At the Spring Equinox we Pagans, Wiccans, magical folk, celebrate Oestara. Oestara is where the abrahamic religions got the word Easter. Oestara is the germanic name for this holiday. But no matter what name you give this day, it's the Spring Equinox, and a day to celebrate rebirth. Trees are beginning to bud, there may even be some green blades starting to pop out of the ground where tulips will soon be. Tulips are my favorite spring flower. As a child, they were my first sign that warm weather was quickly approaching! My mother had tulips planted in front of the big tree in our front yard. When the weather would start to change, I would run to the front door in the morning to see if the green blades were starting to pop up yet. And when they did, I checked them everyday and would marvel at their progress until finally one morning there would be a bightly colored, dew drenched flower. Ready for a visit from the local bee hive.
No matter what your sign of spring is, its clear that the earth is waking up, and soon we will see green again. During our last snow storm, I remember driving to work one morning and I really couldn't remember what green grass looked like! I couldn't picture it. While snow is very pretty to look at, I was just sick of seeing it! I wanted green grass and flowers! I wanted my herb garden back!
On Sunday, March 19th at 4:00 pm central time, some local pagans and I all gathered to celebrate the coming of new life. This was only my second gathering with this group of people... Many of them I know from dance. I was asked a few days prior to call the quarters for the ritual. BOY WAS I EXCITED!!!! I got out some books and started to research. I wanted the perfect words, with the perfect meaning behind them, said in the most perfect way. I found 2 riutals that I liked. I couldn't decided on the wording from just one, so I combined both.
We all gathered in a circle and Terri started to explain the meaning behind this holiday. And our the egg fits into all of this. The egg is simply a sign of fertility and rebirth. Soon there will be swarms of bees, nests filled with the little chirps of baby birds, bugs (regretfully) will hatch and spring forth yet again. New grass, new flowers, new life. Spring breezes will soon gust through my little apartment and, the icing on the cake, spring storms. I LOVE storms. The calm of the rain, the electric of lightening, and the way your heart kind of jumps when you hear a loud clap of thunder. Living in Central Illinois, I always say, "It's not Spring until the tornado sirens go off!" And when they do, while every one else is taking cover, I am running to the window to see what I can see. With the weather radio in one hand and my son close behind me.
Side note: A few years ago we were in Indiana visiting family when a nasty storm came through. It rained and eventually the sirens went off. The wind was thrashing around the tree limbs outside. And someone who had just arrived came running into the house. Lucky for them the rain had just let up a little. They said, "there is a funnel cloud out there! You can see it so clearly!" At this moment, I think most moms would grab their children and run to safety. Not me! My son's favorite movie since he was 3 years old has been Twister. He loves tornados! So I grab him and we run outside, straight into the middle of the street and sure enough there is was, the most amazing natural weather phenomenon I had ever whitnessed... a swirling funnel cloud. We watched it skate over the small town of Munster, IN. It went right over us. A few towns away though, it dropped and became a F3 tornado and caused a great deal of damage. But that is a day my son and I will never forget. He says he wants to be a tornado chaser when he grows up. We shall see! Little does he know, I fully plan on taking him on a tornado chasing expedition for his 16 birthday! Ok, side note done!
After Terri talked about why we were there, and what we would be doing, she asked me to call the quarters to get things going. I'm all about sharing my rituals with people. So, here are the words I used.
Hail to the Guardians of the East and the Powers of Air, and bid you guard us with the power of the sudden spring strom and hold us safe with the gentleness of the evening breeze. May you bless this circle with your gitfts of insight, communication, and laughter. Hail to thee Air of Spring!
Hail to the Guardians of the South and Powers of Fire, and bid you guard us with the power of the roaring flame and with the softly burning ember. May you bless this circle with your gifts if radiance, warmth, and light. Hail to thee Fire of Spring!
Hail to the Guardians of the West and Powers of Water, and bid you guard us with the power of the ocean waves and hold us safe like the waters of the mother we all come from. May you bless this circle with your gifts of fluidity, compassion and love. Hail to thee Water of Spring!
Hail to the Guardians of the North and Powers of Earth, and bid you guard us with the strength of the land beneath our feet, and hold us like soil that nurtures the smallest seed. May you bless this circle with your gifts of solidarity, resilience, and evolution. Hail to thee Earth of Spring!
(These words were taken from Llewellyn's Sabbats Almanac Samhain 2009-Mabon 2010 & Samhain 2010-Mabon 2011; www.llewellyn.com; I HIGHLY recommend these books BTW!)
From here we gathered into a circle and did a guided mediation. In short, we came up with a name that we have labeled outselves... a name that isn't good... a name that needed to be reshaped and reborn. We put that name into the form of a human. We gave this human a face and a name. In this human, the bad name we gave ourselves were reborn. The bad label we gave ourselves ranged from person to person... Ugly, undeserving, failure, etc... The name we chose for the human form we created was a name that has no other meaning to our lives. I chose Ann. So for me, I took the label I had given myself of worthless, and created a fairie-looking human girl named Ann. She is now my guide when I'm feeling worthless. She will guide me out of the dark and into the light. We then decorated eggs with the thought of our new guides in mind. I dyed my egg green, just because the color green seemed fitting for Ann. Let it be known green and yellow are probably my least favorite colors. My all time favorite color is purple! So, the egg was green, but I wrote Ann on it with purple paint. Below is a photo of my egg.
After we decorated our eggs, we charged them in the middle of the circle with our energies. It was really cool. Then we did a divination with our eggs by boiling some water, and pouring the water into bowls. Then we crackedour eggs open and put just the egg whites into a separate cup. Then we dumped the egg whites into the bowl of hot water. Now if the water had still been at boiling temperatures, the egg whites would have fluffed up like scrambled eggs. Our water cooled a little so it didn't do that, but we could still drop the whites in there and see what we saw. This is what my egg whites did...
Because this isn't 3-D, let me explain. The coloring is from where some of the green and purple slipped in with the whites. You can see a sort of horseshoe with the color. The right side of the horeshoe was on my bottom of the whites and the left side was on top of the whites. Because of this, I immediately saw a person with their legs wrapped around the front of them as if they were hugging somebody. After speaking with one of the witches there, I realized I was hugging myself. Which I know I need to do more of. So that was really cool.
Not too long after that, I snacked and chatted with the other ladies for a while and then left. Everyone took a plant to use during the ritual for good juju. Which is why my egg was laying with basil in the picture above. After the ritual I went and bought a pot and potting soil and planted my basil that night. It's already grown about 1/2 an inch in the past 3 days! Yay juju!
Well, in closing I just wanted to say happy Oestara to you all. Hope your holiday was awesome. I'm off to enjoy the nice weather! Blessed Be!
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