The Cosmic Story: The Wheel of the Year – Imbolc 2024
Re-Aligning Ourselves with Our Instinctual Wisdom
Our Dis-connect From Nature
We modern humans have to face the fact that we have divorced ourselves from Nature and from our human nature. We’ve lost our connection to our INSTINCTS. We no longer read the signs that Mother Nature shows us, depending on our ‘weathermen’ to tell us what’s going on around us. (Remember the 2004 tsunami in Thailand – how people just watched the waters receding instead of heading for hills like the Native people and animals did?) And so we find ourselves in a dangerous moment when climate change needs to be addressed but it isn’t, because we no longer understand our body’s wisdom and our instinctual nature.
If we were in touch with our instincts, we wouldn’t stand for the poisoning of our waters, our land, our food, our air. Our senses would revolt. We would know that we have to change the way we’ve been programmed to live, especially now that corporations have us hooked on technology. No leaders are asking us to sacrifice our unnecessary things for the greater good, which we did during wartime. (Because it would wreck the economy?) Remember how George Bush told us all to go out and buy things after 9/11 to show Osama Bin Laden that he wasn’t going to defeat us? He didn’t tell us that we need to change our ways and learn to compromise if we want a peaceful world. And so war and genocide are still viable options for nations. Revenge, domination, greed and pride shape our world instead of peace, love and cooperation.
Instead, we bear our sicknesses without pointing our finger at the source of that poisoning; by not insisting that our leaders hold corporations accountable for the mess they’ve made of our world. And we would also look at our own part in that poisoning, for we consume what isn’t necessary for life. We trade our health and our children’s future for things that we often throw away or ignore soon after we buy them.
Another thing we’ve lost touch with is our IMAGINATIONS. Our psyches are filled with images from TV, video games and movies – often violent images which stay stuck in our psyches, which result in the violence we see all around us in the world today. Without a deep connection to our instincts, our imaginations languish. We lose touch with the values and beliefs that sustain life.
Americans are especially susceptible to media mind control, because we do not have the deep roots that Europeans, South Americans, Africans, Middle-Easterners and Asians have from living for millennia in their homelands. America was founded by corporations and our society has been shaped by corporations. Corporations have destroyed the power of families to create culture. I’m not talking about white Christian culture. I’m talking about the little rituals that families and communities develop by eating together, playing together and working together.
If anyone wants to point to the Anti-Christ of Christian mythology, it is the flat-earth, materialistic culture that America has fostered on the world. Anti-Christ means against spirit. Christianity mistakenly chose the image of the Christ’s crucifixion as its central image, rather than his Resurrection, which was the whole point of his story – that we are spiritual beings having a human experience. Mary Magdalene chose the resurrection. The Divine Feminine knows about life and spirit and soul.
But that human experience means that we have to understand our instincts rather than reject them, which is what so many of our religions have pushed us to do. They tell us that earthly life is evil and only heaven is important. They reject the Goddess of Life, and so we have learned to reject life’s magic.
And when these masculine religions rejected the beauty of earthly life, they also rejected and dominated women and their feminine ways of knowing – our instincts, our intuitions, our emotional intelligence. And our imaginations, for our right brain speaks to us through the creative imagination’s symbolic language.
Carl Jung said that in the Aquarian Age, the archetypes would be poured out of the unconscious and made conscious. He also said that there is a spectrum – like the light spectrum from infra-red to ultra-violet – that stretches from instincts to archetypes. The archetypes are the structures that shape the Earth’s instinctual nature. And so now we find ourselves having to get back in touch with our instincts through the archetypal figures of our dreams and visions. We pull animal cards to make us aware of which instincts are pulling at us. We pull Goddess cards to name the feminine instincts that have been suppressed by patriarchy.
That’s why it’s so important to reclaim and work with our imagination. It isn’t good enough to just pick a card and read what it means. We have to take that meaning into ourselves and embody it. We have to re-birth our instincts. We can do this through listening to our imagination.
I also believe that our original language is the symbolic language of the soul. In the story of the Tower of Babel, everyone spoke the same language until men built a tower to the heavens. They were punished by forgetting that original language and speaking different languages so people couldn’t understand each other. Perhaps if we all became proficient in symbolic language once again, we would understand each other better.
If we are to survive this time of cultural chaos and change, we all need to ground ourselves in our body’s instincts and our soul’s language. We can begin to do this by syncing once again with Nature’s natural cycles.
That’s what the Wheel of the Year can teach us.
The Wheel of the Year – Imbolc: A Time of Visioning
The Wheel of the Year sets out 8 specific turning points of light during the year. These gateways initiate the different seasons. There are the two solstices, when the Sun is either at its extreme northern or southern boundary. At the two equinoxes, the light is balanced. And then there are the 4 cross-quarter days, which occur midway between the solstices and equinoxes in the power signs of the zodiac. There four signs – Taurus, Leo, Scorpio and Aquarius – are where the seasons are concentrated and take hold. Even with climate change, the relationship of the Sun to the Earth stays the same. So while the exact dates sometimes change, the message and meaning of the season remains the same.
We begin at Winter Solstice, when the Sun is at its lowest southern point and begins its journey back north. (Of course those of you in the southern hemisphere experience the opposite seasonal shifts.) At Winter Solstice, the Light is re-born. The instinct of this season is the feeling of hope that we get in the darkest times that life will return to nurture us. The shift in light begins the yang part of the year, when the Light begins to grow. Our instincts tell us to go within, rest and restore ourselves.
We have arrived at the next gateway of the Wheel, one of the cross-quarter days that occur between the solstices and equinoxes. This second gate occurs when the Sun reaches the 15th degree of the sign of Aquarius, the power degree of the power signs of the zodiac. This is the festival of Imbolc or St. Brigid’s Day – or even the Catholic Candlemas. While we celebrate it on February 2nd, because of the changes that occur due to the Earth’s wobble, true Imbolc is now on February 4th.
This is a festival of the returning light. Despite the cold and snow still on the ground, we sense a shift. We look for the light. Soon we’ll notice that the light grows more quickly, the daylight hours growing while the dark of the night recedes. We celebrate it here in the US as Groundhog’s Day, when this large rodent peeks out of its underground burrow to see its shadow. In Ireland, snakes were the animals that would come above ground to see if winter was receding. The instinct here is to envision the future when light would bring warmth and growth back to the land.
The Sabian symbol for 15* Aquarius is: Two lovebirds sitting on a fence and singing happily. This power gate calls us to let our soul unite two complementary spiritual (birds) energies to achieve real happiness or bliss – at a midpoint in time/the fence. One way to understand this is to let our imagination (right brain) show us our path and to use our rationality (left brain) to help us walk it.
The inner light of the unconscious unites with the heavenly light of consciousness to bless our lives. Love is what unites them.
Imbolc was called Candlemas by the Catholic Church, a time to bless the candles that the church would use during the coming year. In Ireland, they celebrate St. Brigid’s Day, as she is the Patron Saint of Ireland along with St. Patrick. But in reality, Brigid was a goddess before she was a saint. One of the most important Irish goddesses, such that the Church had to adopt her as their own, since the people would not give her up.
The Imbolc festival is a fire festival. The fires are lit as sympathetic magic to help bring the sunlight back. And with the Light comes vision. Just as we look to see more light at Imbolc, it is also a time to envision the new life that will emerge in the Spring.
To honor the energy of Imbolc, light some candles and be present to the light. Gaze into the flames, and let images arise within you. Ask for a vision of what your inner child of light wants to do this year. How is the baby of Light growing? What does your soul need from you to grow strong enough to emerge in the Spring and root into the deep soil of your life?
If you need help, ask the Mother Goddess who helps us grow in this second part of the Winter Solstice season: Brigid, the Gaelic Mary and the foster-mother of Christ. (The Celts placed great value on fostering their children and one’s foster mother was just as beloved and important as one’s birth mother.)
Brigid, Goddess of Imbolc: How do we work with the Light?
Since the Winter Solstice is about the re-birth of the Light, the purpose of that season is to nurture and grow that light until it is strong enough to stand on its own. The Goddess energy that works in the Winter Solstice season is the Divine Mother – the birth giver, the nurturer, the bestower of gifts and talents.
At Winter Solstice, Mother Mary embodies the archetype of the Divine Mother who keeps her child nourished and safe and secure from death. At Imbolc, the Goddess form changes to one of Teacher, Healer and Inspirer. We look now to Brigid, whom the Irish call Muire na nGael or Mary of the Irish. She is called the foster Mother of Christ.
If we acknowledge that the Christ is the part of us that is the Eternal Spirit of the Creator, then Brigid is the Divine Feminine Mother who now takes that spirit and helps shape it into life-giving purpose.
Brigid is the Celtic goddess of the fires of the forge and the hearth, of poetry, healing and childbirth. The name Brigit itself means either ‘Fiery Arrow’, ‘Bright One’, or ‘High One’ in the ancient Celtic language, referring to her solar aspect, as she is a goddess of Light and Flame. She is an ancient image of the solar feminine – from a time before the masculine deities took over the rulership of the Sun and its gift of self-consciousness.
Brigid, Brigit or Brighid (pronounced Breed) is an important Celtic Triple goddess, changing form from Maiden to Mother to Crone. At Imbolc, she comes to us in her Crone aspect and leads us to the inner depths where the Cauldron of Inspiration waits for our gaze to seek a vision. When we emerge, Brigid comes with us as the Maiden, renewed once again. She is the Mother of our spiritual birth, when we recognize our soul’s gifts and potentials and purpose.
Brigid is the patroness of poetry, healing and smithcraft, all different ways humans use the creative fires of life with practical and inspired wisdom. As a solar deity Her attributes are light, inspiration and all skills associated with the creative fire, especially the fiery power of inner healing and vital energy.
Imbolc is a great time to gather with friends and family to tell stories, recite poetry, make music and feel the joy of returning life to Mother Earth. It’s a time to use our imaginations, to listen to our dreams, and to feel the possibilities of life.
There are many foods the Celts made to celebrate this season, many tied to the fact that the sheep gave birth now and so had milk to share. This is a link to different recipes people made for Imbolc.
The Astrology of the Imbolc Season – February to mid-March
The astrology of this season is full speed ahead – all the planets are moving forward now that Uranus turned direct on last weekend (only the asteroid Juno is retrograde now) until after Spring Equinox. That means, these archetypal energies can work for us in the world. Of course, it’s up to each of us to figure out how we want to be love, take action, speak our truths, engage in our collective society and channel the larger energies of life.
Since we are living in a time of evolution and revolution, each of us is responsible for evolving ourselves into the person we want to be. Each year we get this chance but this year seems to be crucial not only personally but collectively. If we want to change the world, we need to be the ones to do it.
The most important energy to engage with this year is Pluto in Aquarius. I did a zoom presentation on January 20th about this major shift and you can view it on my You Tube channel The Cosmic Storyteller.
But to recap the most important points:
Pluto dipped into Aquarius for the first time since the American Revolution last year from March 23 – June 11, 2023, when it retrograded back into Capricorn. During that time, AI really took off, with all the major companies releasing their version of AI. In October the US government released a study about concerns over AI.
On January 20, 2024, Pluto once again entered Aquarius, where it will move forward until May 2nd, then retrograde back into Capricorn from September 1 – November 19th – just in time for the US presidential election. It seems to me that the cosmos wants US citizens to make a choice between democracy and dictatorship, just as it did for those American revolutionaries back in 1778. The choice is up to us.
After November 19, 2024, Pluto is travel through Aquarius until 2044. Pluto in Aquarius is associated with revolution, social justice, scientific breakthroughs and technological advancements. We’re already seeing some of those breakthroughs – I just read that someone might have discovered the cure for cancer.
Pluto is going to evolve our Collective Mind, which Aquarius represents. It’s how we as a collective view the world, our beliefs and prejudices, our worldview. We are evolving out of a Newtonian cause and effect understanding of life into a quantum understanding that we are all one. Hopefully, it will be a time when humanity finally grows up and takes responsibility for our actions. It is definitely a time when humanity has to spearhead evolution if we want to survive as a species. Mother Earth will heal her wounds and birth new life, but humanity might not be part of that if we don’t take up our stewardship of the Earth.
Pluto in Aquarius will also bring up what is no longer viable for the Collective Mind, just as it brought up what wasn’t working in our society during the years (2008 – 2024) it traveled through Capricorn, sign of our collective institutions such as government, finance, the military, our justice systems. There is always the negative use of power, and so we have to watch what is happening with technology and put some stops on it until we find a balance there.
On the positive side, Pluto in Aquarius is all about freedom, equality, and the people rather than hierarchical rulers. It will be a time when we explore outer space as well as the inner space of our psyches. Perhaps we’ll learn mental telepathy and start to use the Innernet rather than the technology that is destroying so much of our human interactions. Connecting online is totally different from personal human interaction.
The New and Full Moons during the next six weeks occur in the signs of Aquarius, Pisces and Virgo, opening us to the collective energies we share as well as how we can be of service to the collective.
Venus, Mercury and Mars move through the signs of Capricorn, Aquarius and Pisces, and Mercury goes into Aries where it will retrograde on April 1st, conjunct the Aries Solar Eclipse on April 8th. (more on this in my Spring Equinox newsletter).
Jupiter and Uranus are moving forward in Taurus to their meetup on April 20th at 22* Taurus. (More on that in the Spring Equinox newsletter)
That’s all for now.
Let this season bring you insight into what your soul has planned for you this year. Whether you meditate, journey, dream, get an astrology or tarot reading, take a peek ahead now and let that vision and wisdom guide you into the Spring.
May you be blessed with inspiration this season.
Cathy
Dear God of Higher Love,
Beautiful Source, the Divine Within,
Let the soothing balm of love and justice
Pour over all of us,
Filling us with peace, kindness,
And the powerful, passionate will
To do what we must do,
To heal the ruptures, the corruption,
the transgressions and the wounds of this country.
I humbly ask you to let good win.
Give us the opportunity to do better,
To be better.
We will not squander it.
We are awake now,
It took us a long time to see
And we are grateful for your patience.
But we are here now,
We are ready.
We are warriors for love.
With your guidance,
We will make it right,
repairing the inequalities,
the injustices, the offenses.
We will lift this country,
this planet and its people
and finally be the beacon of hope,
the shining light, the loving heart
that we are destined to be.
-Pamela Bongas McIntyre, 10/27/20
