Easter is right around the corner! Bring it on, baby! You think all those Easter bunnies and chocolate eggs are just for KIDS? Think again! It's all about fertility! Makin' babies! Havin' fun! Easter 2006 may be a somber affair recognized by devout Catholics who eagerly await the resurrection of Jesus, but the "original" Easter celebration had more to do with EOSTRE, the Goddess of Spring! (Eostre..Easter....See the correlation?)
Leave it to the Christians for changing the meaning of it all to suit their own devices! No one knows for sure any more exactly "when" Jesus was crucified. But what scholars do know is that the early Christians tweaked the date of the anniversary of Christ' crucifixion so it occurred right around the time of the annual Spring festival! When the early Christians came to Pagan Europe they adapted the Easter fertility festivals to remember the crucification and resurrection of Jesus. Now what do the two events have to do with Spring? Babies? Chocolate? Easter 2006! We've come a long way baby! That's for sure!
Call me silly, I certainly don't want to discredit the Church. But the Pagan celebration of Eostre was a FUN event! The ancient Saxons took to celebrating the return of Spring with a kick-ass celebration that honored Eastre - the Goddess of Spring. Leave it to the early Christian missionaries to figure out a way to get their message across: celebrate there observance of the Crucifixion and Resurrection of Jesus at the same time as the Saxons. Change the name a bit, because you know, we're out-of-towners, and ever so slowly the original meaning of Eastre got obliterated.
Think anyone remembers Goddess Eastre during Easter 2006? Think anyone will stop to think of how the whole Easter egg really got started? Of course not!
Time for some trivia: way back in the day when Easter was still celebrated as Eostre, the event was recognized on different days each year. Sometimes on Friday, other times on Saturday, and even Sunday. Remember, the Julian calendar was still a ways off. So leave it to Emperor Constantine to declare that Easter would be celebrated on the first Sunday that occurs after the first full moon. Seeing as how the first full moon can fall anywhere between the March 22 and April 25th, Easter had (at least back then) no set date.
And just in case you thought the Easter Bunny was something the Regan Administration came up with, think again. The Easter Bunny harks back to the Pagan Festival of Eostre as well. The rabbit was the earth symbol of the Goddess Eastre. And the whole Easter egg thing. Well, originally it was a symbol of good and fertility. Exchange eggs with that young girl you noticed at the market and hopefully it was a signal of things to come (if you know what I mean and I think you do). From time eternal, the egg has always been a symbol of rebirth. In fact in many cultures, easter eggs were wrapped in gold leaf. The peasants on the other hand colored their eggs by boiling them with the colored petals of flowers. Hey, see where this is going? We'll do more or less the same thing with our eggs during Easter 2006.
We'll be celebrating Easter 2006 without nary a mention of this fact, but I'll be raising my glass just the same. Hey - someone needs to keep the tradition alive!