rethinking the mundane

and recovering lost traditions

Imbolc, the midway point between the winter solstice and the spring equinox was this week, typically celebrated February 1 or 2. I posted a bit about it on Instagram:

sarabytheseason

A post shared by sara by the season (@sarabytheseason)

I went down a little Imbolc history rabbit hole afterwards, and I learned about some of the rituals associated with Imbolc and Brigid, both the Celtic goddess and the Christian saint. I won’t force you down the rabbit hole with me (although comment below if you’re curious, and I’ll post some links), but here is what stuck out: Imbolc was a uniquely feminine holiday focused on hope for the spring, celebrating new birth, and the importance of home.

It does not surprise me, then, that most modern Americans have never heard of this midwinter holiday (although Groundhog’s Day has its root in Imbolc), which brings me to this theory that I’ve coined the “epic life mentality.” I first came up with this theory after several years at a megachurch that we went to for years. I noticed that the stories the church leadership continually put up on a pedestal were these “epic” stories of transformation or sacrifice: the young guy that spent a year in the slums of Nairobi; the couple that opened their home to 30 foster kids over the course of a few years; the person that quit their corporate job to work at the food pantry. You get the picture, I’m sure. I got annoyed because, well, it made me feel badly about myself and my life! But also because I don’t think the Gospel message is actually about pursuing some “epic life” so much as it is about being present to the beauty and awe of our everyday, mundane lives. I think this “epic life mentality” pervades much of American culture, not just the Christian church, and I think it is a poison that keeps us dissatisfied, discontent, and depressed.

I used to think of mundane as a sort of dirty word. I have since learned about the root of the word. It comes from the Latin and means, literally, “of or belonging to this world.” Religion and, especially I think, the institutional church, want us to think of things of this world as less than the supposedly more worthy goals of focusing on spiritual or intellectual pursuits.

Imbolc is a very earthy holiday. It marks the beginning of new life stirring in nature, but that new life is stirring in the dark, often underground. It isn’t obvious; we have to go looking for it. Imbolc is intertwined with the goddess Brigid and then later Saint Brigid of Kildare, and the celebrations are uniquely feminine, centered around fertility and the hearth, the center of our homes. Traditionally, the feminine is more associated with the earth itself, hence our Mother Earth imagery that has been present and endured across many different cultures, places, and time periods.

Imbolc, it seems to me, is a holiday that celebrates the mundane, that puts the everyday on a pedestal instead of the epic story. It is the anti-patriarchal, anti-capitalist holiday that we, perhaps more than ever, need. It reminds us of the hope of spring and new life, of the beauty of the mostly thankless work we do to create peaceful homes and loving families, of our inherent worth just as we are without doing or producing anything, of the worthiness of celebrating our everyday, mundane lives.

Rants and raves

👍Checking in on “my” thicket on my daily walks.

👍I’m listening to Seth Godin’s The Practice, and even though he can rub me the wrong way sometimes, I think this one should be required reading for everyone.

👍Not looking at my phone until after 9am. Now, let’s not act like I have much consistency with this because it’s only been a week, but wow, what a difference it makes.

👍The Sharon Says So Instagram account. She makes me laugh, I love how she explains complicated issues, and her community paid off over $400 million in medical debt in the last few days, which just boggles my mind and gives me a ton of hope.

👎Marjorie Taylor Greene. I’m refraining from saying any additional commentary.

Stuff worth sharing this week

• I really loved this interview and it got me thinking about what else we’ve lost over the centuries (like Imbolc) that perhaps we need to recover for our times.

• I looved this conversation with Drew Lanham on On Being.

• A double-month dose of what I’m loving and learning over on the blog.

• As mentioned previously here, 2020 was the year of the Bahamas at Funky Farms. Go listen to his whole catalog if you haven’t, but Grant discovered this playlist last week - and it is magic all the way through.

Seasonal pic of the week

A little sign of spring on my Imbolc walk this week:

Cheers to celebrating the beautifully mundane in the week ahead!

Sara