Ostara is a solar festival, being one of two days in the year when day and night are of equal length. Spring is here, and new life is starting to appear all around us. Days will now lengthen, and light will triumph over the darkness of winter.
Ostara is celebrated around the same time as the Christian festival of Easter, which takes it's name from a goddess of the spring and fertility - Eostre.
Offerings of eggs and small cakes were made to her at the time of the Spring Equinox, and rabbits were sacred to her (she was said to take the form of one sometimes).
There is a legend that tells how Eostre found a wounded bird in the snow, and wanting to help she transformed him in to a hare so that he could survive the winter. The bird wasn't completely transformed, and the hare could lay eggs! The hare would decorate these eggs and leave them as a thank you to Eostre.
Eggs were an important part of nutrition for people at this time of year. The food from the previous years harvest was getting low, but it wasn't warm enough for crops to grow yet. Hence people would forage for wild birds eggs, which has lead to the custom of the Easter/Ostara egg hunts that we still have today.
Ways to celebrate
Ostara is a time for sowing seeds, to ensure that there is a harvest in the autumn.
Take a walk in the countryside or through the woods, and notice the new growth on the trees and plants. See if you can spot any new birds nests in the trees.
Ponds should be full of signs of renewed life, as they're usually teeming with tadpoles now.
Bring some beautiful daffodils in to the house to signify the arrival of spring.
Leave a sweet offering outside. Honey, chocolate or sweets for instance.
And, of course, an egg hunt! Or an egg and spoon race!
HAPPYOSTARA
beantighe
Happy Ostara to you too, Raymond, and to everyone! Thanks for explaining the origins of some of the Ostara customs so clearly, and for helping us to remember, so we can keep the reasons alive and help to preserve our link to the natural world which people today are so often in danger of losing.
I've just started my planting - I've sown some runner beans and peas in home-made compost which I put in loo roll middles and stood in a plastic tray and put on my kitchen windowsill, hoping to get a head start this year. I got none at all last year, as it was so horribly wet all summer. My garden is snail city too, beastly things!!!
What I love is all the little surprises Mother Nature leaves for me - two years ago, I found some tiny little seedlings of self-seeded lavender in one of my outdoor pots, which I transplanted and are doing well, and just this morning I looked round the garden on my daily inspection and found a self-propagated anemone blanda peeping out from a crack in the paving near the border. (They're like a garden version of the wild windflowers you find in the woods, and mine are a delicate blue.) Oh, I love spring!!!
Lilly
HAPPY OSTARA TO ALL!
I am putting some spring flowers next to my dear Mum's photo,as she passed away March 20th 1984. [when Torvil and Dean won the skating with 'Bolero.'
Since I was very young, I hated the 'Bolero' music,it frightened me.
I would literally get panic attacks. When Mum passed away,the music was on the telly non-stop. The very next day I watched the skating- fully expecting to turn the sound down,but there was nothing! no fear, no panic. I genuinely believe that it was associated with Mum's passing,a premonition?
There is only one more worry now... I have another piece of music in my memory,its a classic piece,which also fills me with dread.I am sure this music will coincide with another 'happening' in time to come.
Don't ask me what the music is,I have no idea;I only know what it sounds like,and if I hear it I avoid it.
evergreen
Lily what a lovely story.. I'm sure your right love
this end of the world are we all about cleaning and clear this time of year...?
Beanie I love that nature is like that it is so random and yet everything is as it should be I love plants that just pop up.. I miss my garden a bit and there is no water where I am maybe you guys can send us some... its one thing I'm working on while I am here
meiah
Didn't read this till today. I spent the weekend pricking out my Livingstone Daises....the first flowers I have ever grown from seed.
My baby aubergine plants are coming along nicely, and our sweet peas are wanting to go and live in the greenhouse rather than on the windowsill.
I am full of excitement for this years garden....already looking fabulous with the bulbs that I went bonkers with in the Autumn.
The runner beans have just gone in, and the tomatoes are yearning to go outdoors, so I am taking them out to visit the garden in the daytime, but bringing them back into the cosiness of the house of an evening. Won't be long.
