Writing Brigit


Writing Brigit

Many years ago I wrote my first Brigit prayer. Poem. Blessing... I have been writing them ever since, but seldom publish them. Some are carefully researched and crafted, some are simple and straight from the heart. (Belated update: I did eventually publish a book called A Brigit of Ireland Devotional - Sun Among Stars. It contains many of my Brigit poems and prayers, essays, and resources.)

The prayers and blessings of my sisters in the Daughters of the Flame and other Brigit-loving women and men, living and long-dead, fill me with surprise and delight, as well.

I would like to share some of these writings with you.

Following is the one that signs off each of my emails, a reminder to guide my words and intentions with care when I write to anyone. It's as good a place to start as any.


Flame Offering

In the name of the three Brigits

I light the candle of my heart

May I offer it to everyone

gentle and steady

warm and bright



10 December 2015

"The Forge" by Seamus Heaney


Not exactly a Brigit poem, but as goddess of smithcraft, she certainly has a hand in here.

Seamus Heaney. My hero.



The Forge
by Seamus Heaney

All I know is a door into the dark.
Outside, old axles and iron hoops rusting;
Inside, the hammered anvil’s short-pitched ring,
The unpredictable fantail of sparks
Or hiss when a new shoe toughens in water.
The anvil must be somewhere in the centre,
Horned as a unicorn, at one end and square,
Set there immoveable: an altar
Where he expends himself in shape and music.
Sometimes, leather-aproned, hairs in his nose,
He leans out on the jamb, recalls a clatter
Of hoofs where traffic is flashing in rows;
Then grunts and goes in, with a slam and flick
To beat real iron out, to work the bellows.


1969

BBC Radio Ulster's "Your Place and Mine" features a clip on the man who inspired "The Forge". Find it here:


The Forge
On this week’s programme, we pay tribute to the late Barney Devlin - the blacksmith who inspired the famous poem by Seamus Heaney.





Photo: Blacksmith Stephen Quinn, from Craft in Ireland.
For more on the blacksmith in Ireland and Stephen Quinn, read The Tuam Herald "Iron, art and inspiration & keeping the blacksmith's craft alive", by Tony Galvin.

18 November 2015

“At Sea”





At Sea

the greater the net
the more the mending
the vaster the ocean
the longer the waves

i)
sew    snip    restore our nets
brats stuffed in pockets
tied on waists
keep us from harm

we enter boats
hazel frame and ox hide
bob on lisping seas

you watch over us   Brigit
drive our way
shoals of glinting backs
steady our vessels of skin
stay the billows from pouring us
a living offering to the deep

monsters of the sea
cry out your name
when danger overwhelms
resting on your steady thoughts
they find their way unhurt

ii)
on solid ground
I find myself canting
neither fluid nor firm I turn
to you again

day dawns    yawns   subsides
months stretch long then end
seasons hand   one to one  
each to the next
in orderly procession

and every twenty nights
I light your flame again

as your festival reminds us
to prepare our fishing gear
ready ourselves to face
the leaping shoals
the rhythm of your flame
guides me to wakening   to duty
to the long-made promise to live
as best I can

inviting   stilling   urging me onward
you are my compass   my rudder  
my anchor and my steady star

on the eternal shifting sea


Mael Brigde

Copyright Casey June Wolf (2015)
Currach in Dunquin Harbour (1960), geograph.org.uk - 544728

27 October 2015

“Brighid Dreams the Poet” by Erynn Rowan Laurie



Brighid Dreams the Poet

I want a poet
with words of honey
and bitter dregs
of red Hungarian wine
dressed in the bones of birds
with wild
ecstatic eyes
and feet that dance the bonfire's rim

I want a poet
with many souls
souls of mice
and tigers
souls of ravenous
hungry ghosts
and the singing souls of rivers
of wallowing, bellowing buffalo
souls of moths, and geckos

I want a poet
with eyes of crystal shards
that see through flesh
and spy  the hearts of trees
and mountains' bones
with thin, strong fingers
to pluck the hawthorns' bloom
in Beltain's dawning dews

I want a poet
with ballads for breath
and chants
to scatter fear from the deeps of night
or call the wren
from her nest
with spells to lay children to sleep
and bind the rising moon

I want a poet
with fur and claws
and hot, panting tongue
thirsty
and seeking the spring


Erynn's book of poetry, Fireflies at Absolute Zero, is available from Hiraeth Press. It won the won the Bisexual Book Award for Poetry in 2013.

Fireflies at Absolute Zero is a map of a life, written in location and longing, its calligraphy the surreal moments between dream and waking. The poems are shaped by myth, the Gaelic poetic tradition, dream worlds, personal history, and the grey-green landscape of the Salish Sea. From snowfall in the Hoh rainforest to the sensuality of a lover’s touch, the poems span decades of a life in motion, finally finding a home between the mountains and waters of the Pacific Northwest.”

18 October 2015

“For the River” and “Your Sword”




For the River

I thank you for the river
that flows far from sunlight
for the hidden opening of that stream
for the sacred grove that rises from those waters
for the sacred wisdom pouring from those leaves


Mael Brigde




Your Sword

goddess of smiths
your sword bisects me


Mael Brigde


Poems copyright Casey June Wolf (2015)
Calligraphy by Thich Nhat Hanh
Smith: Uncredited

25 September 2015

"Friend of Mary"

Not Brigit or Mary, but St. Lucy in the appropriate garb.

Friend of Mary

brilliant Bride
radiant flame—
Mary’s midwife

you eased tiny Jesus
into our world’s golden light
fostered him
as any Scottish noble would
wore a crown
—flaming harrow—
Mary’s shield from eager eyes
shy mother come for cleansing
after birth

words pass between you
whispered request for swaddling
quiet chuckle at your
irreverent babe-remarks
this woman of desert reaches
you    of rocky isles
bound in ways that cleave through
place and time

what wise and wondrous
feat of prayer transported you

to her—long ages parted—
needy side



Mael Brigde

Copyright Casey June Wolf (2015)



To read more about this poem and the writing of it, please visit Another Fine Day in the Scriptorium.

"Goddess of Smiths"


Goddess of Smiths

breath dissolving iron
liquid bronze and gold
white heat who destroys
with one cruel blow
you guide the hammer   Brigit
death and life together
forging to shatter 
shattering to forge anew

and what is fashioned

cookpot for the hospitaller
vast enough to hold a cow
ale crock   chariot furnishing
offering dish   cloak pin
sword

beat me on your anvil   Brigit
melt me in your pot
knit me solid
make me whole
bring from me a fine bossed cauldron
offering to your endless round

in this life and the next
this life and the next



Mael Brigde
Poem copyright Casey June Wolf (2013).
First appeared in Brigit: Sun of Womanhood, edited by Patricia Monaghan and Michael McDermott.

09 September 2015

Early Days: Bríd's Chant


         

a small turn sunwise
in the weaving of the cross
the three‑armed cross of Bríd
another small turn
and the cross’s spinning done
and the tying of the ends and tucking in

a long glance up
to the trailing of the sun
to the long trailing strands of the goddess
filtering in through the curtain of the leaves
the curtain of the garment of the trees


           Mael Brigde (1990)
           Copyright Casey June Wolf (2015)


This chant does have a tune. Sound quality is not great, but here goes anyway.

(Cross by E.E. Evans, in Irish Folkways)