The Wheel of the Year: Ostara
Ostara, the Vernal Equinox, will be celebrated on 20 March (9:46 AM) this year. While the Celts did not celebrate Ostara, the Venerable Bede (8th cent.) recorded that Eostre was the Saxon name of a Germanic goddess called Ostara, whose feast day was celebrated on the full moon following the vernal equinox. While there is some evidence that the Anglo-Saxons worshiped Eostre in southeastern England (Kent), Bede’s assertion may reflect a controversy over the correct method to use to determine the date of Easter rather than accurate history. In any case, when creating the Wheel of the Year, modern Pagans adopted this name for the Spring Equinox.
The word equinox is Latin and means equal night [to day], although with modern measuring tools, we know that our senses are off by about six minutes. However, this is the time when the sunrise and sunset are due east and west. After March 20, the sunrise will continue to shift north.
As a festival, Ostara has many layers of meaning, beginning with balance. As you would expect in the natural world, this balance is dynamic rather than static. After Ostara, the shift toward more daylight, begun at Imbolc, has progressed enough that the plants “wake up”. Even though it snowed this week, this is the peak of the sprouting season, with plants poking out of the ground and trees budding out in bursts of energy. The growth energy is focused and persistent: hope, renewal, and resilience. Such an abundance of seedlings and buds is a hope that some will survive to produce flowers that will produce seeds for the next generation.
We can apply the lessons of Ostara, hope, renewal, and resistance, to our own lives. We start projects or take action– a garden or other plans, or recognize a need in the community – hoping all the seeds will germinate, plans will progress, and community needs will be met. Some will, some won’t. We change plans, alter projects, or meet resistance, and recognize that we can’t manage alone. There can be so much we want to do or think we must do, that we can become overwhelmed and burn out without remembering to balance activity. We need to recognize that we can’t do or plant everything, that some projects or plans need a community, and that we need to take some time off. We can also remember that seeds, ideas, and actions planted now will take time to germinate and sprout. The Wheel of the Year is about the long haul: harvest is some months away, but if we want that harvest, we need to plant or act now and nurture hope as we nurture our plans, projects, and gardens.
So, following that train, or tendril, of thought, consider the growing outrage and resistance to actions by the current administration. Consider that despite hostile actions against clean energy, wind and solar are producing energy at an increasingly cheaper rate than fossil fuels, and that EVs remain popular as cost drops and more companies enter the charging business. All of these developments grew from seeds planted years ago and grow stronger with the continued tending of our Earth community.
~ Leslie Peet