That's a poor way of explaining it, but that's the best I can do.

"Explaining" it is often pretty hard to do with some areas of meditation, because speech (verbal, pre-verbal conceptual, and physical communication (including afferent and efferent sense actions)) is just one aspect of the mind's capacity. So when mind is active in an area that is not communicating in the more familiar verbal or image-conceptual means, then one's own hindsight view and verbal/conceptual re-expression of that experience is naturally hard to put in words. It's like trying to explain "taste of carrots" with vocabulary restricted to words around "Michelin tires".
Since then it's been nothing but equanimity interspersed with similar moments as just described. I started focusing on samatha at that point because it was most interesting to me, but I've returned to insight in the last month, and nothing at all is coming. It's like the "curiosity" of the mind is gone. I'm not implying I made path. I'm just saying what it's like.
I think you're going to know very well for yourself over the next year what happened. Personally, I found the fetter model very accurate for sotapanna ---
edit: wait, that's funny. That's a tautomerism. The defined is contained in the definition basically! So I'll say that I found the fetter model simple and apt. A friend and I following different systems in recent years seemed to have had what is described by the first path in the fetter model. I mean these terms are useful like "birthdays" to indicate some change, but can't be taken too seriously (like birthdays reflect time passing, but don't speak to any inherent maturity or any inherent rate of aging)I loved reading
"I started focusing on samatha at that point because it was most interesting to me,"
and that's probably a personal resonance for me. Fun stuff.
Maybe I will make more of an effort to take pleasure in everything instead of observing it.
I think the first few months after mind's sotapanna release are inherently wonderful,
edit: mind can take in more enjoyment, there is less tension and something is relaxing, letting go it seems. The difference between equanimity (where we can easily think we're having "stream-entry" mind) and "stream-entry" is that there is definitely familiar tension persistent in EQ, basically because the mind is very, very concerned about falling back into the dukkha nanas. I guess that tension would be something about mind's belief framework of reality, which starts to change after the stream-entry release. With sotapanna release, the mind definitely can still panic, can definitely be miserable, can definitely be foolish, but basically there is some kind of new relaxation/release there that becomes more the norm over time (and allows the mind to keep releasing) and a natural momentum towards dealing with itself. It will naturally start dealing with its ill-will and the causes that amount to ill-will (e.g., greed, exaggerated pleasure-seeking).
So congrats on whatever happened there =]
Anyway, those are just my thoughts.
Thanks for taking the time to offer support.
Well, thanks especially for doing what you're doing. No matter what tradition one is in, there are people whose minds experience release and and a natural, gradual wholesome shifting starts to occur.
It also reminds me of what I have heard from former addicts: touching a bottoming-out place and having a clear irrevocable wholesome shift result.