Image courtesy Liz Barney, 2024.
After the sparkle of the winter holidays, many look outward into gray. But as the days grow longer, the hint of warmth appears—and on the first weekend of February, Imbolc arrives.
The Celtic holiday of Imbolc marks the halfway point between the Winter Solstice (Yule) and Spring Equinox (Ostara). Literally translating to “in the belly” in Gaelic, it is the name of the holiday indigenous to the Gaelic and Celtic peoples across Ireland and Scotland. The holiday has its roots tied to livestock breeding, planting for the year’s harvest, and honoring Brigid, a queer goddess of healing, poetry, wisdom, and smithing—and whose lore includes performing ritual abortions.
Through the advent of Christianity and the colonization of Ireland and Scotland by the English, the holiday was sanitized, spayed, and stripped of its ancient roots. The closest equivalent we have in the United States is Groundhogs’ Day.
In other words, we replaced a female goddess with a groundhog.
Since 2023, my project titled after the holiday is an attempt to reclaim Imbolc by encouraging, convincing, and supporting more people each year to celebrate it. As an intradependent network of events that honors the start of spring with music, food, and gathering on the first weekend of February, the celebration now regularly occurs across Detroit, Michigan with 10+ events over 5 days.
Imbolc not only reclaims the holiday; it also offers a warm counterpoint to the cold isolation the end of winter often brings and provides intimate platforms for musicians, deejays, poets, chefs, community organizers, cultural workers, and neighbors to present works-in-progress, left-field paths, and care practices.
View more about the project on its own website here.
