The story goes that it is the Cailleach, the divine hag of Celtic lore, who controls the weather. And that on Imbolc she decides whether the winter should be a long one or not. If she decides it should be, she makes the day bright so she can see well, to more easily gather enough firewood to last the cold. But if it is a gray day, the country folk know that the Cailleach is sleeping, and know that she will bring an early end to the season. The serpents and badgers follow her out, they say, if she goes gathering, and you know where that tradition leads.

(Others say that the Cailleach was frozen to stone eons ago, and now waits, facing the ocean for her husband Manannán, God of the Sea to return to her. If such beings exist, who are we mortals to say that both stories can not be equally true?)

But Imbolc, the festival of Brigid,  is the festival of the first milk of the ewes, and the end of the dark season begun at Samhain. Samhain was when the cattle were winnowed, when the veil between the living and the dead was at its thinnest. When it was all too easy to slip over to the other side, or be taken there if one was unwary. (And oh what we’ve done to that tradition, too…)

At Imbolc the first buds break. Crocus and daffodil and snowdrops poke their heads out of the soggy earth, signaling the end of the culling and the re-emergence of light and life.

I, for one, am ready.

No, it’s not the winter weather that’s gotten to me – honestly, the dark mornings feel comforting. And I could do with a lot more snow before I’m ready to put up my skis. But the culling has been hard. More than a couple of close friends have lost teachers, brothers and sons these past few weeks. Some after long illnesses, but a couple were taken quickly and senselessly. Much too young to have left this earth, too young to have left the families who are still trying to grapple with the enormity of their loss.

I’m ready for that to stop happening.