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Antara discovers Instagram - life will never be the same!
As you may remember I have changed the way I approach festivals. Now I am practising a conscious build up to a festival and then afterwards letting the energy ebb away gently in the weeks that follow.  I want to experience the festivals as a background rhythm in my life not as a 2 hour holiday from my life.

Ostara has been a little more low key for me so far but I have dressed my altar with decorated eggs and spent a great deal of time deliberately breathing in the Spring air.  Back at Imbolc I remember how cold it was and how I had to work hard to visualise the first stirrings of Spring - hidden so deep in the Earth. In comparison Ostara feels like a riot of Spring with buds popping up, flowers blossoming and everything waking up and shouting their Life into the world.  I am really enjoying experiencing the building energy of Spring gathering pace.

In my own life I am waking up a little more as well.  Doing more
exercise, preparing the garden, Spring cleaning, perhaps also trying
to shout my Life into the world.  Today in the UK the clocks went forward which means even more daylight.  It feels like another milestone on my journey into the wheel of the year. Rather than complaining about getting up an hour earlier I am seeking to enjoy the change in pace. 

This energy will linger for a long time as we are still several weeks away from Easter which I simply see as another extension of Ostara (the roots of Easter in Ostara are clear even if the Equinox is the date used by Pagans).  There is so much anticipation gathered at Easter, much like twinning of Christmas and Yule.  With such an undercurrent of celebration of fertility with Chocolate Eggs and Bunnies I am happy to go with that flow and make it a part of my Ostara. 

After Easter where will the energy take me?  Well fertility only gets
more intense between now and Beltane and the natural world gets more and more alive.  I will be making sure I am getting outside and
practising mindfulness to really appreciate and tap into that flow.

I would love to hear about everyone else's experience of the Ostara energy so do leave a comment below!