The Goddess Brighid

My starting point with the Celtic Goddess Brighid was in her relationship with midwives, not just midwifes bringing life into the world but also Brighid’s role in midwifing death and guiding the soul home as we return to the otherworld in death. I was especially drawn to her aspect of midwifing death as I go through this transition of menopause and enter into this phase of life where i feel I am developing a different relationship with death.

Place

My connection with place is the bedrock of my spirituality, and my relationship with Brighid was founded in the islands of the Hebrides, a place which is referred to as the Isles of Brighid.

The Goddess Brighid. Triple Goddess of the Hearth

Brighid is a triple goddess made up of the sisters, all called Brighid. Together they are associated with:

Healing - Midwife, herbalists
Smithwork - This was based on the blacksmiths work with the forges, in taking raw materials and transforming them into both practical but beautiful creations. This power of transformation can be experienced through many different arts , as well as working with personal issues
Poetry - From the Druid Filidh who took incubational rituals in the dark to the power of social justice.

Protection

Brighid’s Caim (which we will also cover in the Hot Flush lesson) is a prayer that is a protective prayer that as you recite it, you actively evoke it around you, casting the protection through the prayer. As we go through the stages of menopause, the psychological challengers I find the idea of the Caim, the fact that it exists soothing - a way to work with Brighid.

There are so many charms and prayers in working with Brighid - the Carmina Gaelica is a great source of these (link to the book details at the bottom of the page).

Ritual and Ideas

Brighid offers so much inspiration for ritual and resources for a menopausal journey. She is a fire Goddess, her fire temple at Kildare (Cill Dara, Church of the Oak) was tended to by 19 priestesses.

Healing - Self care, working with unresolved issues
Smithwork - The inspiration of transformation
The inspiration of her many acts of justice, and standing up for women’s rights
Social justice, working in community
A threshold Goddess

Midwife Aspects

Brighid is a figure whose protection is sought by midwifes who attended births and tended to the women.
Brighid is there as midwife bringing new life into the world but Brighid is also called upon as midwife when souls are leaving this world in death and are going home to the Otherworld.
Brighid is also said to have created keening, the first time the world had heard such a lament as she grieved the death of her son

Click on the book images to view on the Better World Books website (second hand bookshop)

As I have mentioned, my connection with place is the bedrock of my spirituality. I’ve long had conversations with the Cailleach since I was around ten years old, which was a few decades before I even learned her name.

The Cailleach

The Cailleach is the great Celtic (or pre-Celtic) crone. One part of her story is that her role in winter is to ensure everything dies, for if things don’t die then there can be no rebirth in spring. The cailleach offers that essence of rebirth and renewal.

Over the years the cailleach’s story has changed and from this powerful figure she has been seen (and still is by some) as this evil old hag who fights with Brighid in spring as she tries to keep winter and is jealous of Brighid’s youth and vitality. This story of course says more about the changing values of society. This is an important point as society views older women as irrelevant and invisible - compared to cultures who honor elders and their wisdom.

Ritual and Ideas

One ritual of the Cailleach’s that has always inspired me is that at Samhain she heads to the whirlpool of Corryvrecken to wash her plaid. When she pulls it out and shakes it dry all the little water droplets freeze and turn the surrounding hills white in the fort dusting of snow. The whirlpool, also called the Cailleach’s cauldron is also a great metaphor for menopause as women have described getting knocked of their feet, turned upside down - shakes and completely gone through the whirlpool when I tell the story of the whirlpool - much like the journey some of us go through in peri menopause.

The Cailleach offers a creation story in the folklore where she carries a great load of boulders and as she jumps from hill to hill she drops them creating the landscape. As her story is rooted in Celtic, or possibly pre-celtic times, she comes from the land itself and is a powerful testament of connecting to the landscape, of natures cycle observing the wheel of the year and its festivals.

Cailleach doll by the Loch of the Big Women, Isle of Eigg

Midwife Aspects

One of her roles is that in winter she strikes life down dead, trees and plants sending their energies back down to their roots, just as hibernating creatures take to their winter dwellings. Without this dying back, this dramatic change there would be no renewal, no rebirth in spring. This is a story I relate to in menopause, the cutting back, the stripping down in preparing for the deep - the place of transformation, of change. For without the deep transformational period there is no return, no renewal in spring, no emerging out into post menopause.