Ruth Lawrence, a Lewes based poet, came along to our Imbolc ceremony on 3rd Feb and wrote a poem for the occasion. Here it is in its full glory:

All Spring Leaps From Her

Vreeshey has waited out winter,

kept her hearth burning,

while embers of willow have singed

the rushes that line her den.

A drift of snowdrops pushes through frost

that covers her bed of moss and bracken.

As she awakes, catkins tremble

like the tails of suckling lambs,

lords and ladies ghost green through earth-dark,

arrowing themselves to light.

She stretches and wild daffodils

burst bright like tiny suns

and as her fingers drum,

woodpecker sounds the warming oak.

When she throws open her eyes,

wood anemones turn their faces east with the dawn.

She opens her mouth and blackbird sings his love-song

into the forest of beech and ivy.

When she stands,

saplings of hazel and mountain ash rise from leaf mould,

casting slim shadows on the woodland floor,

sundials grown to mark the lengthening days.

And at her birthing, all spring leaps from her body;

ladybird wakes and lifts on scarlet wings,

hedge-pig unlocks clustered spines

and adder stirs in shadowed nest.

Go a-wandering and you will meet her,

in every greening leaf,

and sunken paw-print by river’s edge,

in feather-flight above the fields,

and the climbing arc of buzzard.

She swims through shallows

on the back of toad, leaping

from the beak of hunting heron.

You will hear her in the fluted cry of curlew

and the thump of courting hare.

Hold out your tongue in the first rain of spring

to taste her wintered tears and

hear her laughter in the chatter-shout of wren.

She will hear your footfall as you run towards spring;

pin forth your ears like stalking fox

and you may hear her whisper

Welcome all, come dance with me.

So dance with her and fly your wishes to the sky,

for long days are on their way.

Vreeshey has woken and sun falls generous upon the world.