Imbolc Spring Ritual with a Fun Druid Group, FoDLA

Hi Folks-
Come join us for a public druid ritual put on by FoDLA celebrating the coming of Spring. The Imbolc Ritual will take place outdoors, rain or shine. Please bring offerings to share in the fire, or pour on the ground. There will be a post-ritual pot-luck, so please also bring food and drink that you enjoy so there will be things you like to eat!

Ritual will begin promptly at 5pm, on Sunday Feb 2nd.

The Ritual takes place at 35200 Paseo Padre Parkway, Fremont, CA 94536, with Rev. Joel Schonbrunn leading the event. The main Website for FoDLA is:

http://fodla.org/groves/index.html

The Website for the local FoDLA group is:

FoDLA Grove of the Bay
Website: www.groveofthebay.org (http://www.groveofthebay.org/)joel@schonbrunn.comServing the San Francisco Bay Area

No one will be turned away for lack of funds but we are asking for $2 towards the cost of the Meetup site.

A description of the traditional Imbolc Celebration is below:

Imbolc is a festival of purification and a celebration of the first signs of spring. It is the time when the milk begins to engorge the udders of the livestock in preparation for the first births of spring. It is an important date in the beginning of the agricultural year. Preparations for spring sowing, hiring of farm workers for the coming season, fishermen taking out their boats after staying in for the winter season, seaweed gathering on the coast to be used for fertilizer, and the gathering of shellfish all begin at that this time. The larder of the housewife and the hay stores of the farmer were also checked to make sure that only half had been consumed.

Most of the elements of the traditional celebration can be seen, as referring to match making, romance and fertility: the men, having the charge of making the "little Brid doll" often from the dasher of a churn; the women preparing the "bed" for the don; the churning of butter; the emphasis on birth and milking; and the use of straw, which was the traditional material for the birthing bed for human and beast alike, etc.

In folk practice, it appears mostly as a holiday centered on the household, but it can easily be turned into a community celebration as well.