At Imbolc, it is good to focus on the In breath. First we receive, and then we give. Life begins with an In breath. Imbolc is the time when the year first breathes in.  The year breaths in, and "The Earth that is wise and old / Dreams in her sleep and stirs." This is the breath of in-spiration.  The Celts associated inspiration with the  goddess  Brigid, or Brigit.  She is the Goddess of the fire that forges, and of all forms of creativity that flow from inspiration -- of both arts and crafts. 

    Another way to approach Imbolc is to understand it as the time of re-membering.  In many traditions, the shaman's journey  begins with dis-memberment.  As we descend into the World Underground, as we move from the Upper world of manifestations into the Lower world of Dreaming, we let go of form.  In Inuit myth, the youth whom the Elders have chosen as their next shaman is first dismembered and left in a dark cave, so broken that no bone touches another.  But now, at Imbolc, the earth is turning, and the path begins to lead upward again towards the world  of manifestation.  Before he emerges from the cave, he must first re-member every bone. So in  Tolkein's Lord of the Rings after his long  fall with the Balrog, "Gandalf the Grey" must slowly re-member himself to emerge as the new Gandalf, "Gandalf the White."  Re-membering is the inner stuff of transformation we must set about in the dark before we can emerge again at  Spring Equinox into the world of light.