Fiery Arrow- Bride

This is an excerpt from an early draft of my sourcebook for patients undergoing medical tribulations. It includes Healing Beings in a threefold structure: origins, Contemplation, and Invocation.

Origins

The Goddess of the Celts known as Brighde, Bride, Brid, Brigid, originally Breo-saighit, “fiery arrow” is surrounded by plentiful lore. Ancient Druid priestesses tended her perpetual fire at Kildare, the site where it is said the Goddess lived in an oak tree. When Christianity came to Ireland in the 5th century, the goddess Brighde became merged with the Christian Saint Bridget, “Mary of the Gaels.”

Kildare became a convent, and nuns replaced the priestesses to tend the sacred fire. Devotions to the lady of flame continued and her fire was kept alight. For eleven centuries the sacred fire burned until it was extinguished by the Reformation set in motion by Henry VIII. Centuries later, in 1993, the sacred fire was rekindled. It is kept alight once again. Side by side, Neo-pagans and Christians visit Brighde/ Bridget’s healing spring, each following their own customs to honor the Goddess/Saint. Both rosaries and clouties (blessing ties) dangle from a nearby evergreen tree.

The pagan Goddess and the saint merge in story and song. I use the name Bride (pronounced Bride-e) to refer to this merged numinous figure, a true polycrest (= a multipurpose remedy in homeopathy).

Long, long ago, when the world was new, in the flush of sunrise, Bride’s mother gave birth to her on the threshold of their home. Was she stepping in or stepping out when she crouched down to deliver? We only know that she was in-between. Born neither within nor without, this was no ordinary babe, but a Goddess. A pillar of fire blazed up from her head, reaching high into the heavens. The wee one reached up and took a flame from her blazing crown, and without burning her hand, let the curl of flame fall to the earth. Thus was kindled the first hearth- fire.

As Fire-Goddess, Bride is patron of metal-smithing. Her craft: heating, bending and shaping iron, tin or gold and fashioning it into form, from horseshoes to brooches and rings. Bride crafted the first penny whistle- a flutelike instrument, from tin. She designed and created the first tools.

Bride is goddess of waters and purification. Her sacred well at Kildare flows through breast- shaped fonts. Her healing waters have soothed many fevers, washed away many impurities, healed many ills and brought comfort to many who thirst.

Bride is also known as the goddess of poetry. She inspired devotionals for the daily round: tending the fire, milking the cow, spinning the wool. She is invoked in encircling spells to ward off harm. She was especially called upon during birth. It is said that Bride was present to tend to Mary in labor at the birth of Jesus and she became his nursemaid. Whether known as Goddess or known as saint, she presides over midwives, as “aid-woman” lighting the way for mothers on the threshold of birth.

The first stirring of spring is known as Imbolc a time sacred to Bride; the time of ewes giving birth and their milk coming in. In Christian traditions, this is Saint Bride’s feast day is known as Candlemas. Before electricity, each household brought their newly made candles to a special church service to be blessed to bring light in the year to come.

In Celtic lore, there are many ways to call on Bride’s blessing at this time of flowing milk, thawing ice and rising sap. It is customary on Imbolc Eve for women to set out their shawls in their gardens overnight to be imbued with Bride’s presence. The next morning, each woman takes up her shawl again, and wraps Bride’s blessing around herself and her loved ones. Next year at spring’s onset, the women will offer their shawls once again for Bride’s blessing to be renewed.

Contemplation

Bride’s mantle, woven of filaments that connect all of life, covers and protects the land and enfolds those who seek her protection. From her heart, healing flows in poetry and incantations, through luminous healing word.

From her radiant hearth, her blessing reverberates through the house and all domestic activities: hands at work nursing the sick, bathing the feet, tending the garden, stirring the soup. Abuzz and bustle in serving is she. Because she is a goddess, she never tires as we do. But she reminds us that caretaking includes taking care of ourselves. Her clear directive, not fraught with guilt, is to rest regularly.

Bride blesses all healing herbs. Sacred to her: birch, willow and oak; dandelion, trillium and pumpkin seeds; heather, chamomile and broom. Sacred to her: bees, owls and snakes; groundhogs, cows and ewes. Her healing flows in the springs that rise from the earth, that bubble with blessing from the depths. She cleanses. Her waters wash away the old and outworn. Her waters cleanse contaminants and contagion. She inspires us to shed the inessential.

Healing flows into her smithing as well, as her skilled hands forge tools. She is hardworking, practical, busy. The simple tools the ancient goddess blessed were predecessors to the multitude of instruments we use today. She is the force of creating them, the will to forge. As toolmaker as well as of healing, Bride could be guardian of medical technology, despite being far-removed from her healing herbs.

In these modern times, the gesture of calling upon her blessing is the same in essence, no matter how complex the tools being used in our medical treatment are.

Invocation

Bride mend us,

cleanse us,

blaze in us with your healing.

Goddess of the threshold

I call on your threefold blessings:

healer, poet and smith.

Bride, bring your heart-centered healing

streaming from your tree home

rooted in depths of earth

reaching into sky above

your illuminations kindled from above and below.

Bride, birth in me your stream of healing

becoming word thrum

blessing of poetry and grace,

chants murmured to restore the power of saying it just so

to consciously compose spells of protection,

in forms of shielding or encircling.

Bride, may your blessing extend to medical tools and technology,

Bless the ear that listens, bless the eye that sees,

bless the instruments that probe and see what can’t be seen;

bless the machines that reveal, read and measure the body’s parts and particulars:

stethoscope and otoscope , blood pressure cuff, X-ray , sonogram, CT scan, echocardiogram, MRI …and more .

Bless the implements that procure and decipher blood

The needle that draws it, the tubing that transfers it,

the vial that holds it, the slide that reads its textures and components.

Bless the tools of surgery:

scalpels, clamps and hemostats

Bless surgical needle and thread,

the soothe and shield of bandages.

Bride mend us, cleanse us, blaze in us with your healing.