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Aimsir
Note from the editors.
We welcome readers to the first edition of Aimsir.
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To begin, we would like to introduce the journal, and the ideas that have helped to shape it. The publishing schedule of Aimsir is inspired by that of The Evergreen: A Northern Seasonal, an interdisciplinary magazine that was first published in 1895, in four issues, edited by Patrick Geddes and William Sharp. Despite its brief life, ceasing publication after less than two years, The Evergreen had an immense cultural impact. Aimsir seeks to revive and to rework this format, and has its origins in wanting to encourage readers to stop and more closely consider the natural world, particularly through the lens of seasonality. The selected pieces of poetry, prose, photography and artwork in these pages are intended to kindle an appreciation of human connections with nature, of its beauty, and of its changeability.
As Seán Hewitt observes in his afterword for our Imbolc edition, humans are ‘instinctive, feeling animals’, whose internal landscapes are shaped by the weather, in precisely the same way that environmental landscapes are. However, many of us are drifting towards aseasonal lives, largely due to our lack of direct contact with the natural world, and what we perceive as our lack of reliance on it. Given this move away from seasonal living, we wanted to use this project as an opportunity to reconsider inherited understandings of Celtic traditions and their relationships with the natural world. Each of the festivals we have chosen to structure this journal brings with it a different way of relating to its signalling season. Modelled on the Irish division of the year, which takes its inspiration from older Celtic calendars, Aimsir’s work and publication will respond to a number of key marking festivals.
The first of the year is Imbolc, the marker of spring, which occurs on the first day of February and is closely associated with Brigid of Ireland. It is traditionally celebrated with the weaving of Brigid’s crosses from rushes, which are then hung above the doors of houses to bring protection to those inside. Another associated custom is to hang strips of clothing outside on the last night of January, with the belief that Brigid will bless them as she passes the house, and that they too will bestow protection on the owner for the year ahead.
Imbolc marks the beginnings of growth and birth in the year, and many passages in the ninth-century work Bethu Brigte outlines how Brigid’s spiritual power often manifests itself through forms of feeding. From feeding herself on the milk of a white, red-eared cow in order to heal her spiritual self, to transforming a cup of water into milk in order to cure another, her association with dairy is particularly indicative of the healing and protective associations that surround her. This idea of creation from natural substances and objects is beautifully depicted by Maeve Breathnach’s front-cover illustration, in which a Brídeóg is surrounded by a number of botanical subjects, underlining the fact that it is a figure made from plants. A thing that has been given life from natural materials.
In the editions to follow, we will next consider Bealtaine, meaning May in Irish and signalling the beginning of summer. Traditional celebrations of this festival often involve lighting bonfires and visiting holy wells. The following edition will be Lúnasa, which translates to August in Irish. It indicates the beginning of the harvest season, and has traditionally been honoured by feasting, the visitation of holy wells and hilltop festivities. Lastly will be Samhain, another festival named after its corresponding month, and occuring on the first of November. It marks the beginning of winter, and is believed to be the time when the veil between the material world and the Otherworld is thinner, allowing spirits to pass between both as they please.
Each of these festivals have been observed across Ireland, and in different regional forms throughout the Atlantic archipelago, since pre-Christian times. They have shaped the years of countless generations, who read the signals from the weather, the plants, and the animals that surrounded them. Recognising the way in which people often turn to the natural world and its imagery during times of emotional difficulty—as was clearly evidenced by a communal re-engagement with nature during and after the coronavirus pandemic—we hope to develop a space for people to explore their relationship with the environment, and the natural spaces of the world, freely. To allow themselves to be shaped, once again, by the changing of the seasons, which has inspired such celebrations, stretching back into the earliest memories of the Celtic cultural imagination. We hope that this journal might open a dialogue between different communities on these islands, allowing for a variety of linguistic and cultural expressions of seasonality to interact with, and inform, one another.
In the same way that The Evergreen oversaw an assembly of voices looking to celebrate contemporary Celtic literature, art and culture, we hope Aimsir can offer a forum for voices with an interest in re-imagining or re-connecting with these traditions. Like Geddes and Sharp, we hope to encourage people towards the beauty of the earth, and highlight the importance of its protection and preservation. More than just a distant, indeterminate source of inspiration, we want to incite readers and contributors to immerse themselves in nature, with the seasons as an anchor for these new discussions, both aesthetically and thematically.
Aimsir
These pages are intended to stimulate discussions on how contemporary culture in these islands is informed by the hauntings of older traditions, and to help us to develop, as Hewitt advocates, the gift of feeling again. With Imbolc, just as the symbolic emergence of new life from milk through Brigid’s intervention is detailed in Bethu Brigte, we hope this edition might contribute to the rebirth that we see beginning to occur in these islands. A return to those ideas rooted within The Evergreen, a return to older traditions, and a return to an embodied way of living with seasonality and the natural world, marked by the notable introduction of a public holiday in Ireland for Imbolc this year. Importantly, this rebirth might allow us to move away from the romanticised representations of a ‘Celtic’ identity perpetuated by late nineteenth- and twentieth-century revival movements, and towards an inclusive way of interacting with tradition, one that is strengthened by the diversity of these islands. One that recognises the beauty of inter-community enmeshment, of joined celebration, and of creating a new identity which does not privilege the experiences of one group over the other.
Publishing works in Irish and English, both together and apart, is a crucial element of Aimsir’s objective. Soon, these works will hopefully be joined by other voices, in languages from across the islands, such as Gàidhlig, Scots, Welsh and Manx. We hope, in our own way, within these pages, to let all the various identities of the archipelago take a new shape, one which is founded on real and embodied connection with the natural world, with seasonality, and with community.
