Lore

Date:
March 21

History:
Ostara is a festival of fertility and growth. Ostara occurs on the Spring Equinox, the first day of Spring. On this day darkness and light are in balance. From this day onward, day will dominate the night and the Earth will explode with life. Ostara is a celebration of this renewal and rebirth of nature and warming of the Earth. As mirrors of the world around us, this is an ideal time to put plans into action for growth in our own lives, to actively encourage change.

The name for this Sabbat is derived from the Teutonic lunar Goddess Eostre. Her chief symbols were the rabbit (for fertility, and her worshippers often saw the image of a rabbit in the full moon), and the egg (representing the cosmic egg of creation). This is where the customs of "Easter Eggs" and the "Easter Bunny" originated.

A tradition that did not exactly move over into the popular celebration of Easter was having sex in freshly plowed fields. This tradition came from the pagan farmers who would finish plowing and planting their fields. Once the crops were all planted, the farmer and his wife would make love in the field, the idea being that the fertility of their sexual act would help the plants grow into a bountiful crop. Another variant of this is leaping in the fields. Instead of having sex in the freshly plowed fields, the farmer and his family would go out into the field and leap as high as they could into the air, the idea being that the crops would grow as high as their leaps into the air. This is an example of sympathetic magick, where the crops are supposed to imitate the actions of the farmer's family.