Imbolc 2019 Sabbat Box Theme Release • Spirit's Replenishment

• 2019 IMBOLC • SABBAT BOX THEME • SPIRIT'S REPLENISHMENT •

Boxes ship: 1/25 ~ A new calendar year is quite often a time when we take stock of where we have been and where we are going. After the traditional “holiday season” has passed, everyone is back to “business.”

The winter solstice can be a time of darkness, stagnation, and a sort of end-year malaise. When that Times Square ball drops at midnight on the new year, however, our consciousness tends to shift: we think about what we have done over the last year and what we may want out of the next. It is a time for taking stock, adding up the plusses and subtracting the minuses, with a front-facing position towards what is to come.

This sudden adjustment in thought at this time of year can mean that we strive for changes to our thoughts or actions in the areas of our lives that may need strengthening, improving, and replenishing. We think about gym memberships, dietary changes, work plans, relationship goals. We think about how we want to move forward on our spiritual path…what skills we want to learn, what goals we want to achieve, what obstructions we want to conquer. We think to cleanse ourselves of negativity and failure and mistakes while facing the new year with hope and optimism.

This is not a new philosophy or phenomenon surrounding this time. The calendar year and the Wheel of the Year share these ideas, and throughout history we have different groups and cultures that would look to clear out the old and ring in the new. In our earliest societies as humans, there was the hopeful belief in the return of new life and new growth, focusing on what needed to be done to have a bountiful spring planting season. The Romans later on celebrated Februa, where we get the word for the month of February. This was a festival on the 15th of the named month where purification and cleansing were celebrated and observed. The Celts, also turned their minds to clearing out the negative and what was used up and focused on improving their lives during this time of year as well. A number of early spring traditions were created at that time, including the concept of “spring cleaning” and the mundane preparations for fertility and growth translated into the spiritual clearing and purification necessary for success and a prosperous season ahead. As modern pagans, we have continued to carry forward many of these seasonal traditions, most specifically the Gaelic traditions, and call this time Imbolc, the first of the eight sabbats in our modern calendar year.



The modern spiritual observation of this shift from darkness to light, from old to new, is what Imbolc is all about. Many Pagans use this time to take stock and begin to lay  a foundation to the growth and improvement they seek, and like the first step in any magickal working, creating a solid magickal foundation starts with purifying, cleansing, ridding and banishing all that needs it, in order to take the steps to ultimately replenish ourselves and our spirit.

In this spirit—and at this time in the Wheel of the Year—Sabbat Box has curated a collection of items that can help everyone prepare themselves (and their craft) for the return of spring and the time of preparation we celebrate with this Sabbat. What parts of your life, spiritual and mundane, are you looking grow from? Do you have or know of anything that needs clearing our purifying in your physical and spiritual space? What about yourself? Could you use some spiritual clarity and replenishment? By starting the year with a focus on purification and clearing of the old, we are able to lay the foundation and groundwork that we need in order to aid us in manifesting the future we desire, in a symbolic, physical and spiritual manner.

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