(Fell on the 1st August and the New Moon in 2008, in the Southern Hemisphere. For information on the Southern Wheel of the Year, click the label at end of post.)
Known as Bride's Day (pron. bride-ee) in Scotland, also known as Brigit's Day, Imbolc, Candlemas and the Feast of the Purification of the Virgin in the Christian calendar.
The colours of Bride's Day are white and yellow.
In Australia, Wattle Day "is traditionally celebrated by the handing out and wearing of sprigs of wattle and the planting of wattle trees." It is officially celebrated on the 1st of September, which is also the official start of Spring on the Australian calendar. (Wattle Day)
The golden wattles flower from July to September and make the late Winter and Spring a glorious golden yellow. The Southern Wheel puts Brigit's Day right in the middle of their flowering time. (Gardening Australia, Caer Australis)
For Bride's Day 2008 I went to the Druids Down Under event in Narrabeen.
We started with Brendan's candle-making workshop. We made sand candles, which is candles make in a bucket of sand with the sand forming the mould around an object pressed into it. I had just been reading about making sand candles so it was great to try it out. The results were great and inspired me to start recycling the melted candles from my altar at home.
Julie had set up a small altar in the circle of paper lanterns. On it she put an orange candle and native flowers in bloom. The altar looked nice in the daylight but as the light faded it really came into its own, glowing beautifully, with all the elemental candles, as well as the candles we made, tea lights, and tiny heart candles.
As we held the ritual the sun set and it started to get dark under the trees. The paper lanterns hanging in a circle between the trees started to glow and flicker. The whole effect was very atmospheric.
As part of the ritual Julie told a story of the creation of summer and winter by the brothers the forest and the sun. It was very apropriate to the Australian climate and landscape. Later there was a round-robin myth telling, with each person adding a few sentences to form a narrative. It ended up as a rather lovely story of transformation.
