For Commoners’ Advent, day 20: St Barbara: Hope that Blossoms in the Dark

Here in St Barbara we have a symbol of the sun in the dark, invoked against fire and lightning, causing fruit trees to flower in the winter, and protecting those whose work takes them underground. Saint of the tunnel and the cave, the blossom and the burrow, and, as ally to the miners, bringer of the coal that fuels the midwinter forge of Old Clem.

…She is with the people of Palestine and Lebanon as they stand against Occupation. She is with the badger hiding from the cull. She was with the miners on the picket lines. She is the sun of human and other-than-human dignity waiting to be reborn from the darkness of Empire and Capitalism. She is the spark in the dark.