The Gifts of Eostre

An introduction to the icons and symbols of the season with Jessica North-O’Connell. Celebrate Spring and welcome Beltane with a story about the Goddess of Springtime, fertility and new growth.

          The heart of winter lay heavy and too long upon the land; its blanket of Death shrouded the decay of the previous year.  Even the bleak winter sun was in short supply for usually the sky was a flat slate grey in color, dull and cold to the eye.  Life itself seemed stagnant, animal folk huddled in their nests and burrows, venturing out only in search of scarce food as their own supplies dwindled.  Human folk maintained, and waited. Spring was late this year--it seemed perhaps to have passed over this part of Creation, but how could the Lady forget her own?

          The frozen ponds, scratched by myriad booted steps, offered no reflection to the young girl who peered into them, perhaps searching for a sign….  She scrubbed her snow-crusted mittened hand over the marked surface as though to polish it, but a small, shivering sparrow distracted her from her futile task.

          “Birdie,” she said, rising, her voice filled with concern, “can’t you find anything to eat?”  Reaching into her pocket, she pulled out the remains of the seed bun her mother had given her as a snack before she had gone outdoors.  She carefully tossed some crumbs in the bird’s direction, taking care not to scare the small creature away.  The sparrow made no move toward the crumbs.

          “What’s wrong?” asked the child.  “Surely you’re hungry?”  She took a few steps back in case her presence was worrying the bird, but still the sparrow made no move to retrieve the breadcrumbs.  Then the child’s eye caught sight of a small bright red stain on the white snow.

          “You’re hurt!” she exclaimed, “you poor little dear!” and she began to move slowly toward the bird, who still made no attempt to escape.  Reaching down toward the bird, the child noticed that its eyes flickered and one wing was askew.  Carefully, so carefully, she picked up the wretched creature and saw that its legs were crumpled and it labored hard to continue breathing.  The child, dismayed, held the dying bird in her bare hands.  Where was the Lady?  Why had she not come?  Here was one of her own creatures who so needed her warmth, yet still she was absent.

          Turning her eyes to the endless slate-grey sky, she wept and cried, “Oh, Lady, Ostara, where have you gone?  Why have you not come to bring us your warmth?  See how this little bird is dying from the cold!”

          Suddenly a palette of color began to form against the background of the monochrome sky: first violet, then indigo, then aqua to green, then yellow to orange to red, and a rainbow bridge appeared upon which strode the most beautiful young woman the child had ever seen.  The Lady!   Her red gowns exuded  a warmth to melt the ice and snow and burn away the clouds of winter.

          The child watched in awe as Ostara, Goddess of the fertile spring, came to rest before her in radiant splendour.  Her eyes wide, the child offered up the sparrow to the Lady, but it was too late, for the bird’s wounds were beyond repair.

           Ostara took the bird into her hands and, reaching down to the ground, released a snow white hare in its place.  The hare hopped away into the nearby wood, leaving a trail of bright red eggs in its wake.

          “Watch for my snow hare at the end of winter,” Ostara instructed the child,  “for she is my promise to you that the spring and I will soon be coming.”  And she placed a red egg in the child’s hands as she walked into the forest, flowers springing up where her feet passed, to set the world abloom.

                                      WELCOME the Season of Spring!

          Ostara, or Eostre, is a Teutonic Goddess associated with spring and, according to authors Janet and Stewart Farrar, the Maiden aspect of Earth.  Some people suggest that the name Ostara is the European form of Ishtar, the Assyro-Babylonian Mother Goddess (her Festival day is April 22^nd) or Astarte,  the fertility Goddess of the Canaanites, and it has also been suggested that Eostre be equated to Eos, Greek goddess of the dawn, which would accommodate her association with daybreak (new beginnings) and the direction of east, home of the rising sun.  Her sacred month is Eastremonath, which means “the Moon of Eostre,” another key to the all-pervasive lunar nature of the Lady.  Her symbols are the hare (a common symbol of the Goddess in her lunar aspect) and the egg, specifically the red egg as a solar symbol of rebirth and renewal (red represents life and dawn).  This dual association of lunar and solar symbolism also reflects the Equinox.  In the Celtic tradition, this is the season of the Green Goddess and the Lord of the Greenwood.

          Not only do we derive the name of the Christian celebration of Easter from Eostre’s name, we also get the word estrogen, the female hormone responsible for developing and maintaining the body’s female characteristics, and estrus, the cycle of sexual receptivity in many mammals.

          Ostara’s season is one of rebirth and renewal of the Earth, of promise and of new beginnings, and many cultures considered the Vernal Equinox the beginning of their new year (the Western zodiac begins with Aries).  Daylight and night time being of equal length  portends the  balancing of polarities.  From the Spring Equinox through Beltane, this is a season when we begin new projects.  Crops are planted and ideas (some of which have been percolating since Brigid’s Day, February 2^nd) also cultivated.

          According to Barbara Walker, the association of this season with the theme of the death and rebirth of the God (a personification of plant life) hearkens back to pre-Christian times when one pagan sacred drama involved placing a representation of the God into his tomb, then withdrawing him so that he might live again; also, the pagans of Germany celebrated the “Hoch-Zeit,” the sacred king’s love-death, during this season.  I have also seen this season described as the time of the God’s infancy, when the Goddess nurses her son who will become her consort, and as the time when the Lady and Lord prepare to come together for the Sacred Marriage at Beltane, though other traditions place this event at the Summer Solstice.  Variations most probably arise from the different locations where customs developed, depending upon the varying lengths of the growing season, as well as the philosophical tenets of the times.

          Another festival which coincides with this season is the Jewish holiday of Passover, marking the beginning of the Exodus from Egypt, and the start of a new way of life for the Hebrew people.

          Nah-Ruz, the Bahai’i and Persian New Year, is also celebrated at the Spring Equinox.

          In the Celtic lunar calendar, Ostara’s season coincides with the Month of Hawthorn:

“The Hawthorn tree is significant of cleansing, purity and chastity.  The type of ‘chastity’ that Hawthorn suggests is not mere sexual abstention.  It is more a type of sovereignty over yourself, in as much [sic] as you exist in your own right, for your own purposes, and are not appropriated or distorted by anyone else’s agenda.  Of course, this often includes a period of celibacy, as sexual connection establishes an energetic bond that is visible to some as a bridge, or arc, of light, and so compromises the purely sovereign state of selfhood to a degree.  Perhaps this is the underlying reason for the valuing of abstention during some periods of personal retreat or clearing.” (The Witch’s Book of Days, Jean Kozocari, Jessica North, Yvonne Owens, p. 87)

And further from the same source:  “The priestess of Hawthorn is both the virgin spring, unsullied and untrammelled –  and its protector.  In this relationship, you are both the zealously guarded, pure, wild essence, and the thorns that prevail against invasion.  During this period, you might consider a spiritual retreat, a fast, or cleansing diet.  Regard yourself as perfect and immaculate in your essential Self, in your conception of yourself, and then adopt a stance of fierce resolve to defend this purity – your natural condition.

          “You may want to look back over you life, starting with your earliest memories.  Recall the first time when you might have been terribly upset, or a time when you were suffering.  Look to see if there is a sense of injustice connected with this memory; have you been wronged or misjudged in someway [sic]?  Has a parent or a teacher projected an erroneous or distorted image on to you.  If so, go back into the scene in a visualization, and defend yourself.  You can see yourself saying or doing the things you were unable or too small to say or do at the time.  Or you can see yourself enter the scene as your adult self, defending, protecting and comforting your child self.

          “This type of visualization is so powerful that it actually changes the past, or what we might call the ‘Roots of Karma,’ and puts your present and your future on a different and firmer foundation.  This is due to the fact that, having re-visioned (revised) the scene or scenes that damaged your sense of Self in the past, you have supplied yourself with an advocated [sic], even if it is your own, present, grown-up self doing the advocacy.  If the visualization is powerful, it will go deep to subconscious areas of your psyche.  In other words, if your light Alpha-trance is convincing (and they always are – this is our ‘deep’ mind, and it is programmed in precisely this manner), your memory of the events that have harmed your self-esteem and your sense of yourself will transform, and likewise your present and ongoing reality, for you will remember having been protected and respected, instead of having been defamed.  You will, thereafter, think of yourself as someone who is worthy of protection and respect, and this will change your life accordingly.

          “This is also a month that may inspire you to clean house, literally as well as figuratively.  Clearing out emotional baggage is often helped along by a thorough house-cleaning, discarding old, burdened memories and restoring your environment to its prime condition.” (p.91)           

THE RITUAL

          The Egg and the Hare are the primary icons of the season, one representative of the sun and potential and the other of the moon and fertility. The tradition of the egg and hare survives in hunting for eggs left by the bunny and the most famous example of “egg art” has to be the Ukrainian pysanky.

          Originally, the pysanky were made with only two colors:  red, the color of the sun, life and happiness, hope and passion, and white, symbolizing purity;  true pysanky still feature a great deal of white in the designs. The custom of placing red (for adults) and white (for young children) eggs on graves carries within it the idea of rebirth.

          In making pysanky, the most ancient and commonly-used symbol is the sun (not surprisingly) which can be represented by a myriad of designs. Birds, hearts, fruit and vegetables, wheat, spiders, animals, ladders (for older people who would soon be moving on to another existence), the forty triangles (representing the many facets of life), circles, trees, garlands (called vinok and representing a girl’s desire for freedom), crosses (representing the solar wheel), grapes, bees, the snake (holder of mystical powers), the fish (originally the mystical being of action), the net (originally representing knowledge and motherhood and later, the Christ’s reference to his followers as “the fishers of men”), water and meander lines are some of the symbols one finds on traditional pysanky.  A further clue to the antiquity of some of these symbols can be found in Marija Gimbutas’ book, “Language of the Goddess,” in which she states that the meander first appeared in Upper Paleolithic art and was a symbol and metaphor for water.  This design reached a peak of popularity during the Copper Age and, of course, is still found in pysanky today, representing eternity and everlasting life, the eternal cycles of nature.

          Now for the Paper Egg part:  write down your plan or wish on one side and color the other side red.  You may decorate it with meaningful symbols if you like.  Then from completion of this activity until Beltane (April 30/May 1), sleep with your “egg” under your pillow to further imbue it with your intention and essence.  At Beltane, burn it by throwing it on the Beltane fire (or any other way) and watch as the fire transforms the paper into ash, knowing the intention has been released to do its work.

NATURAL EGG DYES

SPRING CHICKEN YELLOW                           EASTER (EOSTRE) BUNNY BROWN

1 tsp. turmeric                                                    1 tbsp. (heaping) instant coffee

2/3 c. boiling water                                        2/3 c. boiling water

¼  tsp. white vinegar                                   ½ tsp. white vinegar

SEREN”DIP”ITY

Simmer egg with one of the following:

onion skins (golden orange), beets, (reddish purple), spinach (pale green), red cabbage leaves, walnut shells (buff),  or grape juice (mauve) and ¼  tsp. vinegar.  (Feel free to experiment with other natural items.)

Method:

For CHICKEN YELLOW, add turmeric to boiling water, stir until dissolved.  Add ¼ tsp. vinegar to water.

For BUNNY BROWN add heaping tbsp. instant coffee to boiling water, stir to dissolve, add ¼ tsp. vinegar to water.

For SEREN”DIP”ITY,  simmer eggs with one of the ingredients listed above.

Wash eggs in mild soapy water to remove oily coating which could prevent dye from adhering.  Poke a hole in one end of the egg with a straight pin to release any air and reduce possibility of egg shell cracking.  Put into prepared water and simmer 20 minutes. Do not put eggs into rapidly boiling water as this will cause them to break.

                                                BLESSED BE!