Ostara, chocolate eggs and Mother Goose

During our childhood, my sister 'Julie' and I celebrated every Easter time together by seeing which one of us could consume the most chocolate eggs in the shortest amount of time, (hopefully before my parents awoke).
I can still see my younger sister now, surrounded by shiny wrappers with her face covered in chocolate holding her tummy; and me having to call my mum because she was about to be sick everywhere.
Our family, friends & neighbours all gave eggs to us. Throughout the neighbourhood it was a pretty standard practise, most families to indulged their offspring by purchasing a wide array of Easter eggs.
The eggs were proudly displayed upon the shelf like glittering jewels; until that special sunday when the chocolate fest commenced.
On reflection, I can’t think why we were allowed to just munch our ways through mounds of choccy, but I remember how excited we got as children at the prospect of which eggs we were going to unwrap & eat first.
We talked about it for weeks beforehand, and got up as early as we had on xmas morning with the same level of anticipation to be the first to get our hands on those brightly coloured boxes of our hearts desire.
One of the other peculiar practices foisted upon us as children at school consisted of the annual ‘Grande Easter Bonnet parade/competition’.The lucky contestants were lined up like embarrassed Carmen Miranda’s’ along the length of the playground all wearing the offending home made articles that had taken many of the more competitive mothers weeks to construct; prior to the event.
The winning prize (normally an Easter egg) usually went to some child whose father was a set designer for ‘Crossroads’ or of similar ilk.
Later on in life I learned that the word ‘Easter’ derives from Germanic Goddess of Spring called Ostara or Eastre she also has connections with the Greek Goddess of Dawn/Springtime named ‘Eos’. The word for the direction ‘East’ also stems from Eos.
The ancient word for the springtime was thought to be named ‘Eastre’.
Christianity campaigned to win over Pagan holidays through fostering the celebrations themselves and pilfering our more ancient symbolism, finally staking claim to its truer meanings & origins.
Ancient Egyptians held a widespread belief that the universe itself was egg shaped.The womb of the Great Goddess was seen to be an egg.
Creation stories of Gods and Goddesses being born form eggs were well known, Hathor the great goddess of nature shape shifted into a Nile goose called ‘The Great Cackler’ and gave birth to the sun.
Today’s remnants of the old creation stories linger with us still in the form of the pantomime character ‘Mother Goose’ the goose that laid the golden egg.
A common practice which greatly predates Christianity was the painting of eggs by the Anglo Saxon folk who buried the brightly coloured eggs as offerings to Mother Earth buried in the hope that prayers be answered.
The Christian resurrection of Jesus Christ takes also stems from more ancient stories of the birth, death & resurrection of the Isis’s husband Osiris, God of renewal.
Many similar creation stories have been adapted by various cultures/Pantheons throughout the ages with an element of spiritual truth running through each.
The Spring-time symbolism of eggs/ Easter egg hunts/egg decorating/hares/rabbitsand rebirth filter through the ages globally and in time honoured fashion continue to do so from a more ancient nature based religion.
This year when I hand over Easter eggs to my children I shall be pointing out that theirs more to the humble choccy egg than meets the eye.
Hopefully before the ‘choccy fest’ commences they may be interested enough to take some time and learn a little more

Blessed Happy Ostara

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."