The Tao of Imbolc: Dance and Flow

Lately I've been minding the Tao, that beautiful, ancient Eastern observance of ebb and flow, Yin and Yang, resistance and yielding, sinking and rising. I've been minding it by reading about it via Alan Watt's The Watercourse Way; by  incorporating the vinyasa of movement-with-breath in my Yoga practice, and by adding some simple Qi Gong to my weekly practices.

When you look at the world through a different window, you still see the same world, but you certainly see a different view, and that's the value of looking out different windows. Alan Watts posits that Western language (unlike many others) predisposes our brains toward pinning things down concretely, labeling them, and establishing their IS-ness. So, we get concepts such as "Imbolc is here." "Spring is here." "This is a sacred day." These standing waves of fixedness. We can then build a chart and describe what Imbolc is: the meaning of name - probably "ewe's milk." Historical references: the ewes begin to give birth to baby lambs. The days are longer. In some places, there's a little bit of ice melt. Associated Deities: Brigit. Candles, fire, flame, etc.

We can go on is'ing until we think we know the thing, until, like the naturalists of the 19th century who killed in order to explore life, we've pinned down the wings of this particular butterfly and have analyzed its patterns of color and migration and eating and cocooning and mating and breeding habits. And when we've figured out how it fits in with all our other is-nesses, the other butterflies and moths and winged creatures of the Air. 

And we end up with a lot of facts and a dead butterfly.

This morning I contemplated Imbolc by thinking the days are longer. And then I wondered: what  does that mean, really? And I saw our Earth-Lady from space, all green and blue and white and brown,dancing gracefully around the Sun, Her partner. Our seasons results from the flow of this long dance. The holiday-tide and the lengthening light arre simply moments when we notice one step flowing into the next. 

The astrological glyph associated with Imbolc is the double-wave of Aquarius, the Water-Bearer whose jar flows forth water, electricity, milk, semen, inspiration, any flow, any wave. 

Today I recast my practice to honor the flow and the dance, by moving my whole body into invoking pentagrams, by honoring and invoking the Elements with the tides of my breath, the buzz of my nerve endings, the pulse of my blood and lymph, the mass of my flesh and bones. The pentagrams transformed from stars into flowers and then back to stars, and the space around me transformed from a gentle chaos of the Elements unorganized into a gentle cosmos of the Elements organized .... and then, upon release, back into the background of un-Being, like a butterfly briefly alighting onto my hand, and then floating away. In a dance.