Right, this is the night you are staying home and putting those poems to paper. Or pulling out the paint brushes. Or downloading that music software. Tonight is the night you are not turning on the television, phoning your girlfriends, polishing your toenails. Tonight you play with your imagination. Oh, no! You just got a text from HIM saying he wants to play with you… and your creativity crashes. Before you rush out the door, let Brigid the Celtic Goddess of Spring be your bouncer and make sure she stops your inspiration from leaving too.
You gotta admire a goddess who has her own holiday. Every year, on the first of February, pagans frolicked in anticipation of the warm winds and fertile rains Brigid would bring come spring. But she wasn’t just a farming fraulein. She was also the perfectionist, high-status goddess of poetry and craft skills, like blacksmithery. She encouraged her people to tell tales, to forge something fantastic out of nature’s offerings. Her sacred flame was guarded gravely by priestesses – any man who tried to grab a light died, turned mad or had his ‘lower leg’ withered. Which soon set him straight.
Tend your creative spirit. Keep the fire alive. Don’t let a man or a mate try to snuff it out. And don’t be your own wet blanket and claim you are not creative. Brigid isn’t asking for ‘Pride and Prejudice’ or ‘Poppa Don’t Preach’. Try and make something with your mind that you didn’t read in a magazine, with your hands that you’ve never held before. It’s important to be a producer, not a consumer – shopping is a zero skill. Play with play-doh... have fun! Have something in your house that you made and didn’t buy, whether it’s a haiku or a hat.
Mod Brigid – Tracey Emin: an intensely personal artist who is unafraid to reveal her innermost traumas and intimate tales. Whether working in painting, sculpture or fabric – her most famous piece is an embroidered tent, entitled 'Everyone I Have Ever Slept With' – she has staked an audacious, orginal place in art. Tracey was chosen to represent Britain in the 2007 Venice Biennale and has also published a memoir, Strangeland.
