River Blessings

On Sunday 1 February, 85 people joined together in Stroud to bless their River Frome, celebrating the traditional spring festival of Imbolc, the feast day of Saint Brigid in the Christian calendar

Such ‘River Blessings’, celebrated by river-lovers of all spiritual paths and none, have been springing-up, growing, and connecting across southwest catchments, especially since Robert MacNaughton, then Mayor of Calne, Wiltshire, invited his friend Kate Dineen, and his local Bishop, Andrew of Ramsbury, to bless the River Marden at spring equinox 2023. Since then, Kate and Robert’s circle of blessings have rotated around the eight cardinal points of the the Celtic wheel of the year – encompassing both the Hampshire and Bristol Avons, as well as the Brue and Severn catchments. BrueCREW has hosted two, beside the stepping stones, at midsummers 2024 and 2025

Robin Layfield reflected in Strouds' Amplify on 2 February…

“There is real power in a ritual and it felt vividly like we were all part of a spell that was being woven from all our hopes and fears and that our collective energy and will was being shared with the land and with the river and with each of us that stood there”

Kate and Robert will be joining us in Bruton on the evening of Wednesday 18 March, just before this year’s spring equinox, to talk about their learnings from three years of river blessings around our region, and our connections with water.

These shared blessings are part of a growing reconnection with rivers and nature; one positive outcome of the COVID pandemic post 2020, when many people discovered how polluted rivers had become after themselves becoming ill swimming ‘wild’ in them. The ceremonies present an opportunity for people to come together to share their love for, and concern about, the state of our rivers

Kate writes…

"River Blessings are a form of Sacred Action on behalf of mother Earth and all of life. Ceremony brings us into presence and this gives us the opportunity to shift our perception from extraction from nature to relationship with nature"

Join us 7 for 7:30 pm in the Clubroom, downstairs At the Chapel – bring along your informed questions for Kate and Robert

Please do consider donating £10 if you can, to enable BrueCREW to continue to host events like this, and fund our costs, such as insurance for our Riverfly monitors, and our balsam-bashing volunteers

Please make sure you have proof of TICKET purchase when attending or donate at the door

Also check out other Festivals in Bruton, Nonprofit events in Bruton, Sports events in Bruton.