The Easter Edition

Ostara with rabbits and yellow flowers

A community member on one of my WhatsApp threads had asked prior to this recent holiday what on earth all the symbols of Easter were about. She and her partner had been raised Christian, though they are no longer practicing, so they had that interpretation. But, they wanted an expanded awareness of what else, potentially, this celebration meant..

My favorite thing!

This blend of history, mythology, and symbolism—just the stuff I like to geek out on. So, down the rabbit hole I went.

One of the things I noticed as I dug was how challenging this trek through information was. I love the winding paths of Etymology, so why was I ending up so tired… and angry? 

So much of what is written about Easter is, of course, from a decidedly Christian perspective. That also happens to be a group of folks, as a generalized statement, who feel both righteous and superior to the many, many eras of Human who came before them. 

“This is the one true way!” Yeah, I get it, buddy.

But, there were humans before this supposed Jesus walked the earth. There were powerful organized religions before The Church. There was actually “civilization” before Christianity! * Gasp * For a long, long time. Funnily enough, the mythology that sprung from those earlier civilizations directly influenced the stories held in that very popular book of ours, and many of those stories had not-so-much to do with actual humans.

No, they were anthropomorphized tales of the movements of the Heavens.

So, for Easter, we’ve got “the resurrection of Christ”(put in quotes because I don’t believe that this was an actual event that happened to an actual human), bunnies, baskets, chocolate, and eggs. Well, that’s a weird combination!

Let’s start with the bunnies and the eggs and that Christ dude. Part of Rome’s political strategy as they went around conquering their neighbors and growing the Empire was to integrate the local customs—and deities—into The State’s official religious practices. Since Christianity, and monotheism, was that doctrine, they had to utilize some of the old rites and symbols in this new faith to get the polytheists on board. 

Hence, the symbolism of bunnies and eggs. 

Bunnies have long been a symbol of fecundity—they breed like rabbits—and those eggs are some of the first fresh protein we have available after the short, dark, freezing cold days of winter. Birds in the North(the traditions of this holiday are decidedly Northern Hemisphere centric) usually conserve their energy during this time, and aren’t laying eggs until the light overcomes the darkness. Other critters are also scarce in the snow, so we would have been subsisting on dried, salted meats through those dark months, and eggs would have been quite a delight. Birds, also btw, have been considered the favored animal of various Gods throughout time since it is the only genre who can fly up to meet their Holinesses. Which brings me to the last note about eggs, they are predominantly a symbol of the sun! 

That brings us to that Christ fella. The Church says that we are celebrating Christ emerging from the cave after three days of being dead, now a deity reborn. If that isn’t a solar story, I don’t know what is. He is literally The Son/Sun! Emerging after three months of being holed up in the Pit of Despair. We officially celebrate this moment of rebirth on the first Sun Day after the first full moon after the Spring Equinox in the Northern Hemisphere. The Light has officially overcome the Darkness, and will continue to vanquish until the tides turn on the Summer Solstice. The true astronomical equinox varies from year to year somewhere between March 19th and the 21st, and on that day, the sun sits to the East of Earth’s center, for the whole planet. Ergo—perhaps—East-er. 

But also, what’s in a name? More of that Pagan, Feminine connection—this time through the Germans. Eostre, the Goddess of the Dawn—and Spring. Her first known appearance in written work is from Bede in the 8th century, where he claims she was a Pagan goddess connected to bunnies and baskets and eggs. Now, that very well might be. Many of the indigenous and Pagan traditions carried oral histories, opposed to written. But, regardless of her antiquity, she is with us now! As late as the 1800s, came our tradition of making nests from grass, or filing baskets(also representing the nest) with chocolate, jelly beans, and marshmallow peeps—a sweet indulgence after the austerity of Lent—all of it with dual intention of honoring both the Sun of God, and the feminine image of this vernal vector.

And, isn’t that the funny thing about being human. There are not ever clear boundaries between one era and another. All that we are, and do, and believe, is an accumulation of what has come before. Ostara, or Eostre, might have been the namesake of this tradition as the two eras bled together in those early days of The Church. Some claim that Eostre/Ostara has connections to Queen Semiramis in the Bible. That holds very little water outside of Christian evaluations, though. What an interesting connection that would be: to at once use the name in veneration for a high holiday, and to also literally demonize the woman connected to that name… but, that must be a tangent for another time.

As a side note, I could find no connection in this story and this rite to Ishtar/Inanna/Astarte, despite the similarity in the name. Perhaps the star Venus plays a part in the astronomical events, but I would need more time to dig down on that.

One thing about this holiday, and all of its symbolism pre- and post-Christianity, was the connection to the sun. The gods and goddesses who were associated with the Spring Rites, all were solar deities! It is my belief that Jesus and his rebirth are also representative of that. 

No matter how you celebrate this time, we can all enjoy the longer days, arts and crafts, and a little sweetness in the grass ;)