Begin Again With Me on the 1st of February!
Snowdrops, Golden Daffodils and St. Brigid Await Us All!
Hello Substack family,
First off, I want to thank you so much for all your lovely comments about Friday’s newsletter…..I’m so grateful for all your comments and feedback as I knew I was taking a risk with such a long piece but the response from the audio recording really has meant you received it in the intention I wanted to share it with you, from a deeply personal place of grieving, loss and love…. Thank you for your supportive words and kindness you forever show me. As I always say I wouldn’t be writing here without YOU by my side x
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Begin Again With Me on the 1st of February!
Snowdrops, golden daffodils and St. Brigid Await Us!
Today is indeed a new day….A new week….and also it is the final full week in the month that is heavy old January. As many of ye know and just to share with all my new readers, I don’t start my new year until February, so I have eight full days left until my new year begins. The reason I start my new year on February 1st is a ritual I brought into play a year after my dad died. My dad Joe, passed way in August 2014 from rapid lung cancer and he suffered a terrible death- the total opposite to how Gran left this world. I guess having been witness to two people I dearly loved & cared for die in front of my eyes and in my hands, has definitely been something that has given me the consistent mindset of living day to day & not getting tangled in small stuff. My dad was sixty three years of age and was the quietest, kindest, most unassuming man I knew. It was very traumatic to watch him suffer from his diagnosis of stage four lung cancer in May to his painful, scared passing in August (my dad suffered & was terrified of dying as his disease tortured him in ways the hospital team had never witnessed) & really this was my first real meeting with death on a very personal and intimate level and left me with quite the reality on how terrible life really can be, doesn’t matter how good you are.
It was that following the horrible grieving feelings of the January after he died that I decided I was never going to go through that again so the following year I decided in my own little plan that from then on, I was going to remove all the crappy pressure of January and move my new year to begin on February 1st instead. And this has not failed me yet. Instead it has been one of the best things I’ve ever done and to be honest I’ve been encouraging everyone and anyone I meet since that move to do the same. See even though I don’t want to beat down on the month of January, it’s not your fault January. You are who you are. But I just don’t enjoy the slow energy of the month so I never felt I was getting the right start to my year by being dragged though it with pressures, resolutions, goals and the grey dark evening hovering around me. For me January always felt like a really bad hangover of a month and we all know, hangovers are no fun (especially the older you get). So just like drinking to a hangover stage, I now know longer engage in that, instead I cut it out. I go through January gently acknowledging the month but not putting pressures on myself as I look forward to my new year beginning later than everyone else’s.
I look forward and move forward too. To tie in with February 1st, here in Ireland it is also St. Brigid’s Day. I live in a place called county Kildare. Ireland is broken up into counties and we have 32 counties in the Republic. Twenty six in southern Ireland and six in Northern Ireland. I live in Kildare and it’s a middle sized county between the midlands and the east of the country. There is roughly 226,000 people in Kildare but I live in a very rural part. I’m from a village called Broadford and it’s tiny. Geography wise Kildare is well located in that I am about one hour from Dublin city, one hour forty from Galway City so it’s a really nice location. St. Brigid is the patron saint of Kildare so since I was a child we were taught about St. Brigid and I’ve always been a fan of hers. She is also the female patron saint of Ireland and for all this time has gone under the radar because of you know who….yes you’ve guessed it….St. Patrick. St. Patrick was a great saint and of course is one of the reason’s Ireland is so famous in so many ways but I’ve always been an advocate for St. Brigid because in her own way she played a huge part in the history of our country and culture. St . She is the patroness of poetry, learning, healing, protection, blacksmithing, animals and dairy production. Of course I’m a farmers daughter after all, and you know how I love learning and writing and healing, all in any order and of course Gran’s dad, my great grandfather was a blacksmith so for me St. Brigid represents lots of different aspects of my life. February 1st in Ireland is celebrated in a national way through St. Brigid’s day and also we celebrate Imbolc. Imbolg is the christian festival which marks the beginning of Spring in Ireland and also the half way mark between the winter solstice and the spring equinox. Ireland is deeply rooted in Celtic traditions and thankfully we have held onto them in many ways. I’ll share more about St. Brigid closer to the first of February as this year, for the first time ever, our state has made St. Brigid’s day a national holiday so after all my years of calling for it, someone must of heard me haha ;)
The reason I am sharing this information today is to give you a little lift if you might be having a tough old January. The last week in Ireland, the skies have been grey, to be honest it’s the first week we’ve had grey weather. We have been blessed with a lot of blue skies up to this but definitely the grey skies of last week have played their havoc on how many people are feeling. Also thankfully we are out of mercury retrograde and another thankful blessing, last Saturday night we saw the first new moon of the year. I was so grateful for that. I actually fulfilled a little tradition in honouring the new moon arriving. I was after having a terrible week grief wise. Loads and loads of tears and I hadn’t slept much all week. Dreams of Granny. My over active thinking brain in full gear and feeling the raw loss of Granny in an intense way.
From talking to others, I wasn’t on my own last week. So on Saturday night I wrote two letters. The first a letter to the universe to say thank you for all the blessings I am grateful for….The roof over my head, my family and friends and their health, my own health and so on. The second letter was a letter to the universe once again but it was called a Universe Order Form in wish I wrote down in a list form the dreams, wishes I hope that will come true by the end of the year. So to help you focus and believe that all is possible no matter how you are feeling. At the end of the letter you thank the universe for your blessings and sign your name. You then fold both letters towards you, to draw in the good energy and then place them under your pillow. They are still under my pillow and I love the idea of them being there. In my sacred bed and you know my feelings on that department from last week. I will leave those letters there for now and who knows maybe they will remain under my pillow for the year. I haven’t placed a letter under my pillow since I was a child and the tooth fairy was due to call so I definitely felt this was a special and positive act and then lifted some of my grief and anxiety from my chest. Onwards to February we go that’s what I say :)
Lots of people are definitely having things tough at the minute and I really believe once we reach the door of February we will start to feel a bit brighter. Just think of the beautiful snowdrops and daffodils rise their head, the light increasing in our mornings and evenings and then we will spring forward on the clock too. As many dread and unlike the winter, I actually don’t. I feel it has its purpose in our world and nature needs it. I like that the animals hibernate and I follow their lead in that regard but just like sun on a frosty morning, the bright step of spring brings with it a light like no other after being in the dark. It’s needed. It’s due. It’s wanted and most importantly it’s appreciated. Often we only appreciate what is taken from us so for most Irish people anyway, I think we may seem obsessed with the weather but there is indeed a reason for that. We feel every inch of the seasons and again even though it’s not all blue skies I’m ok with that too. For me it represents life. Life is not all blue skies either and somewhere within our dark grey winter nights, I think a resilience and an appreciation for sunshine and light is gained. Onwards we go one and all to February 1st. It’s only round the corner and with it, comes the opportunity to start again. That’s why I love it. A month of reflection and preparation in January and as the famous poet Percy Shelly once said, “If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?”…..No Percy it can’t and thank god for that. Hold on tight folks we’re nearly there…we’re nearly beyond the grey. We’re close to the light and we’re close to the growth and abundance of beautiful spring and just as one of my favourite Irish poet Brendan Kennelly once wrote about, we will ‘begin again.’
Today I remind you that as this month ends, we have another opportunity to start afresh and I ask you to remove the heavy, the pressure and any doubt that is hanging over you and I encourage you in this letter to ‘begin again’ with me on February 1st. Use this week and the weekend coming to plan for the new month and to refocus, reframe and to reset your goals with a new beginning just around the corner. Come with me on the merrygoround of beginning again….and I promise you, you will never go back to the old idea of January ever again.
I’ll finish by reciting Brendan Kennelly’s Begin Again which I absolutely love.
Thank you for reading and listening to today’s letter and chat to you on Friday. If anyone want’s me to ever plug or promote anything through my community or newsletter please feel free to message me here or send an email to grannynancy107@gmail.com. This is a home for us all. Anything I can do to help you, I’m just a line away.
I’d be so grateful if you might share this post with your friends or family. You might send them the link through WhatsApp or your social media platforms. Your support and sharing is such a huge help to me. Love to hear how life is going for you so far in 2023 in the comments and if you might come with me on my St. Brigid’s Begin Again New Year on February 1st. As the saying goes., the more we are together, the merrier we will be :)
Lots of Love,
Lou x
Begin Again
By Brendan Kennelly
Begin again to the summoning birds
to the sight of the light at the window,
begin to the roar of morning traffic
all along Pembroke Road.
Every beginning is a promise
born in light and dying in dark
determination and exaltation of springtime
flowering the way to work.
Begin to the pageant of queuing girls
the arrogant loneliness of swans in the canal
bridges linking the past and future
old friends passing though with us still.
Begin to the loneliness that cannot end
since it perhaps is what makes us begin,
begin to wonder at unknown faces
at crying birds in the sudden rain
at branches stark in the willing sunlight
at seagulls foraging for bread
at couples sharing a sunny secret
alone together while making good.
Though we live in a world that dreams of ending
that always seems about to give in
something that will not acknowledge conclusion
insists that we forever begin.
Hello Lou, I'm from Millbury Massachusetts, a small town in the central part of this state of the USA, much like your town centrally located. What is synchronous is that the Catholic Church in Millbury is St. Bridgets. Being that she was a patron for poetry I will share the first lines of my new poem from my upcoming post "Sabotage." I'm writing about trying to avoid the stinking thinking that leads to self fulfilling prophecies.
"Sabotaged by my nightmare of rejection,
I Identify when self criticism appears,
Instead of acting out from the false deduction,
I separate myself from the fears."
I’m definitely joining you in beginning the year on Feb 1. January always feels like a bit of a recovery period and a time to reflect and form ideas ever so slowly.
Also, this is the first I’ve heard of St. Brigid. Sounds like it’s about time she has an official day set aside for her! I’m going to read up on her. Thank you for the intro.
And I love the reason for your obsession with weather. How lovely that you feel all the seasons and the changes. It sounds magical. We here in Los Angeles are weather obsessed as well, but for the opposite reason. We’ve not truly experienced seasons and I think weather makes us nervous. 😂
Sending you love on this last week of the year! Xx