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dionysianivy · 25 days ago

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𝐈𝐦𝐛𝐨𝐥𝐜

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What is Imbolc?

Imbolc is a festival that marks the midpoint between the Winter Solstice and the Spring Equinox, occurring around February 1-2. Known as Brigid’s Day or Candlemas, it celebrates the first stirrings of spring and the return of light. The name Imbolc translates to “in the belly,” symbolizing new life, growth, and the creative potential that is awakening within the earth. It is a time of purification and renewal, where the energy of the earth begins to rise, bringing warmth and vitality to the whole world.

Imbolc is often dedicated to Brigid, the goddess of fire, healing, poetry, and craftsmanship. Brigid is associated with both the hearth and the forge, embodying the transformative powers of fire and light. As the days grow longer and the sun strengthens, we honor her influence in bringing fertility and growth to the land. The first signs of spring, such as the lactation of ewes and the appearance of snowdrops, are seen as blessings from Brigid, signaling that life is returning.

Imbolc is also a festival of light, a time to celebrate the increasing daylight through the lighting of candles, bonfires, and lanterns. As the earth begins to thaw and the seeds of spring stir beneath the soil, Imbolc offers a space for spiritual growth and creative awakening. It is a perfect time to clear away the stagnant energies of winter, refresh the soul, and prepare for the vibrant months to come. The act of lighting candles not only honors the growing light but also serves as a reminder of the inner light within us all, waiting to shine brightly in the coming seasons.

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Goddess Brigid

Brigid, one of the most revered deities in the Celtic pantheon, is also known as Lady of the Sacred Flame. She is the goddess of healing, fire, smithcraft, creativity, animals, hearth and poetry, Imbolc is her Sabbat, a time dedicated to honoring her influence on creativity and new beginnings. Her symbols are fire, poetry, lambs and fertility. Brigid is often depicted with a flame emerging from her head or a serpent coiled around her, representing the powerful energy she brings. She is also a goddess of protection, childbirth, women, blacksmithing and life.

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The Return of Light and the First Signs of Spring

Imbolc marks the shift from winter to the first signs of spring. Days start to get longer, and you can feel the earth beginning to wake up, even though winter isn’t completely gone. It’s the time when the sun starts to grow stronger, and we begin to see early signs of new life. During Imbolc, many light candles or bonfires in Brigid's honor, celebrating the return of light and the growing strength of the sun as the days grow longer.

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Brigid's Cross

A traditional symbol of Imbolc, Brigid’s Cross is woven from reeds or straw and represents both protection and blessings. It’s believed to offer protection from fire and lightning, making it an essential symbol of Brigid’s influence. In Ireland, it was common to hang Brigid’s Cross on the rafters of homes to invoke her protective energy.

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Brigid's Flame

According to legend, Brigid lit a flame on the hill of Kildare, pledging to keep it burning in her honor. This flame was said to burn continuously, symbolizing her eternal presence and influence over the cycles of life. The fire became a sacred symbol, tended by the Brigidine Sisters for centuries, representing not just physical warmth, but the power of creativity and healing.

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Magic Correspondences

Planets: Sun, Moon, Venus

Season: Midpoint between Winter and Spring

Element: Earth, Fire

Time of Day: Dawn

Tarot: The Star, The Empress, The Ace of Wands

Colors: White, Light Yellow, Green, Gold, Silver, Lilac, Pale Pink, Purple

Herbs: Chamomile, Clover, Angelica, Heather, Basil, Bay Laurel, Willow, Rosemary, Milk Thistle, Coltsfut, Lavender,

Fruits: Orange, Lemon, Pomegranate, Apple, Pear, Blackberry (Brigid's favorite fruit)

Vegetables: Leek, Potato, Carrot, Turnips, Garlic

Runes: Sowilo, Berkano, Algiz, Kenaz

Crystals: Carnelian, Amethyst, Garnet, Onyx, Ruby, Citrine, Clear Quartz, Milk Quartz

Trees: Rowan, Willow, Birch

Goddesses: Brigid, Demeter, Hestia, Vesta, Aphrodite, Ceres, Venus, Arianrhod, Cerridwen, Gaia, Aradia, Athena, Minerva

Gods: Faunus, Eros, Pan, Cupid, Aenghus Og

Dragon: Fafnir

Flowers: Snowdrops, Crocus, Daisy, Dandelion, Chicory

Animals: Lamb, Sheep, Cow, Deer, Groundhog, Hedgehog, Snake, Swan, Wolf, Bear, Boar

Magical Powers: Purification, Renewal, Creativity, Fertility, Awakening, New Beginnings, Hearth and Home, Healing, Hope, Inspiration, Cleansing, Protection

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Activities To Do:

🐑 Light candles or a bonfire to honor the return of the sun.

🐑 Make an Imbolc altar.

🐑 Rest and enjoy the midwinter season doing cozy activities.

🐑 Wear the colors of the season.

🐑 Cook or bake seasonal dishes, especially fresh bread, cheese, or other dairy products.

🐑 Make Brigid's cross.

🐑 Take a walk in nature and collect branches and stones to add to your altar.

🐑 Donate to animal shelters or send wishes for the animals born during this season, especially lambs.

🐑 Eat fresh bread or drink milk

🐑 Clean your house to invite new positive energy.

🐑 CREATE ANYTHING!! whether it’s art, crafts, edits or poetry.

🐑 Write the sigil of Imbolc somewhere visible to attract its energy( I usually do this on a piece of paper that I put on my altar or on my arm)

🐑 Take a bath with lavender or cinnamon essential oil

🐑 Read about the goddess Brigid

🐑 If it’s a sunny day, celebrate the festival of light by spending time outdoors and letting the sun purify you.

🐑 Do offerings for your deities

🐑 Dance to festive music, feel the joy of the season, and let your inner fire shine :D

🐑 Try spinning or crafting with wool to honor traditional Imbolc crafts.

🐑 Look for seasonal flowers like snowdrops or crocus and bring some into your home for decoration.

🐑 Plant seeds if the weather allows, symbolizing new beginnings and growth.

🐑 Do spells for fresh starts and set intentions

🐑 Worship Goddess Brigid or any deities you feel connected to during this time.

🐑 Read poetry to celebrate the creative energy of the season.

🐑 Make an Imbolc Magick Spell Jar

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Food and Drinks:

Dairy products (or vegetarian alternatives), like milk, cheese, and yogurt, freshly baked bread, muffins, waffles, blackberry jam, blackberry cakes (anything with blackberries), lemon cake, poppy seed cakes, biscuits coated in sesame seeds, dishes with bold spices, seeds such as sunflower, poppy, and sesame (for Imbolc seeds are very meaningdul), red cabbage, oats, butter, honey, garlic, scones, pancakes, crepes, pickles, cheese pie, oatcakes, bannock, mashed potatoes, colcannon, chili peppers, eggs, apple tarts, spiced nuts, roasted vegetables, hearty soups, grain-based salads, and citrus fruits, such as orange, lemon or pomelo). Don’t forget to make a wish while flipping your pancakes on Imbolc! <3

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useful sources: Wicca: A Modern Guide To Witchcraft & Magick; Encyclopedia of Witchcraft: The Complete A-Z for the Entire Magical World by Judika Illes

gifs credit: Pinterest

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lightthewaybackhome · 2 years ago

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It's just so beautiful!

#homemaking #tending hearth and home

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festus-eats-tabasco · 2 years ago

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Let’s talk more about accents in the Riordanverse!

• Percy with rounded New York vowels and that quick run-together way of saying his sentences. Percy with an accent you can’t quite place until he orders some coffee or water.

• Annabeth with a Virginia drawl and long vowels that don’t quite go away, even after years on Long Island Sound. Annabeth, who will randomly spit out phrases like “nervous as a long-tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs”, whose cup always fills with sweet tea in the mess hall/

• Carter with a fairly standard American accent until he pronounces a word so bizarrely it’s clear he must have learned it halfway across the globe. Carter, who gets slightly antsy in the same place for too long and goes to language classes at night just for an excuse to practice.

• Sadie with a London accent that’s begun to fade after years in Brooklyn House, who accidentally says “cheers” when people hold the door for her. Sadie, who skips over her t’s and who drops consonants and, like Carter, isn’t exactly sure where her home is.

• Magnus and Alex with strong Boston accents and nasally a’s that Hearth is glad he can’t hear. Magnus, whose accent gets stronger in battle, who intentionally leans into it when he’s on the West Coast. Alex, who makes people guess where she’s from and tells them something different every time, who argues with Magnus over whose accent is stronger.

• Jason Grace with languid California vowels, who drops the end of every word when he’s relaxed and over-enunciates when he’s in charge. Jason, whose accent is only present when he’s comfortable.

• Leo Valdez with a Texan accent to boot and quick clipping consonants, whose accent sounds nearly the same as Annabeth’s to the untrained ear, but insists that they’re completely different every time someone brings it up.

• Hazel Levesque with a thick New Orleans accent, whose vocabulary is peppered with French and old-fashioned phrases and the occasional Southern saying. Hazel, who sticks to Deep South manners (and passive-aggression, when necessary), who orders in French when she goes to a bakery and watched old black-and-white movies when she feels homesick.

• Frank, who sounds American except for when he says “sorry”, who speaks a bit of Canadian French (which Hazel hates, because she can’t understand it), and gets teased every time he says “about”.

• Piper with a slight valley-girl sound that she’s worked hard to get rid of, but tends to slip into when she’s tired or angry. Piper, whose voice becomes sweet and soothing in charmspeak, who understands every fluctuation and intonation and how to use them to her advantage.

• Nico di Angelo with a seemingly standard American accent, until you pick up on the odd transatlantic pronunciation or Italian rolled “r”. Nico with an arsenal of phrases so jumbled and eclectic that people do a double take when he talks.

Just. Yeah. Riordanverse accents.

#percy jackson #pjo #rick riordan #heroes of olympus #riordanverse #Annabeth chase #Carter Kane #Sadie Kane #Magnus chase #Alex fierro #jason grace #leo Valdez #hazel levesque #Frank zhang #piper mclean #nico di angelo

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stellar-skyy · 11 months ago

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FAMILY (OF SORTS) — Platonic Fatui Harbingers & reader.

i. SUMMARY: The Fatui Harbingers have a soft spot for Arlecchino's child. ii. CONTENT WARNINGS: None! iii. NOTES: STRICTLY PLATONIC, headcanons, fluff, parent!arlecchino, house of the hearth!reader, all of the harbingers are reader's weird aunts and uncles, gn!reader, they/them pronouns used, 1.6k words. iv. A/N: the fatui are just a dysfunctional found family and i will die on this hill. shoutout to @romaritimeharbor for listening to my rambles about this idea 🫶🫶 also pierro and pulcinella aren't here because i could not think of anything to write for them :')

All of the harbingers knew about Arlecchino’s child; the one that appeared in Fatui Headquarters stuck to her side, eyes cast to the floor. They all saw the way that Arlecchino had held a soft grip on their shoulder, guiding them through the halls with the gentle touch of a parent from the gentle hands of a monster.

The Knave always swore she didn’t play favourites, but from an outside view it was clear that they held a special place separate from the rest. Anyone could see the way they appeared so much more frequently by her side. They were permitted to sit in on meetings, following her like a shadow. Some of the Harbingers guessed that she had picked them to be her successor; that their frequent shadowing was training them to take over once she was gone. Others joked about Arlecchino’s apparent soft side taking over. Whatever the reason, time went on, and the Fatui saw more and more of them.

All of them varied in their opinions of them—some indifferent, some fond—but the Harbingers all cared for them in their own ways.

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Columbina simply adores them. They’re just so small and cute, so tiny and fragile! Admittedly, her idea of ‘tiny’ is rather skewed—applying to anyone she deems weaker than her (notably, this label also gets given to Capitano and Tartaglia, despite their larger size and physical strength. The Damselette is truly an enigma.)

Whenever Arlecchino allows her to watch over them, she is delighted. She has a penchant for pet names, so ‘angel’, ‘my sweet’, and ‘lovely’ are all more commonly used than their name. Sometimes there’s a ‘baby’ or ‘bub’ if she’s feeling particularly affectionate, but no matter the name, it is always dripping with sweetness. She’ll sing to them too, to calm them down or get them to sleep. Her voice is gentle, laced with as much love as she would show her own child.

Some Fatui believe Columbina is a woman formed from hollow sweetness; that behind the lazy smile and soft voice, lies a callous and unfeeling heart, but her insistence on singing them to sleep comes from a place of genuine affection.

When they have to return home, she’ll kiss their cheeks and sweep them into a hug, making them promise to visit her soon.

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The fact that Arlecchino would tear out his throat with her bare hands if he dared to look at them the wrong way is the only thing stopping Dottore from roping [Name] into one of his experiments. Even then, he can’t help but investigate them a bit. Nothing extreme—please put the knife down, Knave—just some simple trials to see how they work. A quick strength assessment, a test of their reflexes, enough to judge the effectiveness of the House of the Hearth’s training.

The segments all had different opinions of them, varying from Prime’s general indifference to some of the younger segments fondness towards them. The latter were less likely to try to trick them into the lab—not that Arlecchino would allow them anywhere near it without strict supervision—and instead focused their efforts on convincing them to help mess with the rest of the Dottores. They proved to be an excellent partner in crime to thoroughly ruin the older segment’s day.

Despite his assertion that he won’t harm them, Dottore tends to be the one Arlecchino trusts least around her child. His unwillingness to get on her bad side doesn’t stop her from insisting Columbina or herself accompany them whenever they visit his lab.

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Tartaglia loves them. The days he gets to see his siblings are few and far between, so he’s always eager to play the older brother for them, and for any other House of the Heath kids that stop by. In fact, whenever any of the children visit, he makes sure to buy them plenty of sugary treats and candies before quickly sending them back to their Father.

(Arlecchino was not happy the first time this happened. It didn’t stop him from doing it every time, though.)

He was the first to convince them to call him Uncle, a feat that he bragged about to the rest of the Harbingers. This small incident would inadvertently lead to a petty competition to see who their favourite is, an event that would quickly spiral out of control with bribery and promises coming from all sides.

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Sandrone is very particular with who she allows in her workshop. When the rare guest was allowed inside, they had to follow three simple rules: do not touch anything, do not move unless I tell you to, and do not talk to me while I work. When [Name] first stumbled into the room, she was prepared to discourteously shoo them out the way she did whenever Tartaglia poked his head in to see what she was working on. But after some extensive begging, she relented and sat them down in a corner to watch her work.

Even if she is far less fond of them as some of the other Harbingers, she still audibly squeaked the first time she was called Aunt Sandrone. This was covered up with a cough, but nothing could stop the warmth blooming in her chest. It was the first time a living creature had addressed her with such a familial title; some of her synthetic creations had a habit of calling her Mother, but this was a living, breathing person.

After they started calling her that, she quietly told them they were free to visit when she was working—provided they did not interfere with anything.

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As much as he denies it, Scaramouche has a big soft spot for kids. He’ll swear up and down that he doesn’t care for them at all, but he treats them noticeably gentler than he treats any other member of the Fatui. Arlecchino once caught them huddled against him, using his wide-brimmed hat to shelter from the rain. She never let him forget that moment—the fearsome Balladeer, who notoriously never let anyone close enough to touch him, allowing her child to use him as an umbrella.

They remind him a little too much of the young boy he once considered his family. Whenever he spends time with them, there is something inside that both urges him to protect them in the way he couldn’t protect that child, and warns keep them at arm’s length before they betray him too. But his endearment towards them prevailed, and he begrudgingly allowed them a place in his heart.

Unlike Columbina’s affectionate pet names, the only nicknames Scaramouche gives them are ‘kid’ and ‘brat’, depending on his mood. On good days, they might even get called by their name, though it is a rarity. He cares for them, truly. In his own, strange way.

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Capitano is the best at giving advice out of all the harbingers. He is much more down to earth than Columbina and Dottore, and far less cynical than Scaramouche and Sandrone. He’ll let them ramble about their frustrations freely before offering gentle suggestions on what they should do to help. Even if they aren’t looking for a solution, he’s patient enough to hear out their thoughts, however jumbled and incoherent they may be.

He also likes teaching them skills he deems important for a young person to know. These include cooking—Tartaglia is not allowed to join them in these lessons after he almost burnt down the kitchen trying to ‘help’—as well as sewing and mending clothes.

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Pantalone never would describe himself as parental. He never cared too much for kids; he hadn’t enough patience to deal with constantly crying babies or needy toddlers. Arlecchino’s child was thankfully far above that age, so they were less unbearable to deal with.

He was quite happy to spoil them with extravagant gifts and treats to win their favour, but the most effective way he does so is simply spending time with them. Trips to luxurious restaurants for lunch, allowing them to shadow him while he works. He also likes to give them advice—completely unasked for—about life, and relationships. Unlike Capitano however, his advice is of a much less helpful; he has a habit of advocating for blackmail for solving problems.

In exchange for a box of the most expensive pastries in Teyvat, he got them to call him their favourite uncle in front of Tartaglia. The miniscule dent in his funds was worth the look of betrayal on the younger Harbinger’s face.

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Signora easily took the longest to warm up to them. When she first met them, it was easy enough to label them as Arlecchino’s brat and move them from her mind. But they kept appearing, in and around the headquarters. At first they were always glued to the Knave’s side, but eventually Signora began to see them wandering alone through the halls. She took note of them—not out of any attachment to them, only out of self-preservation knowing that if Arlecchino found out her child landed themself into trouble while she was close by, it would be her funeral soon.

The sense of obligation faltered when she started to grow fond of them. They were irritatingly innocent, a rarity within the Fatui. Something about the spark in their eyes reminded her of when she was young—when she still had warmth in her heart and blood in her veins. For the first time in centuries, her frozen heart began to thaw with care towards another person, and begrudgingly, she began to accept that they were not as unpleasant as she once believed.

reblogs and comments are appreciated! ♡

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