“I’m youth, I’m joy, I’m a little bird that has broken out of the egg.”

~J.M. Barrie, Scottish, Author of Peter Pan

Well here we are at February 14th. The day when the mundane finally catches up with the pagan. Early February is the time of the stirring, the awakening of the seeds that will create life in the cycle to come.

The ancient way is that of the youthful maiden, giggling joyously at the stirring in her heart and her loins. It is girls forgetting that boys have cooties and boys no longer feeling the urge to pull pigtails. It is the butterflies in one’s stomach. It is the first blush, the first kiss.

This is Imbolc, celebrated on February the 2nd each year by Pagans and Wiccans the world over. It is a day sacred to the goddess Bridget, hence the placement of St. Bridget’s Day close to it in the modern calendar. It is the festival of light when we begin to stretch our hope forward out of the darkness of winter and we feel youthful and alive once more.

We do not need to ship our local rodent out before a spray of cameras, for our connection the divine Earth will tell us in our true hearts when we may expect to see the young lady unfold her Spring beauty.

Valentine’s Day is the mundane answer to Imbolc, once a day designed to embrace the sweetness that is new love and to explore the concept of togetherness and joy while the world outside tends to still be cold and unwelcoming.

What has gotten lost in the conversion to Valentine’s Day is the innocence, for this is what the original rites of Imbolc were based upon. The only sweet left in it seems to be the strawberry-filled chocolates and the pink M&Ms that pop up at this time of year.

Imbolc is that strange excited feeling of getting and giving the little valentines cards in your grammar school classroom, always saving your favorite card for the little boy or girl that you like the most…always hoping that they will write XOXOXO on the back of the Valentine that they give you.

Watch a television program or pick up a magazine today and you will see that today’s Valentine’s Day is about being sexy, evoking passion in the bedroom, wearing shiny red silks or satins or velvets, it is about buying the biggest and most sparkly gift you can imagine for your lover, eating luxurious imported chocolates and making reservations at exclusive restaurants.

And don’t forget, if you are shut-out from celebrating by your total lack of a lover, you could always go to a “sorry singles” party and search for the next night-long train wreck in your life.

But it is Imbolc that informs Valentine’s Day, it is the basis upon which the entire concept was sanctified and Imbolc lies ensconced in that very heart of Valentine’s Day. Imbolc tells us a different story about the meaning of Valentine’s Day.

Valentine’s Day is indeed meant to be a celebration of the stirrings of the heart, but this does not mean that it must be a day of bedroom frolics and extravagant marriage proposals. Valentine’s is a day for all love, for all tenderness and innocence of heart. It is a day of thanksgiving for all that love us, whether husband, sister, cousin, mother, friends or coworker.

Send flowers to someone who did something amazing for you years ago, even though you have lost contact. Give your brother a card to say you love him as he is and include a gift certificate for a massage or a movie or a car wash.

It really and truly is the thought that counts in this life, for intention and the power of thought are at the heart of all good, strong magic.

Oh, do woo your significant other if you have one, but also take a moment to realize ALL of the significant others in your life…they that make up the patchwork quilt which keeps you warm in even your darkest hours. That stirring in your heart creates stirrings in their hearts and with this intention continuing from one heart to the next we can indeed create a day for love all over this world.

I give loving thanks for my two best friends, one male, one female, one very opinionated, one impossible to drag an opinion out of…I am in love with them both for together they add a unique balance and cheerfulness to my life.

So now, with an imaginary stack of pink paper hearts in my hand, I set out to brighten with sweetness the day of those whom I love and I say to my readers…

Happy Belated Imbolc!

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