of black granitee with a lion head, a face that is somehow both fierce and tender. She is naked but for a pectoral intricately carved, resting on her breast bone. A solar disk encircles her head, but the millennia or a more dedicated cruelty have gouged it so it looks wounded, like the stone heart I picked up earlier. Across her knees is a stone slab that may have been a book. Both her arms and one hand have been smashed. The remaining hand rests on the book. The walls behind are covered in hieroglyphs and paintings, so darkened with age that they are nearly silent.

Another Statue of Sekhmet

Whatever I expected, Sekhmet is more. I am not afraid of her. I watch as the people ahead of me approach her, as they reach a hesitant hand to touch her. I notice Jean standing beside the statue, watching each person closely, aware that anything might happen.
When at last I am face to face with Sekhmet, I lift my right hand, touch her cheek.
I know what I must ask. Only a few hours ago, I was offered a gift, a luminous globe of rose and white light, a gift that can fill my heart with a love that will both answer my own longing and pour itself out for others. The tears of grief and loss that followed the offering showed me that I am still caught in my old emptiness. Now I need to accept the gift. I must activate it now. Here. In the presence of the dark goddess, I have to say yes or face a lifetime of falling back into my old Sethian ways. I ask for strength to be my godded self.

All of this happens in an instant, in the time between the lifting of my hand and its tentative touch on the lion face. And in that instant, Sekhmet speaks to me clearly, fiercely: Give up the allure of tragic romance and all its amenities. Your sorrow will not draw love. It will not. You are holding onto old grief. Let it go.

Afterwards, walking away from the Shrine of Sekhmet, I fall into step with Jean and Michael, a young doctor who is part of our group. Jean is holding something in her hand, opens her palm to reveal a small nail. “Bob had a broken bone set with this when he was a child. I found it among his ashes.”
I knew that Jean had brought her husband’s ashes here to Karnak, to the Shrine of Sekhmet to whom he had been devoted, of whom he had written extensively.

Myths collide: Isis, Osiris, Jesus.
“You have invited all of us into your own mythic story,” I say, thinking of the ritual we’ve just had.

“Were you startled by Sekhmet?” Jean asks.

“She is very fierce, “I say, “but I see all aspects as one now, part of the Sacred Feminine.” Only as I speak the words do I realize I now know this in my bones.
“But she is startling.”

As we’ve been making our way along the open pathways back towards the main temple of Karnak, Aten, the Sun god, has been baking us. Michael and I have been drinking from our water bottles. Peg catches up to us, offering Jean a container of water. Absorbed by our conversation about myths and goddesses, I hadn’t even noticed that Jean didn’t have any water with her. I have a great deal to learn about the practice of loving.

(excerpt from Called to Egypt on the Back of the Wind  Anne Kathleen McLaughlin,
Borealis Press, Ottawa, Canada, 2013  http://borealispress.com)

The knocking on the wooden door is so loud it startles us, even though we are waiting for the sound. A woman’s voice, strong, certain, calls out from the other side: “I am Brigid. Do you have a welcome for me?”
We have our answer ready, “Yes, we do.” The door opens. The woman playing Brigid’s role enters.

On this final morning of our weekend with Dolores Whelan at the Galilee Retreat Centre, we are enacting an ancient Celtic Ritual of Imbolc, as we welcome Brigid in her Maiden form. Brigid, who “breathes life into the mouth of dead winter”, comes among us, announcing spring.

Our recent weeks of reflecting on Brigid, paying her a visit in her home country of Ireland, show us the depth, the importance of this brief exchange. Do we “have a welcome” for Brigid in our lives? What does it mean to answer her question with a resounding, “yes”?

Brigid is a woman of great power, an archetype, an embodiment of the energies of the sacred feminine, another facet of Sophia. Our welcome of her will open up our lives in ways we cannot foresee, cannot even imagine. But the hints are already given in the stories we have been recalling.

In “Brigid: The Mary of the Gael”, we recalled the legend that angels carried Brigid over the seas from Ireland to Bethlehem so that she might be present for the birth of Jesus, assisting Mary as midwife. Brigid, who was born in the fifth century after the event….

Immediately we find ourselves in sacred time, in what today’s physicists, following Einstein, would call the simultaneity of time. Mystery. We suspend disbelief, allow our linear, logical brains to take a break, invite the story to offer us its teachings. Ask how this applies to our own lives. Listen.

Each one of us is asked, like Mary, to give birth to the Holy One. In Godseed, Jean Houston writes about the heart of our call, inviting us into a meditation, a visualization, of how this might be:

Lying down now and closing your eyes, imagine that you are dreaming. In your dreams, you see light, and into this light comes a Being of Light, a Bearer of Good News, a Resident from the Depths. This angel says to you, “Oh Child of God, fear not to take unto yourself the spiritual partnership, for that which is conceived in you is of the spiritual Reality. And this Reality, if nurtured, shall be born of you and shall help you to…bring the Godseed into the world.”

And now see what the angel sees—the fulfillment and the unfolding of this Child of Promise within you….see and feel and know the possibilities, indeed the future, of this Child in you, this Godseed that you are growing in the womb of your entire being, should you allow it to be nurtured and to grow and to be born into the world. (Jean Houston in Godseed Quest Books 1992 p.39)

This call to birth the Christ within us is as ancient as first century Paul, who wrote of being in labour until Christ is born in us. It is as modern as twenty-first century eco-feminist theologian Yvonne Gebara who entreats us to give birth to the Christic Presence in the Universe.

Contemporary writer Diarmuid O’Murchu cites the words of the thirteenth century Dominican mystic Meister Eckhart: What does God do all day long? God lies on a maternity bed, giving birth all day long.

Reflecting on Meister Eckhart’s image, O’Murchu continues:

This is a metaphor we have known as a spiritual species for thousands of years, long before formal religions ever came into being….The Great Goddess of our Paleolithic ancestors was perceived as a woman of prodigious fecundity, birthing forth the stars and galaxies, the mountains and oceans and every life form populating planet earth today. God, the great life-giver in the pregnant power of creative Spirit, is probably the oldest and most enduring understanding of the Holy One known to our species.

O’Murchu concludes that: we are called to become co-birthers with our birthing God of the ongoing evolutionary re-creation of God’s world in justice, love, compassion and liberation. (Diarmuid O’Murchu Jesus in the Power of Poetry 2009 pp. 45-46)

When we say yes to our call to give birth, we are embracing a lifelong partnership with the Holy One of “prodigious birthing”, a responsibility that has the power to take over our lives, to demand of us everything, to offer us a life that is at once profoundly meaningful, and intimately engaged with the ongoing renewal of the universe. There will be suffering, there will be hard work, but there will also be times of ecstatic joy, tasting our oneness with the Love at the heart of life.

Dolores reminds us that: it is only in us, you and me, that the energy of Brigid will rise again, take form and become a force for transformation in our world.(Dolores Whelan in Ever Ancient, Ever New Dublin 2010 p. 81)

painting of Brigid by Jo Jayson

Brigid, midwife of this birthing, stands at the door. We hear her voice, “Do you have a welcome for me?”

What is our response?

Wisdom is bright, and does not grow dim.
By those who love her she is readily seen, and found by those who look for her.
Quick to anticipate those who desire her, she makes herself known to them.
Watch for her early and you will have no trouble;
you will find her sitting at your gates.
Even to think about her is understanding fully grown;
be on the alert for her and anxiety will quickly leave you.
She herself walks about looking for those who are worthy of her
and graciously shows herself to them as they go,
in every thought of theirs coming to meet them.

Wisdom 6: 12-16 ( Jerusalem Bible)

The Twelfth Night of Christmas invites a celebration of Wisdom. In her book In Wisdom’s Path  Jan L. Richardson writes: The Feast of Epiphany began as a festival of the Eastern Church which celebrated the appearing of Jesus, focusing on the events of his birth and baptism. In the Western Christian tradition, Epiphany has … focused on the coming of the wise men to welcome Jesus. At its core this holy day offers an invitation to wrestle with the mystery of the incarnation, to recognize the multitude of ways that the sacred takes flesh and to welcome the divine into our midst.

Elsewhere Jan has written of the women who must also have come to welcome the radiant new life:

Wise women also came.
The fire burned
in their wombs
long before they saw
the flaming star
in the sky.
They walked in shadows,
trusting the path
would open
under the light of the moon.

Wise women also came,
seeking no directions,
no permission
from any king.
They came
by their own authority,
their own desire,
their own longing.
They came in quiet,
spreading no rumors,
sparking no fears
to lead

to innocents’ slaughter,
to their sister Rachel’s
inconsolable lamentations.

Wise women also came,
and they brought
useful gifts:
water for labor’s washing,
¬fire for warm illumination,
a blanket for swaddling.
Wise women also came,
at least three of them,
holding Mary in the labor,
crying out with her
in the birth pangs,
breathing ancient blessings
into her ear.

Wise women also came,
and they went,
as wise women always do,
home a different way.

Jan L. Richardson
(www.janrichardson.com)

As we enter a new year, we welcome Wisdom into our lives, knowing that “for those who love her, she is readily seen, and found by those who look for her”. Companioned each day by Wisdom, we shall, like the wise women in Jan’s poem, experience a fire burning in our wombs. Like them we will not seek permission of any king or ruler to do what Wisdom requires of us. We will set out on our own authority, our own desire, our own longing, trusting that for us,, as for them, the path will open under the light of the moon.

Part Two: The Heroic Journey (Mount Pelion)

Under an Ancient Tree on Mount Pelion we revisit our lives as a journey, find where we are now in the story, share that with our companions, and turn the journey into a play.

The Road of Trials, the Belly of the Whale
Dorothy is offered Guidance, but not a map. “Follow the Yellow Brick Road.” What in the Hero’s journey is a road of trials, often for the heroine includes a time of what Campbell calls being in the “belly of the whale”. In the Wizard of Oz, this is symbolized by the poppy fields where Dorothy and her three companions suddenly fall deeply asleep under the spell of the Wicked Witch.

The Belly of the Whale takes us by surprise, for just when we know what we must do, just when we manage to fool the guardian and pass the gate, we find ourselves blindsided… by a depression, an ingression, a call to the depths of being. Though we are clear about our mission, we are not yet prepared. The Belly of the Whale gives us preparatory time, time for deep inner work. We enter our own depths, the source place for all endeavours. Find your form for this inner work: drawing or dance or journaling or music or drumming or nature or working with an archetype. When you discover who your archetype is, you have guidance. You are put on the path.

“You may not know what your archetypal guidance is, but your archetypal guidance knows who you are.”(Jean Houston)

Live in the Temple of Inner Abundance where you are the womb of your new becoming. Choose your daily practice and be faithful.

Assisted by her friends, Dorothy wakens and all four approach the Emerald City, once again facing a guardian at the gate who will not allow them to see the Wizard. Dorothy’s tears as she speaks of her longing to see her Aunt Em break down his resistance.

Yet the Wizard, when they at last meet him, refuses to grant their request until they fulfill an impossible task: Bring me the broomstick of the Witch of the West!
The challenge here is to discover the task that you never believed you could do, but the Wizard of the inner sanctum of yourself always knew you could, and if you did, would change the nature of your belief about yourself….Your inner Wizard…the Friend, stands before you and asks you to recall the “impossible things” you have done…. Now the Friend-Wizard asks you to consider what “impossible things” you have yet to do in the near future. The Friend- Wizard also asks you to imagine as vividly as you can actually doing it, with all the difficulties and acts of courage that it may require. Remember that you have allies, a Protector and the Friend to help and accompany you. (Jean Houston in The Power of Myth and Living Mythically p.202)

Emergence with Amplified Power
You discover now that your expectations become magnets, drawing to you what you need for your task, your life work. You have entered the path of wisdom, and with her come all good things. You experience the grace of ABBONDANZA. You are moving into the fullness of life. Your entelechy holds the seed of what you truly are and draws you into the magic and mystery of being “a local outcropping of the Godself in time”. (JH)

The life force of Toto (“Run, Toto, Run), the support and cleverness of her three friends, and finally the life force of water accomplish the impossible. Dorothy and her companion return to the Wizard in triumph.

Return with Elixir

You begin to embody the deep happiness that is your birthright. You heed the call to live the WHY at the centre of your life.

And so Dorothy returns home, changed by her adventures, companioned within by those whom she met and loved in Oz :

“Home” is that land to which one returns in a deepened condition after the trials and adventures of initiation. It is now a realm that was perceived in Oz, but can be felt in the here and now as the deepened and extended land. You have brought back with you now mindfulness, heartfulness and courage….You have gone home to Kansas, but not before you have grown up in Oz….You have returned a mythic being, and, like Dorothy, you now have the chance to green the wasteland of your own particular “Kansas” with your newfound knowings. (Jean Houston in The Power of Myth and Living Mythically pp. 210-1)

We sit beneath the great plane tree and ask ourselves:

Which part of the journey am I now experiencing?

What do I need to do at this stage?

What do I now understand?

What happens next?