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OESTARA . .
More commonly known as the Spring Equinox, Oestara is celbrated on or around the 21st september (21st march for our Northern Friends) It is celebrated as Easter to the Christians who once again took pagan rituals and ideas to make them their own. It is one of only 2 times when light and dark are in balance, but here, the light is growing stronger every day.
The name for this Sabbat actually comes from that of the Teutonic lunar Goddess, Eostre. Her chief symbols were the rabbit (for fertility and because the Ancient Ones who worshipped her often saw the image of a rabbit in the full moon), and the egg, representing the cosmic egg of creation.(See any similarities here?). On this sacred day, Witches light new fires at sunrise, rejoice, ring bells and decorate hard boiled eggs - an ancient pagan custom associated with this ancient Goddess of fertility.
In the Pagan Wheel of the Year, this is the time when the great Mother Goddess, again a virgin at Imbolc, welcomes the young Sun God unto her and conceives a child of this divine union. The child will be born nine months later, at Yule, the Winter Solstice.
It is the official time of spring's return; a joyful time, a time when life bursts forth from the earth and the chains of winter are finally broken. The Spring Equinox is a time both of fertility and new life, and of balance and harmony. It is a time of birth, and of manifestation. At this time we think of renewing ourselves. We renew our thoughts, our dreams, and our aspirations. We think of renewing our relationships. This is an excellent time of year to begin anything new or to completely revitalize something. This is also an excellent month for prosperity rituals or rituals that have anything to do with growth.
. . . .
http://www.janih.com/lady/sabbats/ostara.html
Hekate
(90,690 posts)niyad
(113,306 posts)MohRokTah
(15,429 posts)Pooka Fey
(3,496 posts)Hail, and welcome!
Green life returns to the earth
blooming and blossoming
once more from the soil.
We welcome you,
goddesses of spring,
Eostre, Persephone, Flora, Cybele,
in the trees,
in the soil,
in the flowers,
in the rains,
and we are grateful
for your presence.
niyad
(113,306 posts)Pooka Fey
(3,496 posts)Literally means 'May you have goodness" for "Thanks" in Irish - I love Celtic languages! So lucky to be able to have the internet show me how they work!
Since we had a full solar eclipse on this Spring Equinox, it's a sign of something big. I've been thinking about how to interpret it. In theory it could have been visible, but there was so much cloud cover yesterday, everybody in Paris and Normandy was disappointed.
But the tweets were hysterical.
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"The sun should be right around up over here" (journalists from the Rooftop Terrace of "Express Magazine" in Paris)
:large
INCROYABLE cette éclipse à Paris ! On en voit pas tous les jours dis-donc #eclipse2015
(AMAZING this eclipse in Paris! You don't see one of these every day, now do you?)
:large
SKY GET YOUR SHIT TOGETHER THERES AN ECLIPSE IN AN HOUR http://ift.tt/1C3MSOd
09:50 - 20 Mars 2015
They had more luck with the weather down in Brittany, also in some parts of the UK
Up north, in Svalbard, they had a perfect view.
:large
Best 15 second compilation video of eclipse 2015, filmed in Norway
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x2k37it_eclipse-en-norvege-le-soleil-a-completement-disparu-quelques-instants_news
Thanks, Niyad
niyad
(113,306 posts)Tuesday Afternoon
(56,912 posts)Zorra
(27,670 posts)muriel_volestrangler
(101,317 posts)as the Jewish Passover. Because of that, Germanic people called the festival that is, in Latin, 'Pascha' (ultimately from the Hebrew 'Pasah'), 'Easter'.
That's it.
We don't know if she was associated with the equinox, or the period after it. We don't know if she was associated with eggs or rabbits (probably not the latter, since European rabbits were originally native to the western Mediterranean, and only spread by the Romans), or if they are just associated with that time of year.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Easter
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C4%92ostre#De_temporum_ratione
Christians took their main Easter rituals and ideas from Judaism (which they do not normally call 'pagan') and from a specific story set in Judea at a specific time, not from Germanic religion or myths.
Your paragraphs about Ostara and the Christian festival would be meaningless nonsense in non-Germanic languages. We ought to remember that most of the world, including most of the Christian world, does not speak English, and Christianity was fully established without any input from Germanic peoples at all.
Aerows
(39,961 posts)At least pagans aren't blowing each other up in the name of "God".