Silence and Gathering
The time before Imbolc is special, and you can use it to prepare to make magic. Here’s how.
As I write this, I am in a beautiful old hotel in Cornwall that overlooks the coastline. There is a wide sandy beach below, dotted with couples and dogs and others who are braving the cold wind because they like the sea air.
I came here to have my time for silence and gathering. Now, to be clear, I am not actually being physically silent. In fact, I expect to do a lot of talking to my friends who are here with me and to other people I may meet along the way. I’m also not gathering physical objects. I expect to leave here with no more than I came with. But I am here, in the scant few weeks before the Imbolc Sabbat, to have what I’ve come to think of as the Time for Silence and Gathering.
What do I mean by that? Is that really a thing?
And the answer to that second question is — it’s a thing for me. Whether you want it to be a thing for you is your business entirely. What I mean by it has to do with the way that I view Imbolc.
I view Imbolc not just as a Sabbat about Brighid and about newborn sheep and goats who are “in the milk.” Imbolc is the next step beyond Yule. At Yule we celebrate the turning of the tide, the time when slowly, but surely, and with gathering speed, the light now takes over from the dark. Some call Yule the rebirth of the light. If at Yule light is a little newborn babe, at Imbolc the light roars forth into open flame like a surly teenager who’s mad that mom won’t give them the keys to the car.
As I have said before, Imbolc is the moment when we as humans light a hearth fire, which is an act of open rebellion against the darkness. Imbolc is the moment when we express the audacious notion that we need not resign ourselves to the cold and to the dark. We can, by taking action, be warm and venture to be awake at night. We are not entirely subject to the whims of nature — we can assert our will.
If you’re new to the Craft and to magic generally, let me tell you something about will — it lies at the core of magical practice of any kind. Because magic, at it’s core, is humankind harnessing the tools of the spirit world to bend the Universe to their will. The term “Wicca” is said to mean “to bend” and therefore heartens to that principle of Magic being the act of bending the arc of reality.
And contrary to many other spiritual paths, your will is not something to be ashamed of or subjugated to a higher power. Some even go so far to say that nothing and no one should supersede your will as a magical being. While I am not entirely sure that is true, I do know that one’s will is not the same thing as one’s wants. And often the hardest part of bending the Universe to your will is understanding what the fuck your will actually is.
What one wills is something more existential than what one merely wants. Will is more than desire for a thing, it is desire that has crossed into no-holds-barred actualization. While there are tons of white women with crystals and vision boards who talk about how they’re “manifesting,” that isn’t quite will, really. Earnestness, visualization or even repetition does not transform desire to will. Something is a matter of will when you have marshaled all your spiritual and physical power in furtherance of a thing. Nothing more, and certainly nothing less. Bringing the weight of your will to bear on a thing is a much trickier thing to do than you might think.
So for me, Imbolc is that moment where we claim our magical birthright, when we boldly announce that we are ready to assert our will in the Universe, rather than merely be buffeted about by the tides of change. We claim the audacity of humanity, the belief that despite our puny bodies and weak teeth and claws, we are not prey to be hunted, nor are we predators driven by hunger and instinct. We are creators, builders, healers, lovers, fools, and all manner of things fair and foul, and we will exert our will across this plane of existence, for good or for ill. We are not content to stay in the dark and the cold. We will not wait for nature or our gods to release us from this season of death. Rather, we will light the flame and cast off the chains of winter ourselves, by taming the most unruly and fearsome of all the elements — fire. (I sometimes wonder why we don’t also celebrate Prometheus during this time, for this very reason.)
The kind of audacity and courage that happens in that moment where the chains are broken and we are free, there is a need for a prelude. Between the time of Yule, when hope returns and the light begins to ascend over darkness, and Imbolc where humankind boldly proclaims its willfulness, there is a slow gathering of energy. It is so slow as to be almost imperceptible to anyone who isn’t looking for it closely. There is some anticipation, but the energy leading into Imbolc is quiet. It is patient. It knows that nothing can happen before it is absolutely the time for it to occur.
This is where we are right now.
And during this time, I turn inward, and start searching the dark, quiet places inside me, particularly the ones that don’t often find their way to the surface of my life. I look for the feelings, the desires, the fears. So much has been brewing in my subconscious. I’ve put things off, or held them at bay. Sometimes there is good reason for this. Some desires are venal and their realization ultimately would not benefit me, however gleeful I might be at the prospect of them. Some fears and insecurities just need to be silenced because they are in fact, lies I am telling myself. Some things are beautiful gems that have stayed hidden because they are so beautiful, so true, I can barely breathe when I look upon them, and I need to summon courage to speak their names.
In this quiet time, where the promise that the light will return has bathed my path in hope, I can sort through the things I think I want, the things that I feel, and the things I am hoping aren’t really there. I gather myself to make ready for the moment when I may declare myself, when I can light the beacon fires and announce that I am here, and what I will matters.
If you want to gather yourself for that moment too, here are some ideas:
Take some time to journal about your life. Writing things down, literally slowing your brain down to the speed at which you can produce letters with a pen or a keyboard, or record them into a digital format, is helpful for parsing your thoughts when they seem jumbled, or too numerous, or too mysterious to articulate. Prompts can be helpful.What are the things you are pleased with and grateful for? What are the things that you feel aren’t going so well? What are the things you yearn for? And are they things that will truly benefit you, or would having those things bring with them unfortunate consequences and collateral damage?
Engage in devotional work. If you work with deities, spend a little extra time in communion with them, and ask for their thoughts and guidance. Include a longer and deeper listening component to your devotional time. Consider writing down some of the things that emerge from your devotion time.
Use Divination Tools. Divination, whether it’s using a tarot deck or runes or bibliomancy or whatever tool you find most resonant, can be helpful in guiding your thoughts at this time. Spend time meditating on the result of your divination efforts. Of course, don’t undermine yourself.
Take long walks in nature. Changing your surroundings is a great way to get your brain into a different way of thinking, by literally putting it in a different space. You don’t have to travel to the coastline of Cornwall to do this, you can do this by going to a park near your house. As a pagan or witch, the natural world is a touchstone that we can use to access deeper elements of our psyche. And many of us know how to read the encounters we have with nature to understand messages the Universe may have as to what we really want or need.
Perform cleansing rituals. Now is a really good time to use your magic to draw off negative energy, any stray spirits or spiritual residue that may have been clinging to you. If you are in any kind of healing or service profession, or do any kind of priestex work, regular attention must be given to cleansing the negative energy from people you have worked with that might have started sticking to you as you unstuck it from them. There are lots of ways to do it, don’t get stressy about which one you use, just make sure you do something on the regular. When you are finished, you might have a much clearer head about what you want or don’t want going forward.
And when Imbolc comes, my hope is that you ignite the beacon fires in your life, and light the path for your will to be made real.
Blessed be, y’all.