Ostara & Spring Equinox
What is Ostara?
The Spring Equinox is one of 2 days of the year in which the night & day are equal in length. From this date on, the days will now be longer than the nights; we’ve officially entered the light half of the year! The return of the sun & warmth is cause for celebration, seen in many Spring festivities around the world. In fact, the equinoxes are some of the oldest & most widely celebrated days, pan-culturally.
Ostara & the traditions I’m discussing today come from pre-Christian Europe: a time with little organized religion but lots of spirituality. Before monotheism took over the world, most still believed in the same(ish) higher power, Source, or God. Many gods and goddesses were popular, accepted as incarnations of this same Source. One of such dieties is Eostre-a goddess of dawn, Springtime, and fertility- linked to Germanic or otherwise generally Western European origins. Eostre is where neopagans have gotten the name Ostara for the Spring Equinox in modern times, and potentially where Christians got the name for Easter.
Yes that’s right, another national holiday that today is Christian, but can be linked to ancient earth-based roots. Perhaps even as ancient as the Egyptians, who celebrated with a Spring festival, Sham El-Nessim. Later, as the Roman Empire spread Christianity throughout Europe, pagans were essentially tricked into assimilating; instead of being totalllly stripped of their holidays, they were allowed to celebrate super similar Christian ones. Sadly this tactic of erasure is common, and leaves us with little written evidence of what these festivities were actually like. We know for sure Christians throughout the Middle East were already celebrating the resurrection of Jesus (as Pascha or Passover) around this time, and when they tried to bring the holiday to pagans, it was easiest to merge their celebration of Jesus’ life with that of the equinox. This is the reason we celebrate Easter on the first Full Moon after the equinox!
So what do we know about how earth-baed cultures celebrated the Spring equinox? Similarly to other sabbats, the general idea was simply to rejoice & come together as a community to give thanks and blessings. Specific traditions surrounded fertility and love; this was a common time for hand-fasting (aka marriage) & childbirth, definitely stemming from the symbolism of all the baby animals being born at this time! In these agrarian societies, baby animals being born again also meant milk and cheese products would be available again and after a winter of a super bland, low fat diet, this was cause for feasting! Neighborhood feasts would be spent giving thanks for surviving the winter, and asking for blessings for the spring crops. The busy season is approaching, coming out of the cold, dark & lifeless months. People were in touch with the cycles of the Earth, and could feel this energetic shift inside themselves too- not just a physical phenomena seen in the greening of the Earth. Even today, you can feel the buzz of warm spring day- especially those first couple sunny days above 60 when everyone goes outside… the atmosphere is almost intoxicating with optimism and life.
I would like to touch on a few of the symbols you may already associate with this holiday due to Easter and it’s mass commercialization. By learning how many of the traditions you have been mindlessly participating in since a child are actually rooted in earth-based celebrations, they suddenly regain a deep meaning! I think of it as reclaiming their true, intuitive & inherent value.
The dyeing and decorating of Easter eggs for example, which greatly pre-dates Christianity: eggs are associated with Ostara as they are one of the earliest and most promising signs of Spring returning- birds laying their eggs again. Plastic decorations were of course not a thing, but our ancestors still emulated the essence of the brightening world within their homes using symbolic natural decor like flowers and painted eggs. Some myths about Eostre even involve a decorated egg! The Easter bunny also comes from eath-based assocaitions with the rabbit or hare at this time of year. Rabbits have fast, plentiful litters of babies come Spring, leading them to represent fertility and abundance- the main themes of Ostara. Again, these traditions mixed over time and may even appear secular today, despite them dripping in pagan symbolism. My hope is that this post & the links I’ve provided can help you see deeper meaning :)
Modern ways to celebrate:
Start your garden! Remember that anything done with magickal intention is as such, so planting a garden can absolutely be a spiritual act.
Focus on your spiritual growth and studies. Now is the time to be diligent about your studies, daily cleansing, meditation, & protection.
Refresh (or make for the first time!) an altar or sacred space to create a physical manifestation of the energy you are evoking this spring. This could include offerings for the sun, or nature spirits (flowers, crystals, seeds, anything you’ve gathered from the outdoors). It could include literally anything that symbolizes the sabbat: colored candles, depictions of goddesses or baby animals.
Any color magick involving green, yellow, and pastel pink & purple. This could be burning candles, wearing clothes or jewelry of these colors, mediating with crystals of this color, using a bath bomb of this color, literally anything.
Craft any spells involving balance, fertility, childbirth & health, marriage & love
Embrace themes of balance in your yoga practice, meditation, energy levels, and elsewhere in your schedule.
Spend time in nature, noticing how it’s coming back to life as the sun returns. Look for new shoots & leaves, baby animals, chirping birds- and appreciate them! Especially bird & rabbit spirits, of course- maybe setting up the bird feeder!
Meditate (or just relax) outside on the ground or in the sun. Give thanks for the sun returning and the days lengthening.
Create art with nature- a flower mandala, rock stack, painted rocks or wood, etc!
If you’re trying to start a family or just get more in touch with your womb space- spring time is when you are most energetically supported by the universe in doing so!
Journal Prompts:
what do I love and honor most about the cold winter months? What will I miss about them when they’re gone in a few months?
what is an aspect of my life I’d like to call more balance to?
what are my most fertile, abundant ideas waiting to be brought into fruition? How can I direct my attention to these goals?
how do I nourish & connect to my divine feminine?
How I’m Celebrating (2023):
Breaking Bread with friends
Celebrations with friends were moved up a week this year, in fear the snow will no longer hold out for our annual PA ski trip all the way to the Equinox. We sort of combined the traditions of painting and decorating Easter eggs, with a celebratory communal loaf of bread, and a treat for the birthday girl! Food dye was mixed with white icing to make an acrylic-paint like texture to paint right on the loaf!
Yoga Circle Rituals and Offerings
This year I’m hosting March’s yoga/ moon circle right around the Equinox again, which always feels good to celebrate with community on the holiday itself. As usual, I created an offering and card pull to guide us!
Ritual Bath
The sabbat falls after a long weekend of skiing, so coming home to a warm, cleansing soak is exactly what I need. I will smoke cleanse the tub and room with my homemade cedar wands before picking out some salts, crystals, and flowers to go with it!
How I’m Celebrating (2022):
FULL MOON FLOW
This year the equinox just about lined up with the Full Moon of March, which I always celebrate with a virtual yoga class/ moon circle. I love when the sabbat falls close to my class, as it gives me a chance to meet with my friends & family who live around the country- joining with the community is the most important aspect of Ostara (and most of the sabbats), after all. I like to make our celebration super intentional with personal & collective card pulls, rune readings, and candle & color magick! You can see the calendar & sign up for the next class anytime here!
CRAFTING & CLEANSING
I spent the night of the Full Moon making some crafts with the last of my dried flowers from the Fall. Creating & DIYing is something I make time for monthly, usually in synch with mine & the moon’s cycle. But since Ostara is coming up, I made a bunch of lavender & heather smoke cleansing wands, symbolic of the sabbat’s colors and association with purification. I will sell or give some away, and use the rest to decorate my altar for now!
Nature walk
The equinox always seems to overlap with our last weekend skiing for the year, which is fitting for Ostara’s theme of balance & new beginnings. The end of ski season is so bittersweet, because I know it’ll be such a long time before I’m riding down the mountain again, but it means that it’s warm enough for SO many other hobbies and outdoor activities that I’m missing dearly. This idea that the old must go so the new can come in is a natural law of the universe that we see play out in Spring time’s melting snow and budding flowers. After skiing, the trip to the mountains usually gives me a beautiful opportunity to take a small hike or nature walk & look for signs of the new season!
How I’m celebrating (2021):
Ritual bath
A few days ago I had a beautiful ritual bath, complete with all my favorite flowers of the spring time. I used my favorite yellow bath bombs, the color I feel most connected to during Ostara. I set the intention for the cleansing salts in the bath to reset and refresh my aura & energy, welcoming in the joy and abundance of spring time. Then I simply mediated on this during my bath, after which I reread some pages of the Bhagavad Gita and then crawled into a clean bed with fresh sheets for a restful night’s sleep. So magickal 😌
Spinning Fire and Feasting with my friends
I’m lucky enough to be spending this sabbat with my very best friends. It feels like a ceremony every time we hang out tbh lol but especially this weekend- we will spin fire and eat yummy food, shaking off a winter of cold with one last ski trip for the season. Such perfect timing, as the snow will be visibly melting from the slopes, reminding us that the thaw is here.
[more] spring cleaning and planning
I’ve spent the past several weeks, basically since Imbolc, deep cleaning and reorganizing my house. All of the areas that have been gathering dust since we moved in have been shown the light of day lol. I’ve also been taking the month of March to really clean up and organize my schedule & work flow. I’m just finally feeling like I have some direction for all things business and travel for the coming months. As someone who wants to live basically nomadically, but also run their own business and see clients remote and IRL, finding a work flow is SO key, but something I have been struggling with.
