A Spindle for Brighid

While some folks in our spiritual group are "Brigitted out" from excessive focus on her, I have yet to really work with this powerful and insanely multifaceted Irish-Celtic goddess of all human crafts, smithing, childbirth and midwifery, spring and much more, Brighid, also known as Bride or St. Brigid. Since the theme of PaganFaire's ritual in which I have a part revolves around Brigid and the return of spring, I'm hoping to get to know her a bit better.

I've set up an altar to try and connect with her more in preparation for the ritual, and decorated it with images of Brigid and the seeds we got from Spiral Grove's Eostara rite. Inspired by another witch who made some woodburned objects with Ogham signs, I made a spindle dedicated specifically to Brigid and put Ogham inscriptions on it, working late into the night. On the whorl I put symbols for birch, oak, ash and thorn, while on the shaft I put stylized twining leaves of each tree. I painted it, but left it unvarnished because I love how the wood smells!

Below: -- the spindle, with an experimental length of new-spun yarn.

I don't actually work with deities a lot; I mostly work with my personal inner guardian and teacher, or animus-self. I'm also not one to feel right about appropriating random deities for my regular practice, and can have difficulty feeling connected to them (though this may be due to lack of intense effort; the mind is capable of anything). I don't dive right into just every new thing, either; I require time. It may sound odd coming from one who holds, and lights, a candle for Snape on a regular basis --- but I've worked with Severus for ten years now, and his power is as familiar to me as a lover's or my own. Finally, setting up the Brigid altar faced a few tiffles, like getting the images printed, and the tall green candle being too scented for the other woman in our household.

What I figure is that if I have a hard time connecting with Brigid (i.e. delving into meditation enough or doing enough magick to spark a relationship) in the couple of weeks around the ritual, before I have to shift gears for the Butterfly rite in May, then I may be able to connect with her in an ongoing and more leisurely fashion by doing one of the crafts I'm already so fond of, using the tool I dedicated to her: the spindle.

Here are the Ogham signs. Each one refers to not only a tree, but an esoteric meaning. I'm very new to Oghams, and am still learning what all those meanings are!