Sat 1st Feb 2025, Isle of Skye

The Isles of Brighid

The light which was reborn at the Winter Solstice seems barely to have grow by the time we reach Imbolc. In these northern latitudes it often feels that quite the opposite has occurred and that we have been plunged into an even deeper darkness.

The Monday which occurs around the 20th January has been named Blue Monday, aid to be the most depressing day of the year. It’s a day in which travel agents see a flurry of bookings. January can be the psychologically darkest time of the year, and we have a host of anxiety ridden issue to chose from - from war, to social justice, loss of habitat resulting in declining populations of wild birds and animals while over fishing and pollution of the seas which is decimating marine life.

Looming worries and concern at this time of year isn’t uniquely a modern issue as our ancestors also faced a bleak time with food supplies dwindling. January was fittingly called Wolf Month in Gaelic, when the wolves circled closer to town driven by hunger. Just as we face our uncertainties, so did they and yet one thing we have in common is our ability to find solace in this time, in the hope and strength of Brighid’s return.

It is fitting that this ancient fire Goddess returns to the world at the darkest point, bringing her light, a source of hope. She offers an active hope and invites us to make our own difference in the world - starting with ourselves, then rippling out to our family and friends, neighbors and community.

Paper doll collage

Who Is Your Brighid

From ancient triple Goddess (made up of Brighid and her three sisters) to Saint and the Gaelic figure of Mary of the Gael (the fostermother of the Christ) - who is your Brighid? We will explore what stories speak to you through creating a collage. You might not he words to describe your Brighid and so we will use images , colours and words to create a collage which speaks to your relationship with Brighid.

Creating a Brighids Cross

Your Brighid’s cross, which we will make from paper, is something to hold your love, grief and hope. We will add on colours, sysmbols or words throughout the day. A traditional sysmbol made at this time of year but also something people made for those going through hard times, or to celebrate something - a way to bring Brighid in however needed.

I’ll share a story in which the women gather on Imbolc even - standing hip to hip from outside of the house under a dark sky scattered with stars, in over the threshold of the house, to the welcoming hearth and a small bed set by the fire - this story invites you into the sacred ritual of inviting Brighid in.

Create a Brideog Doll

We will share some stories of Brighid and gather some fabric (which were left out the previous night to absorb the dew that gathered as Brighid returned to the world) and shells, sticks and wool to create a traditional Brideog doll. You can add small items such as a shell, pendant or other natural object to represent personal stories and meaning.

Brighid as Threshold Goddess. Midwife of life and death

Brighid is a threshold Goddess, one who was a guide to the women who worked with bringing life into the world, and those who guided the soul back home at the end of life. She is there with the midwife who helps the woman in labour, and to the woman who stands on the threshold of the house and calls on Brighid to come and be with the woman.

Brighid was called on by the Keening woman, the Bean Chaointe in the Irish tradition and caoineadh or tuireadh, coronach (in lowland Scots) and the woman who leads her community through their grief, as well as guiding the soul back home.

Keening Circle

Reclaiming keening is a way to help us express our grief. The majority of us have been brought up in what Francis Weller calls a ‘grief-phobic and death-denying’ culture. A culture which doesn’t talk about death and where death is quickly taken away, and we mourn our dead in funerals without showing emotion. Reclaiming keening allows us to create spaces for us to share our stories of both love and loss. The music and structure of traditional songs helps us move through and express our emotions, offering a cathartic release.
We will sing a traditional lament, a song whose melody helps express emotion, from love to loss and grief. A song to pour your personal grief into as the melody holds us.

Radical Hope

Sharing our grief, acknowledging them through our collage and Brighids cross brings us to the active hope Brighid offers. A figure who was very much an activist. In engaging with Brighid invites us to engage with the change we wish for the world, and doing so without knowing what the future holds.

Your Guide

As an artist and Cultural Activist, Jude Lally is rooted in the inspiration of her Ancestral Mothers. Her work explores her relationship with the land through art, ritual, imagination and creativity. 

 She uses the inspiration of old traditions to meet modern needs. While keening, was traditionally a way to ament the death of someone in the community, Jude uses it today as a way to address modern needs in allowing an expression of  grief we hold for all that is happening across the planet. In using keening in this cathartic way she them engages participants with gestures of ritual which help them deal with their grief and then inspires them to work in creative ways in acts of resistance, doing so without knowing what the future holds.

She calls herself a Radical doll maker who views her art as part of a practice that stretches back to the first dolls fashioned from bones and stones – such as the Woman of Willendorf. 

She gained her MSc Masters Degree in Human Ecology at the University of Strathclyde (Glasgow, Scotland)  in partnership with the Center for Human Ecology, with her thesis entitled ‘Fire in the Head, Heart and Hand. A Study of the Goddess Brighid as Goddess Archetype and her Relevance to Cultural Activists in Contemporary Scotland’. She lives in Dumbarton on the west coast of Scotland, near Loch Lomond.