Imbolc Path Working
I am the darkness at the source of the well.
I am the place where the waiting seeds swell
I am the cave of the earth serpents' sleeping.
All things wait in My cairn's keeping..
The rounded grey stones of the well shine bright with green moss in the luminescent twilight. Withered grasses and the sharp brown umbrils of dead meadowsweet guard the depths.
Above, slender Rowan boughs net the darkening sky with a tracery of black lace. A solitary berry, overlooked by te hungry birds, hangs like a drop of dried blood over the well. It is Winter and the earth is crusted hard, dusted with silver frost.
It is not yet Spring, yet look up. The dry twigs are swelling at the tips, hinting greens as yet unborn.
Look down. Look down into the waters of the winter well. Look down into the darkness. Look through the reflection of your own being. Look into yourself, into Herself.
Look deeper. In the eye of the well, in the dark water, is a single flame, small and clear. Look deeper still. The quiet light illuminates a cavern, an earth cairn, the source of the well, where the water waits as yet unrisen. The flame burns, a small quiet leaf of fire. There around the silent pool coil two serpents, dark in their interlocked sleep.They rest, patterned in a knot of winter rest. They lie as yet unrisen. And look, silhouetted against the stone, there stands a figure. Tall, she is, a woman veiled in black and deepest amethyst, but through the dark veil her eyes glow like small flames. She waits, drawing you into her darkness. The Goddess speaks "I am the darkness at the source of the well." Now the stillness is within you. You feel the ageless cold of stone, the withering of flower and leaf, the cyclical lonely death of winter. The Goddess speaks "I am the cave of the serpents' sleeping" Now within the cold quietness, there is movement. The snakes are stirring. There is gentle undulation, a reforming of coiled pattern. Movement grows stronger. They writhe faster, forming a circle of interwoven darkness and light. The movement is within you. Within the waiting womb of your being is a memory of light and fire. It winds and weaves turning through the deep coldness. Within you is a stirring, a disturbing, a searching, a longing for the linking of love. The Goddess speaks "I am the place where the waiting seeds swell." The figure is brighter now. Her robes shine darkly purple in the flame light. She holds out her hands. Cupped between them is a small golden bowl, round and smooth. From within it shines a soft green light. The green glow grows, illuminating the veiled face of the Goddess. The bowl draws you, warms you, as you reach out to take it into your own open hands. Look into the bowl. Nested in green moss lie seeds of all kinds, seeds like drifting brown dust, round seeds of mottled green. Grey winged or wrinkled black, they lie waiting. Although none have yet germinated, all are swollen with potential fecundity, a promise of fertility. The bowl is warm as you hold it in your hands, cradle it to your breast. Now within you is a heart's warmth, a seeding of hope. And you feel the hopes of your heart's depths swell into longing. The Goddess speaks "All things wait in my cairn of keeping." The dark Goddess shines. She lifts her hands and they gleam pale in the flame light. The snake weaving changes, moving faster, becoming a rising coil, a spiral of rising pattern, a great cone of darkness and light, now shot through with fiery reds, now gold and green. Brighter, the whirling cone rises higher around the leaf blade flame. And the water is whipped into a cauldron of bubbling pattern. Higher and brighter rises the swirling knot, up into the eye of the well, swept up into the starlit air, straightening swift as swords stabbing the night. And they are gone, released to the winter dark. There is a stillness within the earth cairn. It is the stillness of waiting, of anticipation. You breathe the waiting hope deep into your mouth. It fills your throat, rises through your head, a cold clear frosty clarity enhancing all your senses. You are revitalized with the awareness of the Goddess in the moment of transition. She lifts Her pale hands once more, and Her white arms glow like frosted tree limbs. And then she is transformed, clothed with a white light, bright as Spring snow. Now she stands before you, a slender beautiful woman ,all in white, her white hair flowing around her, shimmering like fresh snowfall or falling like river thaw And you also are filled with light, clear and lonely as a February dawn. She surrounds you, enters you, transforms you with her cold illumination and anticipation. In the clear white light the walls of the earth cairn fade away and you find yourself standing once more beside the winter well, under the dark tree canopy. Now She speaks within you. The Goddess speaks with your own voice. "I am bereft and lonely. I am cold. I cry out for the comfort of the dark cairn, for the shielding peace of the dark veil. I have held to myself the dreaming seeds, cradled them and sheltered them with my body. Now they are scattered each to individual growth. They must search out light and warmth, each in competition, seeking dominance. And I have let them go for I may nurture but I may not control. I have held to myself the pattern of the serpents' sleeping. Now they are released to follow the heroes' path. They have entered into the conflict of hunter and hunted, each searching ever for the other, they will hunt for me. But I will pursue them to the year's end. I am bereft and lonely in my compassion. I have birthed the years turning. The earth womb is empty. I cry in my compassion. The joy and sorrow of it. Oh the joy and sorrow of the heroes' path that is now loosed upon the earth. For I also must play my part in this cycle taking in turn the role of bride and lover, mother and queen until at the last I gather all back into my cairn's keeping where tears of joy and sorrow become one with dreams of promise." The night is dark and cold. Slender branches of Rowan shine in frosty splendor under a crescent moon. The earth is hard and frozen. All seems Winter. But there is a new fragrance in the clear air. The promise of Spring. | 
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