Sisters, come with me! Come to the meadowsoft with grass, and there let us weave
magic garlands for ourselves. And as weweave, let us create happy futures:
let us weave for abundant grain,let us weave for the barley ears,
let us eave for the oats and the wheat,
let us weave for thick heads of cabbage.
-- Russian folksong, from The Goddess Companion by Patricia Monaghan, for April 20
Welcome, Eostre!
Springtime sacrificial festival named for the Sacon Goddess Eostre, or Ostara, a northern form of Astarte. Her sacred month was Eastre-monath, the Moon of Eostre.
Astarte, the Lady of Babylon, is one of the oldest forms of the Great Goddess in the Middle East, identified with Egypt's Hathor, Mycenae's Demeter, Cyprus' Aphrodite. she was the same creating-preserving-and-destroying Goddess worshpped by all the Indo-European cultures, and still typified by Kali as the symbol of Nature. Astarte was the "true sovereign of the world," tirelessly creating and destroying, eliminating the old and generating the new. Sidonian kinds could not rule without her permission. Each king styled himself first and foremost "Priest of Astarte."
Saxon poets apparently knew Eostre was the same Goddess as India's Great Mother Kali. Beowulf spoke of "ganger' waters, whose flood waves ride down into an unknown sea near Eostre's far home.
The Easter Bunny was older than Christianity; it was the Moon-hare sacred to the Goddess in both eastern and western nations. Recalling the myths of Hathor-Astarte who laid the Golden Egg of the sun, Germans used to say the heare would lay eggs for good children on Easter Eve.
Like all the church's "movable feasts," Easter shows its pagan origin in a dating system based on the old lunar calendar. It is fixed as the first Sunday after the first full moon after the spring equinox, formerly the "pregnant phase of Eostre passing into the fertile season.
from Women's Dictionary of Myths and Secrets by Barbara Walker
Origins of the name "Easter":
The name "Easter" originated with the names of an ancient Goddess and God. The Venerable Bede, (672-735 CE.) a Christian scholar, first asserted in his book De Ratione Temporum that Easter was named after Eostre (a.k.a. Eastre). She was the Great Mother Goddess of the Saxon people in Northern Europe. Similarly, the "Teutonic dawn goddess of fertility [was] known variously as Ostare, Ostara, Ostern, Eostra, Eostre, Eostur, Eastra, Eastur, Austron and Ausos." Her name was derived from the ancient word for spring: "eastre." Similar Goddesses were known by other names in ancient cultures around the Mediterranean, and were celebrated in the springtime. Some were:
Aphrodite from ancient Cyprus
Ashtoreth from ancient Israel
Astarté from ancient Greece
Demeter from Mycenae
Hathor from ancient Egypt
Ishtar from Assyria
Kali, from India
Ostara a Norse Goddess of fertility.
There are two popular beliefs about the origin of the English word "Sunday."
It is derived from the name of the Scandinavian sun Goddess Sunna (a.k.a. Sunne, Frau Sonne)
It is derived from "Sol," the Roman God of the Sun." Their phrase "Dies Solis" means "day of the Sun." The Christian saint Jerome (d. 420) commented "If it is called the day of the sun by the pagans, we willingly accept this name, for on this day the Light of the world arose, on this day the Sun of Justice shone forth."
magic garlands for ourselves. And as weweave, let us create happy futures:
let us weave for abundant grain,let us weave for the barley ears,
let us eave for the oats and the wheat,
let us weave for thick heads of cabbage.
-- Russian folksong, from The Goddess Companion by Patricia Monaghan, for April 20
Welcome, Eostre!
Springtime sacrificial festival named for the Sacon Goddess Eostre, or Ostara, a northern form of Astarte. Her sacred month was Eastre-monath, the Moon of Eostre.
Astarte, the Lady of Babylon, is one of the oldest forms of the Great Goddess in the Middle East, identified with Egypt's Hathor, Mycenae's Demeter, Cyprus' Aphrodite. she was the same creating-preserving-and-destroying Goddess worshpped by all the Indo-European cultures, and still typified by Kali as the symbol of Nature. Astarte was the "true sovereign of the world," tirelessly creating and destroying, eliminating the old and generating the new. Sidonian kinds could not rule without her permission. Each king styled himself first and foremost "Priest of Astarte."
Saxon poets apparently knew Eostre was the same Goddess as India's Great Mother Kali. Beowulf spoke of "ganger' waters, whose flood waves ride down into an unknown sea near Eostre's far home.
The Easter Bunny was older than Christianity; it was the Moon-hare sacred to the Goddess in both eastern and western nations. Recalling the myths of Hathor-Astarte who laid the Golden Egg of the sun, Germans used to say the heare would lay eggs for good children on Easter Eve.
Like all the church's "movable feasts," Easter shows its pagan origin in a dating system based on the old lunar calendar. It is fixed as the first Sunday after the first full moon after the spring equinox, formerly the "pregnant phase of Eostre passing into the fertile season.
from Women's Dictionary of Myths and Secrets by Barbara Walker
Origins of the name "Easter":
The name "Easter" originated with the names of an ancient Goddess and God. The Venerable Bede, (672-735 CE.) a Christian scholar, first asserted in his book De Ratione Temporum that Easter was named after Eostre (a.k.a. Eastre). She was the Great Mother Goddess of the Saxon people in Northern Europe. Similarly, the "Teutonic dawn goddess of fertility [was] known variously as Ostare, Ostara, Ostern, Eostra, Eostre, Eostur, Eastra, Eastur, Austron and Ausos." Her name was derived from the ancient word for spring: "eastre." Similar Goddesses were known by other names in ancient cultures around the Mediterranean, and were celebrated in the springtime. Some were:
Aphrodite from ancient Cyprus
Ashtoreth from ancient Israel
Astarté from ancient Greece
Demeter from Mycenae
Hathor from ancient Egypt
Ishtar from Assyria
Kali, from India
Ostara a Norse Goddess of fertility.
There are two popular beliefs about the origin of the English word "Sunday."
It is derived from the name of the Scandinavian sun Goddess Sunna (a.k.a. Sunne, Frau Sonne)
It is derived from "Sol," the Roman God of the Sun." Their phrase "Dies Solis" means "day of the Sun." The Christian saint Jerome (d. 420) commented "If it is called the day of the sun by the pagans, we willingly accept this name, for on this day the Light of the world arose, on this day the Sun of Justice shone forth."
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