Stone on the Belly: February 2017

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

Songs of the Oystercatcher: Honouring Brihde through the Wheel of the Year by Heather Upfield

16 February 2017

“The Curragh Wrens” by Mael Brigde

The Curragh Wrens [1]

heroic Fionn MacCumhail

dust now in the sidhe

Brigit’s abbey

crumbled musty ruin

who dwells on the proud Curragh?

pennants fly bugles sound gleaming bayonets

barded mounts rumble cross the plain

host of a foreign Queen

outside the troops’

untarnished bone-white tents

clasp close for bare necessities

the Curragh Wrens

shelters burned commerce refused them

furze their only nest

in starched gowns they huddle baby at breast

drink with wandering soldiers

by the barrack wall

these your little

neglected night birds Brigit

following love selling their lives

flogged in the streets for their sins

Inspired by “Stoning the Desolate”, by Charles Dickens, from All The Year Round, No. 292 1864.

http://www.kildare.ie/library/ehistory/2012/02/stoning_the_desolate.asp

For James Greenwood’s article in Dickens’ Pall Mall Gazette (1867):

http://www.kildare.ie/library/ehistory/2008/07/the_wrens_of_the_curragh.asp

[1] “...the poor wretches of whom we have spoken are called ‘wrens,’ ‘because they live in holes in the banks’...” James Greenwood in Dickens’ newspaper the Pall Mall Gazette, 1867.