A quick look at Ostara!

According to Pagan Lore, Ostara is the Festival of Rebirth. Celebrated when the sun is in 1 Degree Aries, usually occuring someitme around the 21st of the March (this year it's the 20th). Following in the traditional cycle of Life, Death, and Rebirth; Ostara is celebrated as the time when The Goddess (Mother Earth) is Reborn, and is the youthful and innocent Maiden aspect. She falls meets with her Lover, The God (Father Sky). This is where the idea that Spring is the season of love comes from. Traditional Pagans celebrate Ostara by sowing the seeds they will harvest at the later equinox in fall. This can be done Literally (gardening) or metaphorically (setting personal goals for yourself to be completed by Fall). The Following is an excert from a site that explains the details of Ostara:




"Ostara is also another name for Easter the Pagan Goddess of Spring. Yes that's right the Christian holiday remembering the day Jesus assended to heaven after being crucified still today bears the name of a pagan fertility goddess. Many of the Christian holidays fall on or very near to the old Pagan celebrations mainly because the Pagan people were so unwilling to relinquish their own festivals. Failing to totally wipe out the Pagan traditions the Church simply began to give different Christian meanings to the Pagan ritual days. Why Easter still retained it's name is unknown (at least to me anyway) but I can tell you what the deal is with the colored eggs and the chocolate bunnies.

The egg is a symbol of new life about to be manifest. The tradition of painting Easter eggs began as a way of manifesting wishes. A single fertile egg was taken from a nest and painted with a representation of a wish one wanted to manifest be it for prosperity, a good harvest, new love, or such. It was then hidden or buried in the ground the idea that the life of the unhatched chick would be transferred to the wish that was painted on the shell. Since then this practice has now been abandoned and transferred to hard boiled eggs which are then eaten. The Easter bunny refers to the March Hare which is also the symbol of the spring time Goddess. For in March the grass is not yet tall enough to conceal the hare's "boxing matches" for a mate. We are witness to their mating ritual and so enhances the fertility aspect of the season. In addition the Goddess is also associated with the moon and so is the hare for while we now see the image of a man's face in the shadows of the moon our ancient ancestors saw the image of running hare."