Meeting Brigid in All Her Faces

This past weekend, Brigid arrived everywhere. Through one lucky accident after another, I met her three different ways and remembered when I had met her in at her shrine in Kildare. (Brigid, Brigit, Brighid, Brìd, Brígh, I'll just pick one spelling and stick with it.)

First, last week I happened to see they were to be making Brigid's crosses at The Shamrock pub in Falcarragh. 

Against all odds of getting me off the sofa on a cold night, by 9 pm Friday night I was sitting at a table with Seamus and Eddie. 

Eddie reminded me how to make a cross, and soon I was bending canes. We talked about the time that Eddie visited San Francisco, and I talked about visiting the Brigid shrine and wells in Kildare. "What order are those nuns?" Eddie asked. "Brigidines," I answered. He nodded his head in approval. 

Around us people murmured in Irish and English in their group-art-making trances. 









We dropped broken rushes and the cut-off ends on the floor. Eventually they will go into that fire.



This man taught the art of Brigit's cross-making to his Italian friends, in Italian.

The canes used for the crosses grow everywhere, a weed. 

Here's a video of a similar gathering in Glencar, which is near Letterkenny. 

I was halfway through making my second cross when the priest stood and led a prayer.

Father of all creation and Lord of Light, You have given us life and entrusted your creation to us to use it and to care for it. We ask you to bless these crosses made of green rushes in memory of holy Brigid, who used the cross to recall an to teach your Son's life, death, and resurrection. May these crosses be a sign of our sharing in the Paschal Mystery of your Son and a sign of your protection of our lives, our land, and its creatures through Brigid's intercession during the coming year and always Through Christ our Lord. Amen. 

Well, this Brigid who used her cross to remind us of death isn't the Brigid I know, but I was there to learn. Then the priest held a crystal bowl of water over his head and flicked his fingers in it, sprinkling us with holy water, saying,

May the blessing of God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit be on this cross, on the place where it stands and on everyone who looks at it. Amen. 

And then he said:

Are you resolved, with God's assistance, to obey his laws and those of his Church, and to lead blameless lives like the great St. Brigid?

And everyone said, "Yes." Then the priest said,

"Take the cross with which the great St. Brigid fought against her enemies—the world, the flesh, and the devil—and remember to bear the crosses of this life with true Christian fortitude. Remember the many victories gained by Brigid under its protecting influence and bravely follow her example."

I held my crosses away from his sprinkling and didn't agree to obey any laws. 

The priest then sat down among us and continued bending canes into crosses. The pub owner, who I later learned is his older sister, served us potato mash. We all put down our canes and dug in. 

After making a third cross, I said goodbye to everyone and drove home. As I drove, I remembered the times when I visited Brigid in Kildare. How different the priest's Brigid is from the Kildare Brigid.

The priest's Brigid is a Catholic saint, the "Mary of the Gael" who intercedes for us with a Christian god. Long before I first came to Ireland, the witches of Northern California taught me about a Brigid who is the Irish goddess at every well, of firekeeping, of springtime, of sunbeam miracles, alms giving, peacekeeping and—because she is the patron saint of blacksmithing— she is now considered the Goddess of the Internet and technology. She was one of the earliest topics I researched when the world wide web was new. 

More than ten years ago, I first visited Brigid's shrines at Kildare. I was especially keen to visit her well. 

At each of the five stones, people remember the different aspects of Brigid. 

Brigid, Peacemaker

Brigid, Woman of the Hearthfire

Brigid, Friend of the Poor

Brigid, Woman of the Land

Brigid, Woman of Contemplation

Not far from the well, in Kildare town, a two-hundred year old Church of Ireland cathedral emphasizes Brigid the Abbess and teacher. The windows depict the miracle of her ordination. At the moment she was meant to be ordained as a nun, the bishop made a mistake and read the ordination ritual that created her a bishop instead. A miracle! As God wills! 

The leadership part of her biography has always attracted me, and the ordination story seems a retcon. (Here are more stories of Brigid.)

Like all Christian churches, the cathedral is full of crosses.  Not the Roman one, but Brigid's. 

Down the street from the cathedral is the Catholic church of St. Brigid. 

The granite stones of the altar form a Brigid's cross. 

In the photo above, this is the dark square in the far corner. Abbess and Bishop. Brigid is teaching her people under her sacred oak, near her cathedral with its round tower. (Kildare means "Oak Church). Her crosses are scattered on the ground at her feet. 

In the other alcove below the two stained-glass windows, is the icon of St. Brigid.

With those memories those Brigid of Kildare carrying me, I was soon home, back at our own fire. 

The legend goes that a sacred fire burned at Kildare for thousands of years. When Brigid established her abbey, she and her nineteen sisters continued to tend the fire, and it burned long after ascendant Protestants suppressed other remnant pagan rites.

Women rekindled the sacred Kildare fire with sunlight in 1993, and it still burns in the town square, and in the ritual room at Solas Bhride. 

The next day, Saturday morning, I went to Glenveagh Park for a gathering in the gardener's cottage, celebrating the arrival of a delicate bulb, the first spring flower. No one said "Brigid" but I felt her persistent presence. 

This man was head gardener for 50 years. The woman is his sister, who "looked after him," for the same 50 years. I can't find their names. 

Here is Sean, current head gardener, who doesn't consider himself a real snow drop collector because he only has 60 varieties. He planted snowdrops among these hedges meant to evoke Celtic knotwork. Later in the season, the beds grow herbs. 

My friends noticed this small blossom with a gorgeous scent on an inconspicuous shrub.

Sean said that H. P. McIlhenny, the castle's last private owner, (and a gay man) planted scented flowers everywhere in the gardens so that there was always a scented flower somewhere in bloom in every season. 

There was an icy wind off the lake, but the view from the swimming pool as stunning as ever. 

Saturday evening, a friend invited me to join a small pagan gathering for Imbolc and a celebration of Brigid. I didn't know these folks, but they welcomed me and I felt the familiar connection. We met in a cottage near the sea, said goodbye to the Morrigan of winter, opened the door, and welcomed in Brigid.