My friends arrived from all over the Lower Mainland (witches, heathens, mystics, thelemites, hermetics, shamans…) for my Imbolc ritual Sunday afternoon. I’d decorated the hall, with its view of the forest, by setting up an altar for Brighid and the Cailleach strewn with evergreen branches and budding Indian Plum from the woods flanked at each side by wolf and bear hides. Brighid had a bottle of spring water and the Cailleach a bottle of melted snow. Brighid’s had bull and deer skulls and Old Woman a large bear skull and shed deer antlers. I surrounded both with candles and offerings. Although Imbolc is often associated with Brighid, it equally belongs to Old Woman. I thought it best to include her and leave her offerings lest we end up with a situation like Briar Roses’ parents and the uninvited dark fairy in Sleeping Beauty. As my Scots ancestors associated this festival with serpents in their form as land spirits, we performed a snake-themed ritual with spiral dances and egg offerings. My friend and elder Fritz visited last week and explained to my friends and I that he saw the wheel of the year not as a wheel, but as an undulating serpent….