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



03 February 2022

"A Charm for a Person Living With an Illness or Pain" by Jennifer Parsons

 


A Charm for a Person Living With an Illness or Pain

Fiery Brighid, shaper of stars,
Bear your hammer down upon this one’s suffering.
Turn your breath, glowing with poetry, upon their body
Let flaring pain recede like the glow of metal in the forge
Let the softest of your healing words rend pain into ash and sparks
Which, scattered upon the night, glow and are no more.
Let strength reside where pain once lived.

Merciful Brighid, soft-handed
Pour your healing out upon this one
Sweet to the mouth and cooling to the throat as well-water
Let cracks of pain ease and mend together, leaving suppleness
Bear them up with your smooth and soothing hands, 
As the earth bears up the deepest of wells,
Hurt and wear and damage shall run through your fingers,
Leaving relief and resolve and peace floating about them.

Glorious Brighid, woman of the sídhe
The barest glimpse of your beauty haunts the poet
Stirs fire into their blood, overflows their mouths with song
But now it will silence a riot of suffering, in both body and mind
The discord of pain will be brought to fit as rocks in a cairn,
Solid joy, rest, and gratitude that will last summers upon winters upon summers again.

If you accept this, let give you a roof in the rain, a line out of the turbulent river’s current, a hearth to warm you, let it be a wave to drown your enemies.

If you do not accept it, let it melt and only its beauty remain, as the pink and gold of the dawn does into day.


Note: First posted on Tumblr.

Image: "Mother's Love" by Sandy Kumar on Unsplash.

 


No comments:

Post a Comment