The Feast Day of Saint Brigid in a Time of Raging Virus

It is the morning of St. Brigid's Day.  For information on this intriguing Irish saint, go to this post on my theology blog.  This morning, as I was running, these lines came to me:

Dawn, Saint Brigid's Day:

May our lakes of deep gloom turn

into nourishment.

I've written better (in the sense of more traditionally developed poems) about her.  Go to this post on my theology blog to see for yourself.

Late yesterday afternoon, I made this Facebook post:   "It is the eve of the feast day of St. Brigid, and just today, I came across the tradition of Brat Bhride: leaving a cloak or a piece of cloth or a ribbon outside the door for Saint Brigid to bless and give healing powers."  One website said that a red silk ribbon was preferable.

Just before Christmas I was awash in red ribbons, but yesterday afternoon, they all seemed to have disappeared.  Happily, I was able to find one in a stack of paperwork, a little scrap of glittery red ribbon.  So I left it outside overnight, and this morning, before dawn, I retrieved it.  I'm not sure what to do with it now--carry it with me at all times?  Put it back in the stack of paperwork?

It says something about the past year that I went looking for a red ribbon.  Most years, I'd have read about these ancient customs and thought they were charming and given them not another thought again until next year.

This year, with new strains of the corona virus burning their way through the nation, I decided it wouldn't hurt to get extra blessings any place I could find them.

May we all be blessed with extra healing powers on this feast day of Saint Brigid!