yah i know what the time represents, unfortunately we don't have ewes in the city so i can't tell when they are lactating. tee hee hee.

I'm a little puzzled by your "calendar" for Imbolc.

By ewes, I'm assuming you mean female sheep. I've had sheep for 50 years, cattle for 35 years and goats for 10 years. All of them begin lactating several days after giving birth. (Just before birthing and for about 3 days after birth, they give colostrum.) They give no milk unless they have first gotten pregnant. And nobody gets pregnant until the male arrives. So lactating isn't based on a time of year, it's entirely due to the time of birth, which can be on any given day of the year.

For animals living in the "wild', there is a general tendency to spring births, but again it's in the spring, over a general period of weeks or month, depending on when the females got "hit". There's no particular "date" involved. And births can and do happen any time.

For domestic sheep, they are just too dumb to successfully live in the wild. If a predator comes, the sheep will either "lay down and die" or run until it dies. Any domestic sheep needs to be protected by a sheppard. And the sheppard decides when to put the buck to the ewes. So again, birth and lactation is determined by when pregnancy occurs.

Some farmers like to time the births in February, to get young ones ready for 4-H shows. Some farmers like to have births in April to avoid complications from cold weather.

.....So, could you explain how "your" Imbolic "calendar" works, according to lactation ?

Imbolc is my birthday * February 1st* My Scottish great grandmummy who spoke Gaelic celebrated it right before midnight on Feb. 1st. How thrilled she was to have a grandaughter born on this day. I have enjoyed reading everyone's post. I do a cleansing bath w/ sea salts, bay leaves, vanilla.I make an altar with a wreath of heather , white cloth with a red veil, green candles. I do a space clearing and cast a circle. My midnight ceremony consists of dancing with candles and the offering of goat milk and oatmeal cakes. It is also my birthday so lots of beer gets flowing to!!! Best wishes and joyful Imolc!!

I absolutely LOVE Sacred Text Archive! What a treasure trove! It's like the internet version of the library of Alexandria!

I have Irish Witchcraft from an Irish Witch. It's not bad, even though she says that it's not wiccan, I can still see a lot of that in there. But it's a very good book nonetheless!!

I think this makes the most sense for a coven. It is just easier. :) HOPE the fire is warm!!

My point in posting about when sheep lactate was that sheep begin lactating when they give birth. Left to their own devices, they will get pregnant whenever possible. It's the shepard who decides to arrange a most suitable timing for birth, by controlling when the buck visits the ewes. You can't relieably mark a calendar to an event that, if left alone without some input, could happen at any time.

So it's a chicken/ egg sort of thing. Which came first. The event or the arrangement and/or the timing of the event ? Did the sheppard breed his sheep to mark Imbolc or did Imbloc somehow determine when the sheep got pregnant ?

I believe that very often Elders, Wise Men & Women and Medicine People sought ways to enhance the lives of the peoples they cared for. I believe that very often "they" would enhance logical happenings with a bit of mysticism and fun to get people to do the sensible thing.
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...A couple of examples of this is....

The plains Indians (of the "US") would arrange their teepees in a circle with all the "doors" facing east. That arrangement is now thought of as being the Spiritual Way of doing it. The Circle representing all life, the doorways facing to honor Father Sun. But think about the practical reasons for such an arrangement, ..an ordered arrangement of camp that no one protested because it was a "Great Mystery" thing, and the doors facing east to catch the first light of day to help burn off the early morning dew and light and warm the interior of the dwelling. The Elders turned a good thing to do into a necessary thing to do by giving it an overlayment of Spirituality.

Another example is the Purification Lodge, (aka: sweat lodge). Getting very hot and sweating the impurities out of your body is very healthy. It is also very cleaning and is very helpful in causing everyone to smell better. These are things that matter in societies that haven't yet invented indoor plumbing and bathtubs. When you live in close contact with many people, if one gets sick, everybody gets sick. And if one person just doesn't care about personal hygiene, it can get to be a long winter living in a relatively small space. A solution is to make doing regular Lodges a part of Spiritual Life. Then everybody participates, for the good of all...for many reasons.

Look, I'm not saying that we critically examine everything spiritual and turn it into some kind of logic. I'm saying that, as people in this particular tribe, we tend to be leaders in our various groups. Therefore we might be well advised to more deeply understand the reasons things are done. If as leaders we say do this or do that, and we ourselves don't understand the "why" behind it, then we can fail as leaders.

Prophesy tells us that the World is in the midst of great changes. In the next five years it is going to get to be much more dramatic. We Earth Walkers must know what we are doing, or people will get hurt. When the electricity is gone, when the clocks no longer function, we had better be able to accurately tell when the seasons change so we are able to know when to prepare for winter and when to plant our gardens.
It's fun and deeply meaningful to do Celebrations these days. ...But soon, holding Ceremony may be rather more a concern of life and death.