Brigit

I have a confession. I missed Yule this past year. I did not keep the vigil; I studied and went to sleep instead. Bad pagan! Well, I decided to make it up to my religion on Christian. I figured, I'm just starting in my religion, I have no one to guide me, so I'm forgiven some errors as long as I work on them.

My mom got very sick in October and I had to fly home because she was dying. Given the stress of this situation, compounded by my fiance deploying several weeks after I found out, well, I was desperate to turn to faith. Since my mom was so sick, I decided to spend Christmas at my grandparents' so I could visit her in the nursing home. Christmas Eve, I went to an outdoor Christmas service on the beach with my grandparents and my mom's housecleaners. I have always loved Christmas Eve service because I get to sing the songs. We didn't get to sing any songs at this service, which annoyed me, except for Silent Night. Except I couldn't sing Silent Night.

I burst into tears because my mom should have been there, my fiance should have been there, and nothing was right. We went back, had "dinner" (cookies...), and my mom's housecleaners went back to their hotel. I decided to go out to the beach alone and have my own candlelight service, for my religion.

I got down to the beach, looked to my right and realized that I was right next to a park. Where there might be homeless people, or drug addicts, or some type of person that wanted to hurt me. It was 11 pm, after all, and I was the only one on the beach in my general vicinity. As much as I wanted to spend an hour out there, I realized it was unreasonable. I walked just out of sight of my grandparents' place and made sure to keep in front of a building. I had a candle with me, that I tried to keep lit so I could see anyone trying to sneak up on me and for religious purposes. I found a good place and knelt down in the sand, making a quasi-altar for the candle, and began to pray.

I've never been good at praying. Its more like a verbal meditation on what's going on, with an occasional confused plea to help me figure out what's going on. So I began with all these stressful things that had been going on and continued on to my dreams. I recognized a theme of wanting something I could not attain, or had a distinctly martial theme to them. I had previously prayed to Brigit and had success, so I thought this was a good thing to do again. From what I could remember, Brigit was the goddess of femininity as well as martial arts. Everything I wanted was her domain and I had a feeling so I dedicated my life to Brigit that night. (In a Catholic sense, I chose her as my patron saint, so to speak) That was the 24th of December, 2010.

That night, I had a dream where Brigit spoke to me. I was shocked to my toes when I woke up because I had not expected that to happen. I had never believed in God or gods/goddesses coming to people in dreams but it happened. I can only remember her saying one thing now, and that was "no." and even then I knew she was denying me one of my prayers and I was scared. I knew which one.

Two days later, my mother passed away. Brigit gave me the grace to accept it and some extra strength to lend to my family, who was simply shattered. That was my most major prayer on Christmas Eve, make my mother better, and Brigit said no. I was so mad. I mean really. A goddess accepts you as her acolyte and then denies your first major prayer. Nice. But then I realized that it wasn't about me, and I had even said that while I was praying. Brigit must have understood and I hope she granted me that one aspect of my prayer, that my mother find peace.

Anyhow, I got online a few days later and looked up "Brigit," to find out more information on this goddess to whom I had dedicated my life. The first thing I saw was "Goddess of Poetry, Healing, Smithcraft, and Martial Arts." That's pretty much all I am, right there (maybe minus the smithcraft, although I'm working on that). When I say that I have been super blessed by this goddess...it is so true.