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The Lactating Ewes of Imbolc

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I don’t know much about cows.

Or sheep.

Lollie-Pop from Cape Town, South Africa

By "Lollie-Pop" on Wikimedia

 

I know that cows tip (not from personal experience, though). I know that sheep are cute, and I love their hair. I was just working with some last night.

I also, on occasion, like to eat a bit of both.

I’m a city boy, born and bred. I don’t really pattern my day-to-day life around the ways of farm animals. A few of my more hipster friends are keeping bees and chickens. They have a different relationship to animals than I do, because they care for them. But me? I have 3 dogs and a teenager (who is a bit of a farm animal), but they all fall into the same patterns of city life as do my husband and I.

And yet somehow I find myself — an urbanite, a man with no direct connection to the ways of the farm — pondering the significance of a lactating ewe.

Thank you, Paganism.

Imbolc is upon us. Some have already celebrated the holiday, and many Pagans across the land are making preparations for their grove gatherings, their circle circlings, and their solitary rituals. For some, Imbolc is celebrated with the same fervor and devotion that many reserve for Yule. All eight are equal, right? But for others, Imbolc is somewhat of an obscure spoke on the Wheel of the Year, and I think that may have something to do with the whole livestock thing.

It is said that for the ancient Celts, Imbolc (Óimelc in Middle Irish or Ouimelko in Old Irish) was celebrated when the ewes began to produce milk…or something to that effect. Their lactation was a sign of new life returning to the world. Google “imbolc, cows, sheep” and you can preview a number of sites which will tell you some variation of that story, and I’ve got a half a dozen books on my shelf that say as much.

While I feel a kind of Pagan obligation to accept the lactation of ewes in ancient Celtic culture as deeply relevant, I’m having a little difficulty doing so. I live in a culture that has put a concrete chasm between the pasture and the dinner table, and I participate in that culture. I’m very much a part of it. I’m not growing my own food, or keeping sheep, or doing anything remotely agricultural.

Should I be, though? I mean, as a Pagan, should I be taking steps in that direction?

Sometimes I think the greatest gift that Neopagan traditions offer modern city dwellers, like myself, is a blueprint for what life was like before the Industrial Age so that we (or our descendants) might be better prepared for what life will be like after our industries, grids and interwebs have all come apart. It’s a little Thunderdome–y, I know, but it may not be that far off from the truth.

Our way of life — MY way of life — is not sustainable. Not for generations, at least, and arguably not even for the duration of my lifetime. I consume more than my fair share, globally speaking. Most Americans do. Even Pagans.

It is conceivable that in two or three generations time, all of the conveniences that we enjoy now — the readily available food, power, and imported resources — will be little more than a page from the history books… presuming we still have books.

My beekeeping friends, along with their pickle canning counterparts in Brooklyn, the rooftop gardeners in Chicago, and the urban homesteaders in warehouses across the country may have a leg up on the rest of us. They’re preparing themselves for a time when there will be no Safeways, Krogers, King Soopers, or Wal-Marts. They’re reconnecting with the rhythms of life in a way that Pagans, like myself, sometimes only talk about.

(I feel like I’m having some sort of reckoning here.)

Imbolc is as a fire celebration, and fire is much easier for me to wrap my mind around. Fire represents inspiration to me, and passion. I honor Brighid every time I approach my altar, and this is Her holiday; Her fire.

Perhaps, though, there can be a connection between the fire of inspiration — the fire of new ideas, new patterns, new creation — and this inquiry into my food, my lifestyle, and how those things intersect with being a Pagan in the modern world. Perhaps on this Imbolc, Brighid will ignite some fire in me that will illuminate ways in which I can better align myself with the rhythms of the earth. Perhaps I will see in the mind of my heart some memory of a simpler time; an ancient world that my spirit belonged to, and still belongs to. Perhaps when that happens I will think of the ewe, and the newborn sheep, and I will see in them something true about the world, about myself, and about the Great Mystery to which we all belong.

That would be something.

Until then, I’m going to go knit my wool shawl and think about what to make for lunch.

Stock The Pantry and Tend The Dirt

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I don’t can. My mom has in the past, but she never taught me how. I borrowed a big book on canning from her once, and it sat in my kitchen for an entire Autumn, unopened.

I don’t pickle. My grandma did, on my father’s side. She was from the South, a land of pickling strange things. I didn’t ask her much about pickling before her mind went, and she passed away a few years back. She took that knowledge with her.

I don’t harvest, in any literal sense. We have the frames for raised beds in our backyard, but we’ve yet to fill them with dirt. We’re thinking about doing it in the Spring, or possibly this Autumn if we can put a plan together. We may plant kale, if we can learn what kale needs to survive. Water, I gather, and light. The basics. But there are other details, I’m sure.

I write about all of this because it occurs to me that in spite of my Pagan practices and my Druidic studies, I’m extraordinarily disconnected from the land. My food arrives on semi-trucks, my clothing is shipped in from overseas and my gasoline is the stuff of global conflict. It may be more accurate to say that I’m connected to many lands, and a consumer of all of them. But I don’t get dirty in order to eat… literally, I mean. There is something dirty in the way I get my food, for sure.

I’m feeling a disconnect, and I don’t think I’m the only one.

Survival of the Pagans

Star Foster wrote about survivalism, and what some would consider the practical, and others the reactionary practice of storing stockpiles of food in the basement. I think she’s onto something. She writes:

Paganism is about examining your life, being realistic about your material, spiritual and emotional needs, and honoring the past by looking towards the future. While I don’t think Pagans should build bomb shelters and start reckoning against a possible doomsday, stocking your pantry to give yourself some added security in an uncertain economy sounds pretty Pagan to me.

There is a spiritual component to all of this, too, and it is one that I believe Pagan’s have a responsibility to consider. After all, we pay lip service to the land throughout the year, picking up our ritual items at Big Box stores, serving our pre-packaged food on plastic plates at the end of our rites. We are not always the bastians of environmental responsibility, or aware of our direct connection to the land, for that matter. We fall short as often as anyone else.

The difference is, we talk about the land all the time. We tell stories about Old Gods who governed over the fields, but we rarely step foot in the fields ourselves. In some ways, it would be more appropriate for us to worship gods who govern the produce aisle, or the food processing plants, or the deities of the drive through.

Environmental awareness is theological awareness. That is a cornerstone of Pagan Theology, is it not? The Earth is sacred, alive, and sentient. There are unseen forces that influence and shape the physical world, and if we choose to worship them should we not also seek to honor them by being discerning about how we make use of the physical world? Perhaps it isn’t so much a question of survivalism, but rather one of responsible and ethical relationship to the land on which we live and worship.

How Are We Relevant?

I was struck by the absence of any mention of the global environmental crisis at a recent Lughnasadh ritual I attended. There was great emphasis put on the story of Lugh, but none put on how the idea of “harvest” is connected to the state of the land, or how the weather is literally affecting the crops, or how the story of an ancient Celtic God is in any way relevant in a modern society that is, as John Michael Greer might put it, on the long descent toward the end of the Industrial Age.

As a person who is relatively new to Paganism, and who is seeking to understand the relevance of these traditions and practices in a modern context, I was troubled by the disconnect between the old stories being told and the current realities we face. That may be one of Christianity’s great strengths; its ability to contextualize the central messages of the faith into a modern context. Hope, love, redemption, forgiveness — these concepts and experiences are constantly brought into a modern perspective in order for them to remain relevant to the religion’s followers.

Are Pagans doing that? If our central message is that we are more relevant than Christians because the roots of our religious practice extend deeper into the past than theirs, we’re not destined for a very long shelf life. Who cares about how ancient your practice is? A tradition isn’t relevant because it’s old. It’s relevant because it speaks to something that is happening in the world right now. And we should be asking ourselves — how does our tradition speak to the state of the world at this moment in history?

Pagans, in my view, along side anyone who holds the Earth as sacred and central to their religious practice, have a distinct opportunity to step forward and offer the world a message that is relevant to all people at this moment in history. We are in the grips of an ecological crisis, one that influences all aspects of our life. Economics, health-care, food scarcity and the distribution of wealth — It all starts with the Earth. If the Earth is in disrepair, by extension all the living things and active systems on the planet will, too, be in disrepair.

Getting Back To Basics

So, I look again at my backyard and at my pantry. There is space for dirt back there, and space on the shelves for jars and cans, should I choose to do the hard work. A backyard garden is a long way from sustainable farming, but it’s a step in the right direction. Even engaging in a discussion about what we eat, where it comes from, and how it arrives on our dinner plate brings us into a state of awareness of our relationship to the land.

And I don’t care if you identify as Pagan or not — we’re all living on this land, and we’re all a part of it. Deifying it isn’t necessary in order to live on it… but it, too, is a step in the right direction.

 

If this post sparked some ideas, please post them in the comments. And, as always, I’m grateful for you sharing this post on Facebook, Twitter, or Google+!