Coven of the Wheel

Temple in darkness, apart from the Yule log in the centre. Brigid in

her bed on the small altar. Lots of unlit candles in sand pots around

the room. All enter as usual, and the Circle is cast in the normal

manner. After the central invocations, HP says:

Awake O Earth from your slumbers! Awake O Sun and restore the Earth!

Mother - we are in darkness.

HPS picks up a jug of water, and pours it into the cauldron saying:

The waters are broken. The ice melting towards Candletime. Blood has

been along the track, but now the ways are clear of death. Old and

grey I was, but here in the mystery of the waters I am renewed. For I

am the one you sought, but could not find. For I was singing to my

child unseen, beneath the hills of birch and rowan.

HPS takes the asperge, and all circle around her chanting the Witches

Rune. She asperges each person as they pass, and on the last round,

hands each person a white candle. When everyone has a candle, the

circling stops, and HPS lights the main candles and says:

The darkness of winter is passing: the Earth awakens once more from

its slumbers; the Virgin walks among us again, and brings Her bless-

ings upon the land and upon our lives.

Priest and Priestess step forward and remove the cover from Brigid's

bed, revealing the Virgin. Everyone shouts:

Brigid is Come! Brigid is Welcome!

HPS takes a light from the Yule log and says:

Let the inner light bear fruit in our own lives, even as the Earth

bears the first flowers.

I am Brigid: She of the Golden Hair; Queen of the White Hills, and

rider of the White Swan. I bring three gifts of fire. The first is the

flame of creation; of the poet and artist; of the lovers' passion for

union with the beloved. The second is the flame of purification and

testing, the flame of truth. With this flame all dross and weakness

are made clear and cleansed from thee, so thou become like a true and

tested sword. The third is the greatest of all, for it is the healing

flame born out of the love that gives all, the maker of peace and

harmony. But I do not give these gifts one by one; I give them as a

whole in the form of the growing Sun.

Everyone then lights their candle from the Yule log, and starts to

circle deosil, lighting the candles around the room as they go,

chanting:

Thus we banish winter, thus we welcome spring;

Say farewell to what is dead, and greet each living thing.

When all the candles are lit, everyone places their candle in a sand

pot, and the chanting ceases.

HPs and HP bless cakes and wine.

BLESSED BE.