Ahhhhh.....that is the sound of relief.  A Sabbat has come and I have not had the anxiety build-up.  It's all good, my friends.  My faith has traveled from my head (and all its issues) to my heart and there it dwells so much more peacefully.  That is not to say that I don't think anymore.  That is to say that my religion comes from a place of comfort and peace.  Perhaps a more intellectual Pagan can brain their faith....but clearly I must heart it.

Imbolc has come and since Brigid is the first (and only) Goddess or God to ever tug my heart in such a startling manner as She did, this holiday is especially dear to me.  So, I will tell the story of meeting Her.

I first read about Brigid during Year One...the manic, obsessive (and quite terrible) year of trying to know everything there is to know about everything concerning Paganism.  And much like that circle I knelt in and broke down and first felt the presence of Divinity in me, Brigid stopped time.  I was racing, in what amounted to a blind panic, towards some finish line I thought must surely exist.  I'd decided that I had to be a scholar of all Goddesses and Gods of all pantheons so I could keep up with the big boys and girls on the message boards.   Right?  Because in Year One, it's all about not looking like a complete dumbass.  I'd watched the Elite Super-Witches tear down beginners and leave them a smoking pile of deflated ashes.  It wasn't going to happen to me, by Goddess.  I wasn't about to be put in my place by some 17 year old Silverwolfster.

So I dove in headlong and was drowning almost immediately.  I was wading through the Dagda...lost.  Frigging LOST...it was like trying to mash an entire dinner plate into my mouth and swallow without chewing.  And then there She was.  And it was literally like time stopped racing...all of a sudden, I was focused.  Of course time didn't stop....I did.  She put my brakes on and held me still long enough to let the words sink in, the story permeate.  I remember being startled by the thought, "She's like me..."

When I think of the Goddess, I think of Her.  I think of the image in my mind that rolled out with perfect clarity as I learned more about Her.  She is the icon, for me, that allows me to connect with an otherwise unfathomable entity.  I do not believe, as some do, that individual Gods and Goddesses exist.  I believe that individual Gods and Goddesses have been created by people as a way to wrap our finite minds around a concept so infinite, we can not otherwise even begin to grasp it.  And for me, that representative is Brigid.

Without the struggle of trying to jam myself into a Wiccan mold best left to those who are called to that Path, the upcoming Sabbat has become all the more meaningful.  New beginnings.  The death of the old must occur to make way for the new.  And I've killed some things off over the past week...some things that had to go in order for others to take hold.

While a ritual (in the formal sense) won't happen for me, a ritual in the very loose sense will definitely occur.  Probably I'll pick up a few new house plants today to remind myself that the winter, as all things, will pass.  I'll light some candles and pray.  Mainly I will thank Brigid for the connection She affords me...one that has survived all the Year One moments that have had me falter along this Path.