Imbas Forosnai

So, Finn’s post on Awen for the Pagan Blog Project has inspired me a bit.

As you may be aware, I worship Brighid. She’s a goddess of many, many things (as all gods are; let us remember to not ever reduce Them to one aspect), and one of those things is poetry.

Poetry. Fire in the head. Poetic inspiration.

This isn’t just sonnets with perfect rhymes, free-verse creations written in a 2am fever of creativity, beat poems that rock the stage at Slam Night. Poetry means so much more.

I’m going to quote myself here — this was my answer to a question in a TC thread. The question was “What do you see poetry as encompassing?”

Everything.

Poetry is sex and magic and death. It’s the very air that moves through the lungs of all life; it’s that feeling you get, the current of life-death energy, when you connect — I mean really connect – and that can happen when you draw down a god or goddess or when you look at how the leaves blow in the wind and it takes your breath away for a second.

Primal energy. Brighid is primal energy of fire, and poetry is primal energy of fire. Brighid is poetry; She embodies it; Poetry embodies Her.

Like fire, it creates and destroys, because the two are one. It’s ephemeral, short lived, like a gasp, a prayer, an orgasm. (For a relative value of “short”.)

So religiously speaking, poetry means a lot of things. According to this witch, at least.

Awen is often used interchangeably with imbas (though the two are not exactly the same). Imbas means, in a word, inspiration. Forosnai means that which illuminates.

I’m starting a new category of posts, called Imbas Forosnai. In here I’ll post religious poetry.

That doesn’t necessarily mean devotional poems, or even just poems. It means…poetry. Imbas. Awen. Sex and magic and death and the air that brings us life.

Poetic ramblings. Some poems. Stuff that Brighid makes me write.

Half it won’t make any sense, probably, and the other half might pierce you to your core. Or you’ll find all of it annoying and wait impatiently for me to post something less poetic again, muttering about pretentious hipster pagans.

Regardless, I’m doing it. Not sure how often I’ll be posting to it, but I’ve got one poem lined up for it already. Expect to see that in the coming week.