Goddess of Spring

Written by Suzan Vaughn
Posted in Society

Earth-based observances enjoy an ancient history, one that acknowledges the feminine side of Deity. With the year’s first green shoots and colorful blossoms, the ancient Romans attended festivals honoring the Goddess Libera, a bringer of fertility to the land, and Prosepina, the Roman Goddess who emerges from the dark earth bringing the Spring Season with her. She’s a counterpart to the Greek’s Goddess Persephone.
Hibernating in caves was the modus operandi for the Swiss Goddess Artio, a bear deity whose return heralded spring’s beginning in Switzerland. In Finland, the Goddess Beiwe turned the hills green offering better feed for important reindeer and Blodeuwedd, a Celtic goddess, was magically created from nine spring flowers including broom, meadowsweet and oak.
There were dozens of Goddesses of Springtime, each offering help in a different area of daily life according to the cultures that recognized and celebrated them, but one Spring Goddess who stepped across the threshold from the ancient Pagan world to Catholic sainthood, finally restored to Goddess-hood again today, is Brigid. Also known as, Bride, Bridey, and Brigantia, this Celtic Goddess and her Spring Feast Day are a joyful Celtic celebration originating in County Kildare, Ireland.
Brigid’s perilous journey through religious conquest and domination finds her emerging from a pagan Goddess to a Catholic patroness saint of motherhood, fertility, hearth, fire, healing and poetry. This female protectress enjoys a hail and hearty following even today, and has been more widely worshipped throughout the Celtic lands than any other female figure. She’s celebrated as a Pagan Goddess again today.
Brigit’s convent at Kildare, where her enshrined eternal flame is still tended, is assumed a surviving ancient college once educating vestal priestesses. Trained for thirty years, and then turned out to tend sacred wells, groves, caves and hills, these priestesses were precursors to later Catholic nuns. But unlike their centuries-later sisters, adhering to the three decades-long initiation to become a priestess of Brigid came with a prize: the pious women were then free to take husbands, who, by the way, were ordered by law to keep their wives satisfied! 
Course outlines at the Kildare School included the preservation of tradition, scientific study, healing modalities, and matters of state. Fire tending was also a priority, with nineteen priestesses, a different one each day, poking and stoking the perpetual flame. On the twentieth day, Brigid Herself was said to keep the fire burning.
Beloved as the muse of poetic inspiration and mistress of the healing arts, she is also associated with smith craft, which held special import for the early Celts. Her statuary often includes an image of her wielding a hammer on an anvil.
Fervent worshippers held fast to their Goddess, so the Catholic Church gave her sainthood, but even though her worshippers accepted Christ, they ultimately could not endorse a religion that excluded Brigid.
Springtime also found Romans partying in celebration of the Goddess of Flowering Plants, Flora. Trees and plants that bore fruit were especially appreciated during the Floralia Festival of early May. Dancing, drinking and flowers were all part of the celebration, not unlike our own Lompoc Flower Festival!
Suzan Vaughn is the owner of www.goddessgift.net, a website of ancient ‘herstorical’ wisdom that salutes the Goddess in each of us. She holds a B.A. in Psychology and an M.A. in Communication, and is the author of Dispatches from the Ark: Pages from a Pet Psychic's Notebook.