Easter/Ostara/Equinox Musings

I didn’t blog for Lent this year.  I didn’t really even acknowledge that Lent was happening.  Didn’t look for a church to go to on Easter – didn’t really do anything Easter related.  In fact, I spent Easter at home, having cancelled all of my work and social plans for that day to rest.  I spent Easter in my pajamas, on the couch, not really celebrating at all.

I noticed on Facebook that there were a number of memes surrounding Easter that circulated, mostly dealing with the idea that *gasp* the Christian church STOLE Easter from the Pagans.  Anyone who has ever been to the Easter Vigil mass at a Catholic church could hardly question that - it’s one of the most Pagan ceremonies I’ve ever experienced, and I’ve been to Wiccan rituals!  They bless the New Fire, they bless the holy water, and HELLO symbolism, they dip the candle into the basin over and over again.  The celebration starts in darkness and adds candles, then full light about 30 minutes in.  It’s all about rebirth, and spring, and who wouldn’t recognize that these aren’t traditions that were born only 2000 years ago?  But I guess maybe a lot of people wouldn’t.  Still, I don’t really understand why people are shocked when they find out that what’s old became new again when Christianity was spreading across Europe and the Middle East.  I could digress from here into a speculation about why our words for Lent and Easter come from Germanic languages rather than Latinate ones, and how that relates to the roots of the season and its traditions,  but I’d imagine no one really wants to read that except for the four other people out there who are as obsessed with words and language as I am.

But I guess the point is that Easter happens whether you celebrate or not.  Whether you hide eggs and eat lamb and go to church, or you do nothing at all, you can’t help but experience the season.  Suddenly the days are longer, the air is warmer, and a few hardy crocuses are bursting through the earth.  You have a craving for asparagus and snap peas and arugula, and you wear skirts even though the evening temperature is much too cold for that, because in the daytime you want to feel that warming breeze as fully as you can.  Staying home, resting, that was my Easter cleanse – shedding the winter exhaustion to be ready for the new burst of energy with the spring time.  Because whether it’s about Ostara  or Christ or just about the Equinox and the physics of living on Earth, your body knows it’s Eastertide, even if you just call it spring.