Happy Imbolc!

Are you seeing any early signs of spring or are you in one of the many areas being slammed by winter today?  For a change, we didn't get hit - instead the thermometer showed 47F and it rained off and on for most of the day. Back to freezing temperatures tomorrow, and snow in a couple of days - but for today at least, I could see vague hints of spring.

I've spent the last couple days trying to whip through some of the cleaning I'd intended to do in January - I'll be devoting the month to it - along with babysitting and a bit of downtime spent stitching.

My Imbolc observance was very simple - candles lit where the Frankie Cat won't knock them over, a walk through the house blessing it with sound from the delightful sleigh bell wand I won from The Deepest Well (it is also pulling double duty as a priapic wand right now) and incense, and laying out a little Brigid's Bed under my tree.... i's filled with a few little items... a dolly with a basket of flowers my mother gave me many years ago, a little nosegay of silk roses, the sleighbell wand, and a peacock feather for my patron goddess, Juno.

This is meant to be a fertility symbol to help usher in the reawakening of the earth, and also our own inner fertility and passion.  The dolly and wand act as goddess and god...roses for love, and Juno's blessing in her role as goddess of marriage  - she blesses this union and binds it together.

(None of this is 'standard'... it is what works for me.  I want to say that as I don't want this googled and suddenly being taken as canon.  Juno and Brigid are not a part of the same pantheon.. but for me they each hark back to aspects of the goddess... in this case Brigid, the maiden, and Juno the mother who helps the maiden grow into her role as a bride.)

Tomorrow morning, I'm going to make scones, see what the groundhog has to say, and I think that will likely be it for my observance this year.  I don't let myself stress...simple or elaborate depends on circumstance and what makes sense for any given year.