Imbolc

I performed my Imbolc ritual last week.  I must say that while it felt a little strange during the ritual, the results were certainly felt!
When I say strange, I mean I had all the parts together, I had a circle that felt charged and electric and I had all the feline support I could take, but there was something in the periphery of my awareness.  There was something on the fringe that I couldn't quite put my finger on during the ritual.  It was not wrong or uncomfortable, just a presence with which I was uncertain I guess.
Following closing the circle  I felt this surge of energy.  It was wild.  I always get a little juiced after a circle, even with grounding and a simple feast, but this was different.  I was filled with this hopefulness that I haven't felt a lot lately.  Imbolc is about anticipation and the awakening of earth to a new season of growth and I have to admit I felt the energies far more acutely than I have in a while.  My mood was light, my attitude positive, my spirits higher than they have been the last several months.  It was like all my worries, concerns, and stresses were burned away in that cauldron and replaced with everything that is good about the world.  On a funny note, I gave Poof--the eldest of the felines--a kitty massage.  When he wants attention from me, he wants to be scratched and massaged from noggin to tail so I did.  Holy buckets!  I don't know if I had a little residual energy still in my hands or what, but I think I transferred them to him because he started behaving like a kitten full of all the attitude and bravado of a young Tom!  There was a definite pulse beating in the house on Imbolc night and we all felt it.  It was exciting!
The whole next day I floated through my routine with this sense of invincibility.  It was like whatever much got hurled at me at work, it didn't matter.  No one was going to disrupt my happy.  Some really icky stuff happened that day, but I felt better equipped to dust myself off and keep moving forward.  It was like I could handle anything and remain feeling lighthearted and content.  It was glorious.
Then it happened.  As I was quietly reflecting on the amazing sensations I was experiencing, it hit me.  This is why I do this.  This is why I meditate, visualize, cast circles--I've always been a pagan.  Even when I was little and supposedly following the Catholic teachings, I was a pagan.  When I think about it, every spring when the days started getting longer, I felt it.  I didn't know what it was, but I could feel this potential warmth and energy that was begging to be released.  I observed that the snow was getting wetter instead of the dry, cold winter snow.  I noticed that the little bunnies were being born.  I saw the birdies building nests.  I was always a keen observer of the changes in the seasons.  I felt them.  I was the same way with the phases of the moon.  I could feel the electricity crackle when a moon was full and the brightness shown over the night.  In the fall, I would have the sense of rest.  As I smelled the chimney smoke in the neighborhood, saw the frost over the lawns, felt the chill that is so distinctly autumn I knew that the earth was going to sleep.
This revelation was just one of those moments of ah-ha that brings order to every chaos that permeates existence.  Suddenly everything was in focus and I felt energized and centered all at once.  As for the odd presence I felt in my Imbolc ritual, I can only guess as to what it was.  If I had to venture a shot, I would guess it was energies of spring.  I've been fine tuning my connection to the earth for the last several weeks and I think I was sensing that old spring magic once again.
Blessed be!