Ostara

Ostara, Spring Equinox:

This is the time of year when the days and nights are of equal length, with the daylight on the increase. By now many birds are nesting and many early flowers are in bloom, the earliest trees are coming into bud and the weather, though unpredictable is less inclined towards being cold as the stronger sunshine shifts the frosts and snows faster. It has many associations now with fertility, birth and joyous celebration. A time when a little luxury creeps back into life after the hardest winter months have passed. What can we say of it's history?

It seems that in Britain once again there is no certain evidence of pre-Christian festivals. Nothing is documented and the name for the Christian festival is the surviving name in both the Welsh and Irish languages. Easter is from the Anglo-Saxon influence and can either be from a possible British based dawn goddess type cult or simply that the month may have had the title of 'month of beginnings'.

The egg has become a symbol of this time because it is almost universally recognised as a symbol of birth and life, and as an excellent food source their availability to eat again was definitely something to celebrate. This may well stretch way back in time but we cannot know for sure.

The hare, an animal sacred to the Celts, with it's Spring-time antics was certainly part of later European Easter celebrations and may be far older, but in Britain it appears to have arrived from across the Atlantic as part of a much more modern Easter tradition.

So it would seem that prior to the arrival of Christianity our ancestors were probably far to busy to make much of this season preferring the later Beltane when the weather was far more settled.

Eostara today then is certainly from a very mixed background, yet even with removing it's definite Christian connections it remains a very important date. Today we know when the day and night are equally balanced and we can still celebrate the gift of more a plentiful food supply. Despite the still inclement weather, the fact that summer is on it's way is undeniable. We can plan ahead for outdoor work and play. Seeds can be sown in earnest. We can relax over the ordering of fuel, air the house and let fresh energy in, and leave the curtains open a bit longer at night.

At this time we can see Nature's regeneration, we can feel refreshed and renewed too. With the energy of youth we can step into the tasks of summer, getting things ready for the fast growth of the coming season and the responsibility it will bring. Internally we can use this energy to give youthful impetus to flagging ideas, renew our spiritual practices after the stillness of winter and adapt them to suit the lighter days.