The Cauldron: A Pagan Forum

A little back story before I delve into my questions... So, nearly a decade ago, I followed a Celtic (mostly Welsh) pantheon. Back then, it felt like Cerridwen was calling out to me. And so, I reached out and she was my matron goddess. That lasted for a few years, until about 5.5 years ago, when I was pregnant with my son, I felt Frigga come to me in a dream. It seemed odd, since I had never worked with the Norse pantheon at that point, but I took it as a sign. Shortly after, I felt Cerridwen in a dream, and it felt like she was letting me go, like she knew it was time for me to go to Frigga. And so, I have followed a Norse path since then. Well, the other day, out of nowhere, I felt this tug to look up Brigid. Before, I have never had any interest in her, or really most Irish god/desses, even though I had worked with the Celtic pantheon for majority of my time since I had become a pagan. It just seemed odd since when I was on a Celtic path before, the interest was not there at all. Personally, I am wondering if it has something to do with me currently healing from gallbladder surgery I had a week ago, and one of her aspects having to do with healing. Nonetheless, I feel compelled, like I must look more into her. If I felt a tug to look into her, She must be calling to me for some reason, especially since when I have ever worked with any god/desses or had any matron or patron god/desses before, I never just picked one that seemed interesting. Instead, I waited til it felt like one was wanting me to work with them.

So... have any of you worked with Brigid before? I am curious as to what your experiences with her have been like. As well, as someone just starting to look more into her ways, do any of you have any suggestions or recommendations as to what or where I should be looking into?

Thanks, and have a most fantastic day!

Thank you for responding!

Since she showed up for after being sick, it really does make me think it is because of my surgery. I knew one of her aspects had to do with healing, so I guess that does make sense. Thank you for the book suggestions! I will definitely be checking them out

I'm relatively new to Brigid myself - it's been about four months since I came to her. Like you I felt very drawn to her. Previous to getting involved with her I knew, roughly, who she was but she'd never really hit my radar as someone I would get involved with. But, since I felt so drawn to her, I did some mediation work and it was quite obvious that she'd been waiting for me to get my shit together enough to be like "Um, I'm here. Now what?"

Interesting to note, I wasn't physically sick when I came to her (and her to me) but I was very soul sick.

In my experience thus far she is... tender, but very fierce. Solid and warm. Tough. She never lets me forget that she's there but she's not handing stuff out for free, kwim? You work for it. And sometimes its painful. (At least for me. We've been working on a lot of spiritual healing.) She's an "in the moment" goddess - in my experience at least. By that I mean she appreciates and values formal acts of flamekeeping (however limited) and offerings but she really seems to love the spur of the moment offerings and prayers. The  "care to join me for tea? I want to chat with you about my day" moments. Granted, all I have to compare her to is the very distant, formal god that I grew up with but she seems... she's busy and everywhere and she wants to be everywhere in that bright and friendly sort of way. Getting direction from her isn't "Do this thing and you will be rewarded", it's a toss of the head and a big grin as she rolls up her sleeves and goes "Let's get to work!"

As for resources, Clann Bhride has a very nice list of things to look through. A book that I also have that I haven't seen mentioned a lot is Tending Brigid's Flame by Lunaea Weatherstone. I don't know if that's because other Brigid followers have issues with it or if its because it's newer or... what. But. Source/history wise it pretty much rehashes the things found in most Brigid sources but for me the tone of the book was really special. The relationship between the author and Brigid really shines through the words and I thought it was an absolutely beautiful look at Her. As someone who is primarily drawn to the emotional, relationship building aspect of worship/devotion (given the lack of that in my pervious religious life) it was one of those "exactly what I needed to hear/read at that given moment" things.