Spring equinox,the first day of Spring
A Light exists in Spring
Not present on the Year
At any other period---
When March is scarcely here
A Color stands abroad
On Solitary Fields
That Science cannot
SPRING EQUINOX: Known as ALBAN EILER by the druids…. It means ’The light of the Earth’
It is a beautiful and mystical celebration of the coming of Spring and the new beginning of life at the Northern Hemisphere, when the day and night are equal length, and everything is in perfect balance. Our dual world shows its harmony in darkness and light, our inner and outer world and in the masculine and the feminine. This year it is going to fall on March 20th at 10.37 am.
Ancient celts and other pagans who lived by nature’s laws truly believed and knew that all things are living from animals to rocks and from rivers to mountains. This time when the Great Wheel of the Year reaches spring, all life begins to reemerge and shows its most beautiful colors. The earth awakens, the sun is gaining its strength by the day, flowers and trees are blooming, everything is fertile and coming alive.
It is a perfect time for rejuvenation, starting something new, it is a time of growth and fertility, when your ideas and dreams can spring to life.
OSTARA
People in the ancient world would gather around for the Spring Equinox to celebrate Spring returns and the greening of the earth when sowing seeds were possible again. This was a celebration of the beginning of new life, rebirth and was named after the Goddess of Eostre/Ostara, who was the deity of spring and fertility and the goddess of dawn. The name of the female hormone estrogen comes from her name Eostre, reminding us of her godly nature of fertility.
The Goddess’s symbols were the hare that represents fertility, and the egg which meant new life, and abundance. The egg also symbolized all creation, thus the whole universe: the male and female unity and wholeness with the golden yolk as the sun god and the egg white as the white goddess; the light and the dark.
The hare was regarded as sacred animal, and once was believed that goddesses were able to shape-shift into hares. These nocturnal animals “died” and “resurrected” every evening hence representing the rebirth of nature, and thus also became the symbol of immortality. The main meaning of them though were fertility, as they can conceive while pregnant.
Both these symbols were adopted by Christianity, although Easter is calculated by the moon, and Ostara is calculated by the sun. In modern religion these traditions intertwine with the ancient keeping some main elements intact. It was Eostre that the Christion celebration of Easter evolved from. Religious entities tried to put a stop to this heritage earlier, but with time they incorporated its components into their system. The hare became the Easter Bunny who brings the eggs Easter morning, the Christian celebration of rebirth and resurrection.
Luckily, in our culture today, many churches offer sunrise services at Easter to honor the pagan celebration of new life.
