A Quiet Morning with Goddess Brigid

It’s still early.The city is only half awake.I pad barefoot into the kitchen like into a temple with a kettle, switching it on while yawning so I can prepare my tea. While I wait, I savor this very particular morning quiet — the kind that wraps me in a sense of safety. I light a candle, because before the day really starts moving, I want to use the silence for a gentle invocation.

“Brigid,” I say softly, and wait. The flame flickers. I take it as presence. Or as a quiet I’m already here — you don’t need to wake me.“Good,” I murmur, “then we’ll skip the fuss of a big ritual.”

Brigid is not a distant, untouchable goddess. She is one of the oldest figures of the Celtic world — keeper of fire and springs, goddess of healing, poetry, and craft. They say she carries the sacred fire within her: the fire of inspiration, dignity, and inner strength. And at the same time, she guards the waters — the gentle medicine that soothes, clarifies, and remembers.

She is the goddess of smiths and poets, of healers and midwives. Of all those who shape something, accompany something, bring something into the world.Not through force.But through devotion. Her festival is Imbolc, at the beginning of February. The time of the first light in winter. The first milk. The first sense of beginning again. Not spring — but the promise of it. Maybe that’s why she feels so close. Because she doesn’t live in temples, but in everyday life. In kitchens. In workshops. In bodies learning to trust themselves again.

The kettle roars in the background — a very un-mystical sound that somehow still belongs. Like an urban drumbeat. I lean against the counter and rest my gaze on the candle. The flame is steady. Not spectacular, not restless. More like someone who listens without pushing.

“So,” I say quietly, “this is about healing, and my wish for healing is simple: less hardness. More self-compassion. And a nervous system that doesn’t constantly think it has to save the world.”

“And then there’s this,” I add softly. “My foot. Getting better. Then not. Reminding me that healing isn’t a straight line, but more like a dance between hope and patience.”The flame stays calm. Unimpressed by my inner urgency. Like someone who has seen this a thousand times before.

“I think I underestimated how much physical healing also requires trust,” I continue. “Not control. Not pressure. But this deep consent to one’s own pace.”I move my foot slightly. Mindfully. Not testing, not suspicious. More like a gentle check-in: How are you today?

“Sometimes I want to push you,” I admit. “Make you faster. Correct you. Optimize you.”I grumble quietly to myself. The flame flickers briefly — almost like a dry laugh made of fire.

I place a hand on my foot.Warm.Present.Without expectation.

“If you are the goddess of healing,” I murmur, “then you are not a repair shop. Then you are the reminder that my body is not my enemy.”That suddenly feels very true. Almost frighteningly simple.

“Maybe healing isn’t: When will I finally be whole again?But rather: How lovingly can I treat myself already?”

Just then, the kettle clicks off. Done. Timing that feels almost poetic. I pour the water into my cup, steam rising like a small offering to the morning. Water for the spring. Fire for the flame. Imbolc in a city apartment.

I lift the cup slightly, like a silent promise. Not a vow. Not a contract. Just an agreement.“Then let’s do it this way,” I say quietly. “You with your fire. Me with my patience. My body with its own sense of time.”

The flame remains steady.Not approving.Not rejecting.Just there. And that, exactly, feels like healing: not accelerated. Not perfected. But accompanied.

And perhaps that is the true strength of Brigid’s magic:Not healing as an event —but healing as a relationship.