Spring Equinox OSTARA The Awakening of the Goddess Rite and Magic!!
Updated: Apr 4, 2021
Our Ancient Ancestors saw Spring as a time to celebrate the return of the Sun and its warmth, after surviving the winter months. In areas with particularly harsh winters, food was scarce and sacred, And when Spring arrived, it brought with it the promise for a new life and happiness, food variety increases as animals are born and come out of hibernation and plants start to grow. The ancient people of Northern Europe would have felt, relieved and joyful looking forward to the coming of the Goddess of Spring every year.
There is very little information on the Goddess Ostara but a lot of her traditions live on in the modern day Easter. As a holiday, Easter actually predates Christianity, it was originally the name for the Spring Equinox. One of Ostara’s name variations, Esotara, slowly evolved into the modern name for this holiday, Easter. The name "Eostre" (Old Germanic "Ostara"), is related to that of Eos, the Greek goddess of dawn, her name can then be translated as East, Dawn or Morning Light. Ostara’s name is also the root of the word oestrogen.
Ostara is said to originate from Northern Europe where it was said that she brought with her rebirth, renewal, and fertility to the land during the beginning of Spring. She was responsible for reawakening the earth and supporting the growth of new life. It was Ostara that warmed the winds, helped the trees to bud, and the snow to melt. Spring was seen as a time of hope after the harsh winters of ancient Europe. Ostara, and Spring, was a sign that no matter what harshness or coldness covers the Earth, it will be reborn again.
My thoughts as we welcome Ostara 2021
This morning as the Sun rose above the horizon on this ancient day , a day that sits between winter and spring, light and darkness, the old and new world, Kin , Clan , Farmers, Mothers, Sons and Daughters, Wives and Husbands, Priestesses, gather and set free a thousand prayers, calling , yet reaching the Goddess, for she stirs in every fibre of our lands , near and far.
For she is remembered , she is not forgotten, never will she, she is remembered and held with a full heart, so to are her songs, stories, we honour the stories of old and breathe life into new threads that are woven from old and new alike , new stories , new experiences, new earth, mirroring old earth is birthed and born.
Staff, Wand, Phantom Quartz , Horn and Chalice raised up and offered to Ostara to the Equinox, Mead flowed and was poured upon the earth, herb and resin, smoke filled the air carrying these thousand prayers. Faces painted with Runes, Ancient Old Magic restored.
We stand in a circle, hand in hand , heart to heart , together or alone , yet beside us stand the dead, those who have gone before us , the ancestors for they never die , they live within us, within our deeds, words and actions, for they never die they live within us , they surround us.
For now there is equal light and equal darkness, it is time to reweave the balance, in doing so we restore, what was once taken and ripped from us and lost yet never ever forgotten , the fields, rivers, the forests. The land is our church.
Our Healing Rite and Blōt
<