Spring really is coming!

Thank you, Carrie, for your words. I'll try to keep them in mind.

Tonight I go to an Ostara ritual that's being put on by Christiana Gaudet of http://www.tarotbychristiana.com/. I'd like to say a few words about Ostara and my beliefs in general.

I am a pagan, which means essentially that I apprehend divinity in the natural world around me. Deity, in my view, is a sort of anthropomorphization of that divine principle. In other words, Artemis (to use an example) doesn't exist "somewhere" as a physical being; she is real because I give her reality in my way of relating to her. She reminds me to pay attention to the ways in which the cycle of the moon affects me; she brings up a wildness in me that I am apt to forget in my daily existence. I believe that all religions anthropomorphize in this way, and that it's a fine thing, as long as you're careful what you project onto the deity figure.

Many pagans celebrate the turning of the seasons, or the wheel of the year. Many followers of "Wicca", a subset of paganism that I've never really been able to define, claim that of the eight pagan holidays, the four cross quarters, i.e. the holidays that fall exactly between the solstices and equinoxes, are the "high holy days" of the year. Some "green witches", in which category I arguably fall, tend to pay a little more attention to the solar holidays of the solstices and equinoxes. They are the most important and deeply felt days of the year to me.

Ostara is the spring equinox. According to Peg Aloi, "Easter gets its name from the Teutonic goddess of spring and the dawn, whose name is spelled Oestre or Eastre (the origin of the word "east" comes from various Germanic, Austro-Hungarian words for dawn that share the root for the word "aurora" which means " to shine"). Modern pagans have generally accepted the spelling "Ostara" which honors this goddess as our word for the Vernal Equinox." Many of the roots of modern Easter celebrations come from our pagan ancestors; for example, eggs and rabbits are obvious fertility symbols. When I was a little girl we attended an Easter "sunrise service"; Eostre (another cognate of Ostara and Easter) is a goddess of the dawn. People buy new clothes at Easter because they have an urge to put on new clothes, just as our Mother Earth is doing in the springtime.

The fact that the date of Easter is still set by calculating the first Sunday after the full moon that follows the equinox is clear evidence that the Christian holiday has not escaped its pagan roots: that resonance with Earth's rebirth once celebrated by our ancestors. To my mind, that's a wonderful thing! So brightest blessings on the turning of the wheel to spring, and happy whatever you celebrate!

P.S. I think it's a myth that the snakes St. Patrick drove out of Ireland were actually the pagans. And if they were...well, he was just doing his job.