THE ORIGINS OF EASTER!!
(and yes, the bunny and the eggs are legit)
The word Easter is of Saxon origin, “Eastra”, the goddess of spring, in whose honour sacrifices were offered each year.
Easter was a ‘movable feast’ which was celebrated on the first Sunday following the full moon after the March equinox.”
Eostre, goddess of Spring, (also known as Ostara, Austra, and Eastre.) One of the most revered aspects of Ostara for both ancient and modern observers is a spirit of renewal.
Celebrated at Spring Equinox on March 21, Ostara marks the day when light is equal to darkness, and will continue to grow.
As the bringer of light after a long dark winter, the goddess was often depicted with the hare, an animal that represents the arrival of spring as well as the fertility of the season.
According to Jacob Grimm’s Deutsche Mythologie, the idea of resurrection was ingrained within the celebration of Ostara: “Ostara, Eástre seems therefore to have been the divinity of the radiant dawn, of upspringing light, a spectacle that brings joy and blessing, whose meaning could be easily adapted by the resurrection-day of the christian’s God.”
The 7th to 8th-century English monk Bede, wrote that ?osturm?naþ [ee-oh’-ster-mohnth’] (Old English: ‘Month of ?ostre’, translated in Bede’s time as “Paschal month”) was an English month, corresponding to April, which he says “was once called after a goddess of theirs named ?ostre, in whose honour feasts were celebrated in that month”.
The most widely-practiced customs on Easter Sunday include the symbol of the rabbit (‘Easter bunny’) and the egg. The rabbit was a symbol associated with Eostre, representing the beginning of Springtime.
Likewise, the egg has come to represent Spring, fertility and renewal. In Germanic mythology, it is said that Ostara healed a wounded bird she found in the woods by changing it into a hare. Still partially a bird, the hare showed its gratitude to the goddess by laying eggs as gifts.
(I love taking the babylon, jerusalem, and memphis propaganda out of our traditions and myths so that we can remember ourselves as we were before our defeat under constantine );
Curt Doolittle
