Day and night hours are equal and the focus is all about recognizing the various balances in your life.
Balance your act on the Equinox.
Friday, March 20, 2015, is the Vernal Equinox. Day and night hours are equal on this day, and the focus is all about recognizing the various balances in your life as well as observing the balance of nighttime and daytime.
Decorate using the colors pink, yellow, and green. All pastel colors are good, but pink, yellow, and green are the more important. Prepare a menu that may include eggs and foods using eggs; hot cross buns; leafy green veggies; dairy foods; pumpkin and sunflower seeds; pine nuts, sprouts, cheeses, ham, and chocolate.
Use representations of eggs, rabbits, solar crosses with arms of equal length, and living plants. If you choose to dye and/or decorate eggs, rubbing the dyed and decorated eggs with a bit of vegetable oil on a soft cloth will make them shiny. These decorated hard-boiled eggs could be used as place cards, and as a further activity you and your guests may, as a group, crack the shell of the egg while saying ”winter’s ice is cracked”; then peel the white away to reveal the yolk while saying “the snow melts away”; then share the pieces of the egg with one another saying “New life begins.”
One of the simpler ways to incorporate balance into your celebration is for you and your guests to attempt to balance a raw egg on its larger end. As you do so, you may find it interesting to share Easter Egg Hunt reminisces and to discuss the story of the Easter Bunny:
The myth of the Easter Bunny begins with German immigrants to the United States bringing the custom of children making nests in their caps and bonnets before Easter to see if the Osterhase would bring them gifts of colored eggs, which only went to good children. “Hase” is German for “hare,” so the reference is to the Easter hare, not rabbit.
These German Protestants wanted to retain the custom of eating colored eggs at Easter (eggs being forbidden during Lent, which was the reason for an abundance of eggs served at Easter dinners), but did not want to make their children fast during Lent; hence, the Osterhase tradition.
Jakob Grimm (one of the Brothers Grimm) wrote of long-standing similar myths in Germany and suggested that these myths derived from legends of the Germanic goddess Ostara. The name Ostara comes from an Indo-European root, “Aus,” from which the names Eos, Aurora, and Eoster (all Maiden or Dawn goddesses) derive.
Eoster is a goddess of the Spring, essentially an aspect of Freya, whose special weekday is Friday. When the Vernal Equinox falls on a Friday, as it does this year, it becomes even more important to honor the virgin goddess of your choice. Toasting her with dessert would be most appropriate; maiden goddesses enjoy sweets.
Note from Kate: I will be participating in two fairs in April. April 4-5 I will be in Oklahoma City for a Spirit Fair; April-19 I will be at the Spiritual Life Productions Metaphysical Fair in Austin. More information about both fairs is posted in my website on the Out and About with Kate page.
[Kate Braun was a contributor to the original Rag. Her website is www.tarotbykatebraun.com. She can be reached at kate_braun2000@yahoo.com. Read more of Kate Braun’s writing on The Rag Blog.]
