Imbolc

Imbolc Arrives Just When We Need It To

Remember: Leánfaidh an t-earrach an oighear. The spring will melt the ICE.

Samantha Borek

01 Feb 2026 — 5 min read

Brigid's cathedral is seen on April 12, 2025, in Cill Dara, Éire. (Photo by Samantha Borek)

A Chairde,

A year ago, I held my first Imbolc celebration. Celebration is kind of a strong word for it, but I prepared an Imbolc lantern and I planned to weave a Brigid’s cross with vines in my yard. It was just after the second inauguration of Donald Trump here in the U.S. We were all, my friends, coworkers, everyone, feeling pretty bleak about the whole thing.

In my house, we were about to embark on our first international trip to Ireland that April. My partner and I submitted our passport documents in November, anticipating that the moment he would be in office, Donald Trump would sign some kind of order on gender markers on passports.

My passport came immediately, but my partner’s was left in limbo for months. We made calls to federal offices, to state offices, multiple times a week. Sometimes multiple times a day. There was a lot of confusion around the executive order in which passport processing for trans people was halted, and no one could give us answers. And I had my share of moments where I did cuss out a few passport officials.

Meanwhile, I ordered one of my first sets of Brigid candles from Crescent & Craft. (Side note: I adore their candles and they inspired me to incorporate candlemaking into my practice just so I could always have Brigid candles on my altar.) When they came in the mail one brisk January morning, I felt compelled to light them immediately rather than wait for Imbolc as was my initial plan.

And it was there, at my desk in the middle of the day I prayed harder than I have ever done in my life. Not only was this trip an important experience for both my partner and I, but it was imperative that we should have passports, come what may, and that she receive all of her documents back safe and sound. (There were anecdotal reports of withheld or damaged documents of trans people.)

I said that I didn’t know why I was being called to Brigid, or what she wanted from me, but I knew she was doing it, that there was an inexplicable pull toward her that I could no longer ignore, and that if only she would assure me that we would get to Ireland, then I would make my pilgrimage to Cill Dara before heading to Aráinn for Molliefest (an immersive language retreat). All of my Irish classmates awaited anxiously with us as well. I must credit them for their collective power in this moment.

For the first time in years, I felt the need to pull out my tarot cards. I don’t remember what I pulled specifically, but I remember the message: It won’t turn out ideally, but it will happen. My friends and I all joked that, in Dungeons and Dragons terms, I had just embarked on my warlock origin story.

On February 1, I wove those tendrils of vines with every ounce of hope I had in my body, and over the course of a few months, I finally began to set up a devotional altar. I will burn that first cross this year for all of its aid—the damn thing worked overtime to keep us all hale and hearty in this house.

It’s true that it didn’t turn out the way we’d hoped—a passport with my wife’s gender markers intact—but we did get the passport and all the documentation in time to leave in April. And my happy arse walked from Brigid’s cathedral in Cill Dara, to the well, to the Curragh, and back again. I walked paths and wondered if it was the trail Fearghal (a character in my novel) would’ve rode to meet Clare and her mother at their nest, or where he besot Brigid at the well to save his love (Clare’s mother) from fever by crawling around the tobar.

But those were only cursory thoughts as we walked the botharín between cow pastures that eventually led us to the enclave of green and fíoruisce, where many others like myself sought Brigid’s wisdom and intervention.

The weather was impeccable, cloudy and warm. The trees were filled with clooties tied to them, and we cut off a thread of my partner’s jacket to dip in the water and make our wishes. I don’t remember what it was now (what do I ever remember really? But I remember wishing for safety), but sometimes I fear that wish is pushing me toward some grand leaps I don’t know I’m ready to make. Brigid knows.

I sat on the bench just weeping across from the statue of her. Months of waiting, promises, the anticipation that if we could not get on a plane to Ireland my heart would break, the fear of border security on our way home preventing us from getting back, all came upon me as a young woman jogging did her lap into the area.

“It’s just lovely, isn’t it?” says she to me.

“Is ea,” says I. It’s so.

It was journey in which, just steps from the Curragh, I had to give in to my body’s screeching demands to return to our hotel. My wife, when I was forlorn that I didn’t actually get to step foot on the Curragh only gaze at it, said, “Sam, before they put that office park right there, this was all Curragh.” I had to laugh.

This year, I will be hosting my local writer’s group in my home so that our writing becomes offering to Brigid, and that maybe it’ll imbue a little more hope, a little more magic into our words.

I have no oracle offering for you today, which seems counter to the whole thing I do here. But Imbolc isn't really about going full steam ahead into a productive spring. As the snowdrop flowers burst forth, so too does springtime sun begin to peak from behind the clouds of winter. It's about the promise of spring coming and readying ourselves for it. So, I humbly request that you take a moment, close your eyes, take in the sounds and smells of the room around you. Maybe go outside for a quiet moment. Imagine you are on a vast green plain. See the sheep gathered around the bright yellow bushes of gorse, their milk beginning to come in for the lambing. Call on Brigid, whether as saint or goddess; recognize her for her workings as smith, poet, midwife; ask her what needs tending to in your life. Put your hand over your heart and listen. Oscail do chroí. Open your heart.

And remember: Leánfaidh an t-earrach an oighear. The spring will melt the ICE.

Beannachtaí, a chairde,

Sam