The ancient celebrations of the Spring Equinox, also known as the Vernal Equinox, Festival of Trees Alban Eilir, and Ostara Eostre Rite, is the time to experience the fertility of the land, which celebrates the birth of spring and the reawakening of life on our planet. In this day, the old lit new fires at sunrise, rejoiced, played bells and decorated boiled eggs.
An old custom associated with the Saxon goddess Eostre, fertility of eggs, which are obviously symbols of fertility and reproduction, were used in ancient fertility rites. Painted with various magical symbols, the eggs were thrown into the fire of fires or buried as offerings to the female deities. In certain parts of the world they painted the eggs of the Spring Equinox yellow or gold (sacred solar colors), using them in rituals to honor the Sun God, to mark its resurgence in the world. Basically two goddesses were the reverencidas this day: Eostre (Saxon) and Ostara (German), both goddesses of fertility. In some pagan traditions, the deities worshiped fertility of that day are the Goddess of Plants and the Lord of the Forests.
Like most ancient festivals, the Spring Equinox was Christianized by the Church at Easter, which celebrates the resurrection of Jesus Christ. In spring rituals, the old celebrated the birth of the Child Jesus, who, after a long season in the underworld, or in the womb of the Goddess in her aspect of Mother (which marked the winter), Easter (in English “Easter”, name derived from the Saxon fertility deity, Eostre) only officially was named a Goddess after the end of the Middle Ages. Even today, Easter Sunday is determined by the old lunar calendar system, establishing the holy day on the first Sunday after the first full moon after the Spring Equinox. (Formally this marks the phase of “pregnancy” of the Goddess, crossing the fertile season).
The Passover, like almost all Catholic religious festivities, is enriched with many features, customs, and pagan traditions, such as Easter eggs and rabbits. The eggs, as mentioned, were ancient symbols of fertility offered to the goddess of fertility. The hare (not the rabbit) was a symbol of rebirth and resurrection, being a sacred animal for various lunar goddesses, both in Eastern culture as in the west, including the goddess Ostara, whose animal was a hare.
