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



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.”

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