......
.........
Journal Entry, Spring Equinox.........................................Mid-Spring, near March 20th
Origins:Ostara is the Anglo-Saxon name for the lunar holiday of nature's renewal pre-dating Easter, emphasizing the maiden aspect of the sunrise Goddess who is represented by fertile rabbits and the symbol of soul as egg. Ostara is often currently merged with "Lady Day," the original equinox holiday which celebrates the re-emerging fertility of the Earth Mother. Early on, Ostara was a time of culling birds' eggs, a seasonal delicacy. Traditionally it was a time of separating the weaklings from the livestock, sacrificing and symbolically resurrecting them to ensure the strength of the entire herd. Ostara also includes the blessing of sacred natural places and chain dancing around them, as well as decorating and dancing around eggs to manifest springtime re-growth of all living things. Nowadays, modern observers celebrate Ostara either on the equinox or after the full moon as Easter is celebrated.
Wandering the grounds in the early dawn light, I could feel a breeze blowing from the east, a coolness in the air, the fresh sweet smell of damp earth and I saw rabbits bounding wildly in the marsh beyond. In the growing light, I noticed the clouds of crocus and drifts of lemon yellow daffodils, white and pink tulips, the bright scent of hyacinths...it almost took my breath away to witness this delicacy, this tremulous new life--yet the strength of all these growing things, pushing upward toward the sun: blossoms of apple, peach, pear, the dazzling yellow forsythia. I could'nt feel alone with all this silent growing all around me, and I was not alone! I began to notice here and there among the trees, children in white, climbing the trees and watching the nesting, paired birds--or were they clouds caught in the trees? Suddenly I caught the eyes of a young girl wearing white sitting high up in a tree, carefully peeking at new bird eggs, swinging her feet--and she caught my eyes at the very same time. Surprised to find we were'nt alone, we just looked at each other and laughed and laughed.
Bird, Egg, Nest
to the exit.
B i r d, E g g, N e s t
Birds all the sunny day
Flutter and quarrel
Here in the arbour-like
Here in the fork
The little brown nest is seated;
Four little blue eggs
The mother keeps heated.
While we stand watching her,
Staring like gabies,
Safe in each egg are the
Bird's little babies.
Soon the frail eggs they shall
Chip, and upspringing
Make all the April woods
Merry with singing.
Jenny Wren last week was wed, and built her nest in Grandpa's shed. Look in next week and you shall see---two little eggs, and maybe three. Anon
One day I was picking the berries, which were unusually large and fine, off a tall clipped yew, when I happened to part the bush and look inside. There I saw an old thrush's nest, three quarters full with berries, with about a dozen more stuck on little twigs all around the nest. They must have been put there by some bird. The sweet sticky fruit is a favourite food of the missel-thrushes, but I did not know they were sensible enough to provide for themselves in this clever manner. The berries--there were about twenty--were quite fresh; each one had been picked off with a bit of stem attached to it.Enid Lodge, aged 13 in 1911
...
...
Springtime is a crucial time to feed birds! Many can starve when folks neglect neighborhood feeders, and the bugs and plants have not yet arrived. Particularly, birds need extra food while they nest and feed young ones. Even if you don't feed birds at any time during the year, try it now! The hatchlings and their attentive parents will thrive on your help.
Ostara is the best time of all to set out nest-building materials for the birds. Save hair clippings, Yule tinsel, bits of yarn and thread, and tufts of cotton or wool, and put them outside all around the yard for birds to find and make soft nests for their eggs.
Table of Contents
to the exit.
Return of S p r i n g t i m e
...So long as May of April takes, in smiles and tears, farewell,
Observe which way the hedgehog builds her nest,
To the front the north or south or east or west;
For if tis true what common people way,
The wind will blow the quite contrary way.
If by some secret art the hedgehog knows
So long before, the way in which the winds will blow,
She has an art which many a person lacks
That thinks himself fit to make our almanacks.
When the dew is on the grass,
Rain will never come to pass.
When the grass is dry at morning light,
Look for rain before the night.
If rain waits till noon to arrive, prepare for a long visit.
Table of Contents
to the exit.
L i g h t e r Than A i r Foods
......
.......
.......
......
Table of Contents
to the exit.
E l e m e n t a l H o m e s c h o o l i n g
All of nature is waking up and growing right now: green stalks springing toward the sun, babies being born, light growing in strength evermore. The season of new beginnings, springtime is the best time of year to begin new projects and bring to life new interests, dreams, desires. We can manifest new intentions just as easily as flowers spring up. 
Ostara rushes in spring's element, air--its direction is east. Air can move between people, subtly mixing scents and undercurrents of communication; as wind, air can quickly disperse stagnation. Often symbolized by the sword or blade, air can swiftly cut through to the heart of the matter, or like a tornado, fiercely blow away what we've become over-attached to. Air reminds us to live lightly and let the winds of change flow through us. Air alters our thoughts and blows a fresh breeze through our expectations and ideas, and air rules intellectual facility. Spring is a special time to invite new challenges of the mind into our lives, begin areas of study, consider old problems with a breath of fresh air and concentrate on affecting positive change. Also symbolized by bells or music, air affects sound, scent and methods of communication. Birdsong has returned, flowers release their fresh scents, we can be outdoors and talk and sing freely, and meet different people again. East rules Ostara and springtime, just as east is where the sun rises, giving birth to the new day.
Table of Contents
to the exit.
R a b b i t s at H e r F e e t
Central to mythology worldwide, rabbits are consistantly associated with the moon. From the time of the Goddess cultures, rabbits were a significant totem animal and eating them was prohibited in Britain and Egypt, and likewise taboo according to Moses in Deuterotomy 14:7. A Scottish superstition held that eating rabbit was tantamount to eating one's grandmother. Rabbits were used as favorable divining creatures by the Greeks, and also refered to by the Iceni Queen Boadicea, who correctly predicted victory from the direction of a darting rabbit. Since the hare can sleep with its eyes open, the Romans equated it with vigilance and believed that rabbits watched over everything--just as the moon appears to. In European folk belief, the phases of the moon could be seen in the eye of rabbits.
In Asian imagery and myth, rabbits and the moon are virtually synonymous. The Japanese refer to the Rabbit in the Moon, who sweeps its surface clean with bound horsetails. An enduring Japanese symbol is one of a rabbit pounding rice into flour, and the word mochi means both rice flour and full moon.
The Sanskrit word, cacadharas means both moon, and "that which carries the hare." A traditional Hindu saying goes, "The moon leaps like a hare when the sun dies."
Such moon and rabbit associations carry across the Pacific Ocean to the Americas, where Ixchel, the Mayan Goddess of the moon, midwifery and weaving has a rabbit totem. Mexican panels of 600-900 AD illustrate this moon goddess giving birth to and suckling a rabbit, while another shows the rabbit symbolizing phases of the moon. In North American lore, the rabbit plays the part of the trickster and the embodiment of fertility power. Worldwide, rabbits or hares co-exist with the moon as sacred symbols of vitality, fertility and the life-force.
Some of rabbit lore springs from incorrect superstition. But underneath the superstition lies a deeper core of pagan sacral belief in which symbols of sex, fertility, the moon, re-birth and renewal are intertwined. The rabbit is an enduring symbol of fertility and desire, or "spring fever." 
In Greece, live rabbits were popular love gifts to connote sexual intentions. European wedded couples in the Middle Ages exchanged rabbit-shaped rings. Rabbit's popularity as a sex charm or fertility totem is related to its' natural behaviour: rabbit's gestation period is approximately one month, and it tends to be the first animal to give birth in the springtime, besides continuing to have litters of kits during the year. In Asian folklore, a rabbit is believed to become pregnant by staring at a full moon, by licking a male rabbit's fur under a full moon, or by running across a moon-lit water's surface. The saying, "mad as a March (or marsh) hare" is attributed to 15th Century Erasmus, who was refering to either the animals' vigorous mating displays, or their bouts of wild bounding over wetlands in the springtime.
From the 11th to the 13th Centuries, rabbits became reviled for their pagan connections to sexuality, easy fertility, and as the important women's religious symbol: the moon. A carved stone, southern portal of Chartres Cathedral shows a lewd, laughing rabbit-man tempting and carrying off a chaste young woman. An 11th century latin text catalogues ominous and frightening sights including a sea dragon, a Viking ship, and a rabbit. Geoffrey Chaucer's Canterbury Tales describes a corrupt monk as sparing no expense in hunting "hares"--a slang term for women. Hares joined the ranks of cats, dogs, toads, crows, bats and owls as supposed Witch familiars. Yet as Christian imagery became more prominent and confident, rabbits' esteem changed again.
During the European Middle Ages, rabbits were believed to be able to change their gender. During the Renaissance, rabbits were even considered to be able to conceive without the male, and so they became a symbol of the Madonna's virgin birth. A 16th Century painting by Titian shows Mary clutching a white rabbit, illustrating purity and a control of sexuality. The rabbit had become an important symbol of docility, gentleness and submission: qualities the church particularly wished to encourage in its followers.
Rabbits also represent immortality and vitality. Pliny the Elder declared that eating rabbit greatly enhanced one's beauty and radiance for a week afterwards. Chinese myth considers rabbit meat essential for vitality, and the rabbit is a symbol of longevity: its fur supposedly turning white at age 100, and turning blue at age 500. In Eastern Asian myth, rabbits created the secret elixir of immortality, and when the Chinese Goddess Chang O drinks too much of it, she floats away to live on the moon, too light to return to earth. Rabbits were associated with good health in 16th Century Germany, where they appear in bunny-shaped glass medicine bottles. The Algonquin trickster rabbit, Manabozho, is thought to embody all life-giving energy.
Rabbits continue to represent the trickster and longevity in popular culture in surprising ways. B'rer Rabbit and Bugs Bunny are tricksters while the Energizer bunny of the battery company 'goes on and on and on.' Real life pet rabbits are a curious blend of docility, sweetness and unexpected twists of playfulness and smart, tricky behaviour which endears them to the people who care for them. Less evident today is the ancient symbolism connecting rabbits to women, blood cycles and the moon, although contemporary Asian images often depict rabbits with a traditional sense of womanly grace and stillness. Nevertheless, rabbits have become an enduring symbol for the beginning of springtime at Easter, and are worth considering for their deeper symbolism when we celebrate Ostara.
The Teutonic Goddess of Springtime and renewal and life is called Eostre, Ester or Ostara. This name is related to estrogen and estrus, and so revealing of this holiday's connection to women's fertility and cycles. As Goddess of the dawn, and pictured with a rabbit or birds, she was likely symbolized by the moon. A Saxon Idol of the Moon of 1605 depicts a pagan worshipper wearing a rabbit-eared head-covering and shoulder cape, and holding a large female-faced moon disk in front, likely signifying pregnancy. The Roman Mother Goddess Juno is related to this Goddess in her maiden aspect. Little else is known about Eostre, and certainly her symbols and meanings were borrowed and altered by the new religions. Ostara represents the rebirth of the earth and all growing things, and historically was associated with sunrise.
Springtime holds up a mirror to us and asks: What do you judge? What do you resist? What do you criticize? Spring reminds us that which we resist and deny will follow us and teach us to accept with repeated confrontations. 'Eastern' Religions: Zen Buddhism, Taoism, Hinduism, are particularly potent now, with their core messages of clarity, mindfulness and non-resistance. And with the power of spring's youthful perception, we can give new life to inner possibilities and let the air of Ostara blow through us, remaking us clearer, stronger, open and understanding, able to bend like a sapling when blown by the winds of change.
Table of Contents to the exit.
Handmade S p r i n g t i m e Crafts
"The clever lady knew all about the different roots and mosses which may be used for dyeing: and she colored the eggs in a variety of ways; some she made blue, others yellow, others a beautiful rose color; and some she wrapped up in tender green leaves, which left their impress on the eggs, and gave them an extremely pretty variegated appearance. On some of them she wrote a little rhyme."
blueberries...dunk eggs in strong tea (simmer 15 minutes) of crushed berries and juice...result in a powdery, periwinkle to purple color
Onion skins...wrap eggs in skins and steep in hot water (in which more skins have been simmered for 15 minutes) from 3 to 20 minutes...results in mottled effect of pale yellow to gold, while simple steeping in onion skin tea creates a matte effect, not mottled
beets...dunk eggs in two cups of a strong tea of beets (simmered in water for fifteen minutes) mixed with 1 tablespoon of vinegar for a few seconds to a few minutes...results in pale pink to deep rosy red, depending on the time
red cabbage...shred red cabbage and cook eggs covered and nestled inside. Cook the usual time (about 12 minutes at a boil) and allow eggs to cool and remain covered overnight. Smash bits of cabbage into eggs for a mottled effect. Creates a pale lilac/pink.
By mixing the dyes, you can also create colors of peach, orange, sunflower, violet, magenta, dove gray, olive green, dusty turquoise, cornflower blue, sienna, orchid, mulberry, etc.
Many Easter traditions have their sources in earlier Ostara rituals and celebrations. Travellers to Britain in the 19th Century recorded various Easter morning traditions whose meanings were apparently lost. Villagers would join hands and dance in a snake-style chain around monuments and churches, and in the 1800's, couples waltzed between 13 eggs set in a circle, most white, with one dyed red and one gilded. The original purpose may have been to avoid crushing the eggs, or to create magic in crushing the red one, representing fertility and the life essence. One popular Easter game involved one man moving an entire store of eggs one by one, from one place to another, crushing none, all within the time of the church service. He who accomplished this won a ham. Another ritual saw young people hoisting eachother aloft in chairs to a now-lost chant, and with much laughter and merriment.Make large eggs--to fill with treats--by covering balloons with paper mache! Blow up the balloon (large, for decorations and games and small, for party favors and little gifts), tie, and cover with newspaper strips dipped in wallpaper paste mixture. Lightly dampen the newspaper strips or squares with water first, so the strips lie flat and mold closely. Leave an opening at the tie for filling the egg later. Continue covering the balloon with paper mache, allowing each thick layer (2-3 layers) to dry overnight in a heated place.
Table of Contents
to the exit.
R e n e w i n g L i n k s
Table of Contents
Beltane.
© 1996,1997 Jill Pederson Meyer