Enjoy an Ancient Celebration this Easter

Tired of that fluffy bunny? Use the occasion of Easter as a reminder that our ancestors welcomed the return of Spring and the fertile growth that accompanied the Season.

Decorate your house, prepare a feast and use the theme of an ancient deity to create a celebration as our forebears enjoyed.

Ostara is, simply, a holiday. A celebration of Spring.

Life is renewed, and it's a time of great fertility as, with the return of Spring, comes the birthing of the farm animals for the year. This is why we use bunnies, chicks, eggs and little lambs as symbols of this holiday. With the end of winter, various deities from the underworld return.

The Ancient Goddess Ostara was venerated throughout ancient Germany and Scandinavia and we still routinely go through her ancient rites when we celebrate Easter. Her name was used in English when the holiday was adapted for the Paschal holiday, and became Easter.

The Easter Egg is (among other things) a symbol of fertility and the Easter Bunny is a modern guise of the Sacred Hare.

Ostara (1884) by Johannes Gehrts

Why not Persephone ? If anyone is going to represent Springtime surely the beautiful daughter of Demeter fits the bill.

Poor lovely Persephone was abducted by Hades, the dark brooding god of the Underworld. Demeter searched everywhere before she discovered the whereabouts of her lost daughter.

With lots of pleading, bargaining and endless negotiations, Persephone was given her freedom if she had eaten nothing during her stay with Hades. Alas, she had been tricked into eating a handful of pomegranate seeds and so doomed to spend four months of the year underground.

She returns to her mother every Spring.

A sad story which, on a basic level, explained the darkness of Winter and the Return of Spring.

If you are a mother, or a daughter (or both) .. the story of Persephone can be read on a level deeper than merely an explanation for the Seasons and, if you have suffered loss and grief, the story of Demeter has an even deeper meaning again.

wikimedia

Flora, or Chloris in Greece, was the 'flourishing one', and she was the Goddess of flowers, gardens and Spring in an earlier time, before the Romans came to dominate Italy.

In very early central Italy she was venerated for bringing life to the fruit trees, to the cereal crops, and to the vines. Flora returned every Spring to bring the green buds and shoots from the earth. She came to be the embodiment of all Nature and now, in modern languages, her name represents all plant life

She was believed to be married to Favonius, the west wind, the gentlest of the winds and the first messenger of Spring. Flora's festival, the Floralia, was held in April and symbolised the renewal of the cycle of life, marked with dancing, drinking, and flowers.

This Easter, decorate your house with flowers and fruits in memory of Flora. Share drink with your friends and dance!

Rembrandt van Rijn

Beiwe brings greenery to the Arctic.

As a Spring and Sun goddess, she has a special association with the fertility of plants and animals. Reindeer are her favoured creatures and she travels with her daughter Beiwe-Neida through the sky in a cart made of their antlers.

The Saami apparently called on Beiwe for help with the insane. A handy deity to be friends with in the 21st century.

Once again, bring fresh greenery into your house and spend a special moment of time with an animal companion to welcome Beiwe and Spring.

Arctic Portal

Culhwch has a curse on him so that he can marry no one except the beautiful Olwen, daughter of a giant. Which is just as well for, although he has never seen Olwen, Culhwch is infatuated and sets off to find her. He is advised that he will never succeed without the aid of his famous cousin Arthur of Britain.

Olwen was of such winsome beauty that flowers grew from her footprints, springing up behind her as she lightly walked.

As she walked through Wales, the very Springtime followed her. A beautiful thought for a beautiful season.

White flowers are for Olwen, decorate your home with Easter Lilies in tribute to the snows above the green valleys of Wales, and to lovers everywhere.

Susanna Duffy

Now Inari is an unusual and most mysterious deity. Both male and female, s/he descends from the mountains each Spring to watch over the sacred planting of rice in Japan.

As a Goddess Inari is a woman with long flowing hair carrying two sheaves of rice, sometimes riding a white fox, while as .a God, Inari is an old man with a long white beard. The reasons for the sex-chamge may be due in part to the influence of Buddhism on the ordinal Shinto Goddess.

Inari is a Kami a spirit, a natural force, a personified Essence of Nature and also an aspect of spirituality. Inari is the`riceness' of life.

Inari starts the year as a mountain kami, in Spring she becomes a rice paddy kami and stays during the growing season. After the harvest she returns to the mountain.

So you can celebrate Spring with rice cakes and rice dishes of all kinds, even a full Japanese meal. Use white flowers and ribbons to decorate your house.. Give thanks for your rice, the oriental Staff of Life.

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