Goddess Brigid: Autumn Guided Journey

An Autumn Journey to See Goddess Brigid
Copyright Gretchen Little All Rights Reserved

This is something I wrote and it is meant to be an interactive sort of reading and writing journey to connect with Brigid. Get ready to write in your parts and enjoy!

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The Journey

There is a path through the woods. The sweet scent of decaying leaves and acorns rises up to meet you as you walk along it. What time of day is it? Is it sunny or cloudy, raining or dry?

Through the trees you see a cottage. Take a moment to describe the cottage as you see it in your imagination.
Soon you arrive at the cottage and on the door is a sign that says come in. You open the door and as you walk in you see what? Describe what you see as you go to the kitchen.

Brigid is there waiting for you, stirring something on the stove (or is it something in a cauldron over a fire in the hearth?). She is an older woman but not yet elderly.

The kitchen is filled with vegetables and fruits waiting to be preserved for the winter. You are there to help her. Which vegetables and/or fruits do you choose to preserve, and how? Will you make apple butter or applesauce to be canned? Will you freeze sweet corn cut from the cob? How about jars of homemade salsa? Which foods most appeal to you? Maybe you will put dried herbs in jars.

Before you start the preserving process, Brigid asks you to sit down at the table and make a list of your goals and dreams that you want to come true before the winter solstice. Some of them may be extravagant, some of them may be more humble. What does she give you to write them down on, and what do you write with?

She then instructs you in how to preserve your chosen foods, telling you to assign one of the things on your list for each finished item you make. For example, one jar or tomatoes, or one box of frozen corn. Depending on how long your list is, you may have a lot of preserving to do! On your list you make note of which item represents which goal, and the jars and boxes and bags are labeled as well. Each time you open the freezer or see the jars in the cabinet you will be reminded of what your dreams are. You are to eat everything you have preserved by the winter solstice. Brigid says you can eat them all at once right away or spread them out over time, but to try and get quiet within yourself and listen to when each should be eaten.

When you are all finished you and Brigid sit somewhere in the house (or garden) to have something to eat and drink. Describe your surroundings and what you have to eat and drink. What do you hear around you? What do you smell? What do you and Brigid talk about?
After you finish this special time with Brigid, you go back into the kitchen where she packs up your preserves in something special. Is it a box? A fabric tote? Describe it. She puts an extra special gift on top. What is it? And what is it for?

You give her something in return. What is it? It can be a promissory note of something you will make to give to her later. Or it can be something you already have.

Feeling very loved and cared for you leave the cottage and make the way back down the path, which leads to your front door.

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Integrating the Journey into Real Life

Read this visualization at least once a week from the autumn equinox to the winter solstice. More often would be good. Every day would be ideal. Set aside one day of the week (the same day and the same time, if possible) to make more of a ritual out of it. For example, set out two glasses of wine and a plate of cheese and grapes, and light a candle. Write out a conversation between you and Brigid, telling her whatever is on your mind and whatever she replies. Drink both glasses (or mugs) of whatever beverage you choose, but when you drink Brigid's imagine that you have become her. You might go so far as to write your part of the conversation while drinking your glass, and writing her part while drinking hers.

Review your list of goals and dreams every day. You don't have to do anything with them except read them.

Go out and buy enough cans, jars, or frozen packages of the foods you chose to preserve (or preserve your own!) to label with each goal/dream. Proceed as directed in the visualization, eating each thing before the winter solstice.

Make a Squidoo lens like this one to create a visual and verbal reminder of your visualization. Use it to inspire more creative projects, whether it be writing, art, music, or cleaning house! Each one of those projects can be another lens.

For whatever reason, i always imagine any northern european goddess lives in a cottage something like this one, usually with a lot more flowers around. In the visualization I ask people to describe Brigid's cottage.

When I walk in I see a hallway with wood floors, a wood staircase to the right with a curved banister. There is a doorway to the left into the parlour, a little table with an embroidered cloth and some porcelain figurines on it again the hall wall with a mirror above, and then another doorway to the left into a library. Straight ahead there is the kitchen which takes up the back of the house.

The lesson here is that in the beginning, anyway, how you see the house on the outside and what it looks like on the inside might not match up as far as floor plan goes.

This isn't exactly how I pictured the kitchen but it's the basic idea. I imagine that Brigid is stirring applesauce on the stove. Around the kitchen I see vegetables and fruits ready for preserving. I decide to make some applesauce and apple butter, freeze some corn, and can some stewed tomatoes.

Brigid and I got to the library where she serves this delicious green tea latte with ice cream in it and shortbread on the side. We talk about lots of things and enjoy the fire in the fireplace as the mist comes up and the sunlight fades. It is very cozy.

Orange Poppy Watercolor by flower_garden

These are some Keds I designed using one of my rose drawings.

Rose Ripples by flower_garden
Make custom Keds shoes at zazzle.com