The Pagan Heart
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March 2005 Issue
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Cracking the Shell
By Nokomis Dream
Spring brings the melting of snow, days on end of pouring rain, grass, and beautiful flowers. Animals are giving birth, the days are finally getting longer and you can actually see without your headlights on your way home from work. Spring brings forth snow treasures - you know, all the the thingamabobs you thought you lost after the first snow fall (and haven't missed) - and there's the inevitable questions about Easter - why people celebrate it...and why in the world is it never on a set date, every year? Raised in the Southern Baptist church, I grew up looking forward to Easter as much as I did Christmas and Halloween. Why, you ask? For presents and the candy of course! My mother would always go out, usually to Kmart or JC Penny and pick out pretty little dresses, tights and patent leather shoes for me and my sister and a nice "mini man" suit for my brother, and lots of yummy treasures. On Easter morning after waiting impatiently for the "easter bunny" to visit, we would go to the kitchen where we found a basket for each of us. Sometimes it was full of candy; other times maybe some makeup or a cassette tapes along with the candy. But, there was always that big chocolate bunny. Our parents knew that we would keep ourselves busy eating...no...gorging on the candy. A short time of peace and quiet. After that it was time to get ready for church. The ladies in their finest, us girls in the pretty dresses with their stiff lace collars. The boys and men in "cardboard" iron-creased pant suits. I thought that Easter was a mixture of the Cadbury bunny laying a chocolate egg, and Jesus Christ coming back from the dead. What a picture! But then I grew older. I went through a lot of self exploration, and eventually had children of my own. The tug-of-war between my desire to relive the magical joys of Easter with my kids with my growing spirituality and rejection of all things Christian left me very confused. There were years when I did nothing, because "nothing" offered within the context of Christianity really reflected what Easter was about. No dying and hiding eggs, no new outfits, even no church. Strangely, that evolved into returning to Church. But still no eggs or celebrations. However, the siren song of my childhood always called to me, and inevitably a week or so later there I'd be, coloring eggs with my kids - just for fun. I didn't want my children to be as confused as I was, so many years ago, so I strove to keep the secular separate from the sacred - but in hindsight, was what I was doing any better? Over time I've gotten more comfortable with my personal beliefs. My family's Easter activities have continued to evolve - no longer Easter (after all, what pagan celebrates the resurrection of Christ?) so much as a celebration of Spring, life, renewel. It is a time to welcome spring, hopefully, and of course, to dye and hide those eggs. Although, here, it is usually done in the house, not outside - we normally still have snow on the ground. Not very spring looking, but it's coming and we celebrate that. When I started questioning Easter, I was afraid that I was going against everything that had been hammered into my little head. I was learning that Easter has some beautiful, peaceful roots, not just the story of a man that gets killed and comes back to life. The Pagan roots of this holiday are so intriguing. According to some historians, the word "Easter" can be traced to the words, "Ostern" and "Eostre", and the Scandinavian word, "Ostra" - Ostra being the deity that the festival, Ostara or Eostar is named for. This festival celebrates the balance of the year - day and night once again being equal as days grow longer. It is also a new dawn and fresh beginnings. Eostar is a time of rebirth and growth, life awakens once more. The words "estrogen" and "estrus" come from Eostre, as well. Such strong ties to fertility. How could anyone possibly deny the obvious connections? The goddess of Eostre represnts young girls and women; maiden and mother. There are many symbols associated with Eostre/Eostar/Ostara that reflect this duality. Baby animals, seeds and eggs obviously represent fertility, the egg symbolizing the egg of creation. Some modern Pagan traditions believe the hare also is an animal sacred to Eostre, though there is no historical record of Germanic or Celtic goddesses depicted in this fashion or associated with the hare. This animal is view by some as as the most sacred to this "holy day". They give birth to their babies in the springtime, representing fertility and abundance. Hares are also associated with magic and mysteries - and are linked to the attributes of action, life and growth; all wonderful qualities to associate with Ostara, even if the hare may not be validated by history. Peoples who lived in northern climates were appreciative of the return of the sun at spring. They celebrated with elaborate festivals, and fertility rites. One belief was that if you drew water early in the morning of the equinox (later transferred to Easter Day), that water had restorative powers. Though this particular ritual was still done in Germany until the 19th century, things really started to change when the early Church Fathers decided to covert the masses. In the beginning years of Christianity the leaders decided to name this holiday "Easter", so that it sounded like the names of the fertility festivals of the time. This way, the Pagans would perhaps feel more comfortable with celebrating yet another "Christian" holiday. It actually was pretty smart to change the names just slightly, initially keeping the basic premise of the holiday. Then, over time, changing the religious aspects to suit the Church Fathers agenda. As cruel as it is to take away an individual's faith, whether by coersion or force, you almost have to give the Church Fathers credit on a demented level for how they managed to do it. In the year 325 C.E. Constantine called together the Council of Nicaea. On the agenda was the figuring out the date of Easter festivities. The Eastern Church wanted to observe the day according to the historical method of dating Pesach (Passover) - which meant it could easily occur during the week. The Western Church wanted Easter always to be on a Sunday - God's holy day of rest. The council ultimately decreed that it should be observed on the Sunday of the first full moon after the Vernal Equinox. That brought up a whole new problem - figuring out when the exact date of the equinox was. Since the Alexandrians were known for their knowledge of astronomy, they were given the job of determining this. So, they chose March 21st. In modern times, the Western churches still follows the "rule" of observing Easter on that Sunday of the full moon after the spring equinox. Thus, Easter falls on a Sunday somewhere between March 21, and April 25. The Eastern Churches choose to observe the holiday according to the beginning of the Jewish celebration of Passover. It begins on or around Ash Wednesday, and end on Easter Sunday. In Hebrew tradition, Passover is celebrated during Nisan, which is the first month of the Hebrew lunar year. According to Jewish history, Moses led his people out of Egypt, effectively ending 300 years of slavery for the Jewish people. The Christians celebrate Easter as the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ. The "Son of God" dies and springs forth anew to take his place as the King of Heaven. Sounds very familiar. Might it possibly be a nod to the "death" of winter, and the "resurrection" of spring? Well, the Christians may not agree, but I certainly do. As with so many other divine Kings, Jesus represents the eternal cycle of life and death, summer and winter - the Wheel of the Year. (I don't know about you, but discovering this has finally ended one of the biggest questions of my youth. Why IS Easter not on the same day, each year?) There are many festivals celebrating this time of rebirth and the return of the sun. Being the time when the fertility of the Goddess in her mother form is celebrated, other deities worshipped during this season include Astarte, Aset-Isis, Ostara, and Aphrodite. In all of these festivals we see hints of what has come down to us as "Easter". Ostara, the name of the German festival of fire, gave us a name to associated with the holiday. Ancient fertility goddesses such as Astarte, Aset-Isis, and Aphrodite have aspects that revolve around sex and fecundity at this time. From the Middle East we gain the tradition of eggs, carried over into the Indo-European history thousands of years ago with the migration of various tribes. With so many sources, so many possibilities, it is impossible to cover all of the history of Easter in this small article. I hope that you will be inspired to seek out some of the stories and make some discoveries of your own about what came from where. Me, I choose to look at Eostre and Ostra today. In many European countries people today celebrate Easter Eve with bonfires atop hills, signifying the end of winter and the welcoming of spring. These fires are oftentimes referred to as "Judas fires" because an image of Judas Iscariot is burned in the fire. Personally I think they hearken back to the fires lit to celebrate the equinox. The various names used are often a version of Eostre or Ostara as well. In Egypt and Persia, people give the gift of eggs to their friends at the spring equinox, honoring the beginning of spring. In Poland and the Ukraine, the intricate art of pysanky creates beautifully decorated eggs which are given as gifts. Slavic people use bright ornaments to decorate theirs. In Austria, tiny plants are attached to the egg, and then boiled in colored water. After they are done cooking, the plants are removed, and a design is showing! In Germany, hollow eggs are a common custom. The egg is emptied by poking holes in each end, and blowing the insides out. They are then decorated, and hung from bushes and trees during the week of Easter. In the United States, there are so many different cultures and religious practices. But a common theme is the Easter Bunny (enjoyed not only by Christian children) who comes to your home in the dark of night, leaving behind colored eggs that he has laid. He either leaves them out in the yard or in the house somewhere. In the morning the children of the house get to look for them. A bit of historical information about the egg hunt, is that this tradition may have started in Germany, around the 17th century. Boys used their caps and girls their bonnets as a nest that the "bunny" would leave colored eggs in. This practice later changed to using baskets. Now, we often use plastic grass, and the eggs are generally accompanied by chocolates, a treat or two, and those ever present Peeps. Historians have found long-standing evidence of egg-tossing and egg-rolling contests, along with further evidence of the giving of colored and decorated eggs to both children and adults. It is certain these traditions predate Christianity - afterall, there is no mention of eggs anywhere in the Jesus story, let alone as a way to commemorate his resurrection. A Pagan tradition that remained, absorbed into the new religion. Whatever you choose to do, whether to light a fire and celebrate the rites of fertility and conception the way our early ancestors did; or you hide eggs for the kids and gorge on chocolate, I hope you all have a wonderful holiday. I know that after researching and writing this article, I will probably have the best, most meaningful spring celebration of my life. |
Primary Article - Ostara - Wheel of Fire
Secondary Article - Anna Perenna
Return to the Index of articles for Seasonal Festivals
