As the snow has cleared over the past few weeks, splashes of green and white of the beautiful snowdrops are beginning to erupt across the British landscape heralding the arrival of not only spring, but marks the footsteps of Brigit, goddess of the Celts.
The snowdrop also called “Candlesmas Bells”, “Fair Maid of February”, and “Mary’s Tapers”. The snowdrop is considered to represent purity and the arrival of spring, like Brigit the Celtic goddess of Fertility and Poetry. Brigit which means “power” or “renow” is the daughter of the Dagda and is a major Celtic pastoral deity and one of the great Mother Goddesses of Ireland .
Brigid is recognised as Saint Brigit of Kildare, who is said to have lived from 450 AD to 523 AD, founding the first female Christian monastery community in Ireland.
How is all this related to stress and stress management ?
People are increasingly feeling disconnected with others, with nature and most importantly with themselves.
If you were to ask yourself, who am I? Where did you come from, and where will you go? Without any consideration for the most fundamental questions to ones life, we simply live our lives addicted to working, gathering wealth and objects, simply to die and leave it all for others! A kind of intensive farming of human beings who spend most of their lives working for others who have no ethics or concerns towards the resources they are exploiting.
However, many ancient wisdom traditions connected people to nature, helping them cultivate an profound relationship based on respect, awe and interdependence. Consider Brigit The Celtic Goddess bringing in the spring, snowdrops marking footsteps as she protects mothers of every living species as they give birth.
She is considered to be the Goddess of Healing, fertility in nature, crops, livestock and protector as a mid-wife welcoming all new arrivals.
By thinking in these terms, we bring many productive thoughts to our minds, thoughts about growth, renewal, hope, optimism, gratitude and the acceptance of change. These thoughts and feelings enable individuals to experience interconnectedness with their environment and the new signs of life. Stressful feelings of loneliness and isolation can be quickly transformed into positive emotions. Positive emotions have been shown to be highly relevant to good heath and well being.
Mindfulness brings the same awareness in our moments of stillness, awaken our senses to the miracle of life and help break our minds habitual patterns of thoughts, either replaying the past or future fantasies.
Exercises
Mindfulness (by Dav Panesar)
Symran (by Dav Panesar)