Well, the first of the Spring Sabbats is coming up fast.  Ostara, otherwise known as the Spring Equinox.  This year the traditional energy of the season may lend some interesting colour and pushes to an already cooking pot of mayhem.  But I want to break this down as the equinoxes are not Sabbats that the Witch or Neo Pagan Community has a clear agreed grasp on.  So, let’s start with the most common understanding that I have heard over the years.  The basic Ostara Myth from whence we get the name Ostara comes out of the Wiccan Traditions as does most of the publicly embraced Sabbat stations of the 8-fold wheel. 

Ostara comes from the name of a Goddess which is “Eostre, Goddess of Dawn”, which emanates from the proto–Germanic Indo European name for the Dawn, “Austrø” which means “to shine”.  Interestingly it is also close to something found in the Old Norse Edda book, which depicts a male Divine Being called “Austri”, which means Spirit of Light.  So it’s pretty safe to say the name for the Spring Equinox comes from the word for Light and that makes perfect sense as for a celestial event where the Sun crosses over the dividing fulcrum of Light and Dark, in the east, as a kind of Dawn of the Year, where the Sun and its day light holds dominance over the day as a whole! 

The Mythic rendition of Ostara is pretty simple.  The Goddess Ostar of Light & Spring is attended by a hare, obviously the Lunar Mad March Hare, who brings her his Orphic Eggs of new Life reborn through emancipation.  He presents these to the Goddess of Spring, to liberate her Light and lifeforce energy to stir life back into the earth.  If you have ever wondered where those Easter Eggs come from and what the hell they have to do with the Christian Easter?  Well no, we don’t have chocolate eggs because the wood of Christ’s cross was brown, so the eggs are chocolate brown. Though brownie points for that reach (and thank you, Eddie Izzard)! Long before chocolate Easter Eggs, back when dirt was young, pagans painted regular eggs in celebration of the Spring Season and Ostara.  Its meaning for the general public: eggs equal fertility, a good symbol for Spring.  For the mystics and Initiates, the added association with the Orphic Egg and the rebirth of Phanes, a God of Divine Light, is also quite fitting for this season!

The only glimpse we have of the original closed coven work of the Wiccans for this Sabbat was presented by Alexandrian Elders, Janet and Stewart Farrar in the published books Eight Sabbats for Witches in (1981) and The Witches’ Way (in 1984), which were later combined into the influential A Witches’ Bible: The Complete Witches’ Handbook in (1996).  These works were the first of their kind to be published and were presumed to be the inner workings of a closed Coven Tradition akin to the Gardnerian Tradition, which is the founding Tradition of Wicca.  These publications informed and gave birth to a slew of eclectic Wiccan Covens and even Traditions.

What was presented for the Spring Equinox focussed on the polarity of light, the time of balance between Light and Dark, which is what the equinox presents.  Metaphorically this polarity event was an opportunity to incorporate an important element of Traditional Wicca into their wheel.  The many expressions of polarity rooted in gender.  The Divine Feminine and Masculine, the Celestial Goddess and Horned God of Earth, personified in the work of the Wiccan Initiates themselves.  Where the female Initiates would carry the Goddess within and the males would carry the God.  Their version of the ‘Hieros Gamos’, ‘The Great Marriage’ of communion was practiced in each rite symbolically by the inserting of the Blade into the Grail to signify sexual union between heaven and earth, Goddess and God.  So, the observance of the Ostara for the Wicca carried this balance of gender polarity as a means to mark the balance of Light & Dark.  It is in no way wrong to observe Initiate mysteries at these lesser Sabbats.  Covens and Traditions that work Initiate Mysteries use the Wheel of the Year, the shifting tides of energies and influences, to both clarify and empower the inner mystery workings of Tradition.  For me, the Sabbats are all about the claiming of the Tradition Legacies verses the Moons that are set aside for personal work.

As a non-Wiccan Traditional Witch, I work with the Ancestors of our Witch-stream and in addition to the vast legacies of pagan history, that would also include the many centuries where the only cosmology available to witches was Christianity.  That however did not limit Witches who worked that material through Witch’s Eyes.  And the spring equinox specifically found the Venus Mystery of Christ’s Passion, as a rendition of a much older tale of the Initiate quest of Initiation, Death and Rebirth.  And it may be shocking to Neo Pagans, but this material holds some potent insights for this Season of rebirth.  Even the Norse variant of this root mystery, where Odin hangs on the Tree and brings Death and Rebirth to a new reality & cosmology, laid to order within the Runes, could be worked at this time.  Witches are outsiders, never to be confused with the religious followers of the various theocratic religious systems, the old Pagan Celt Gods, Roman, Greek, Egyptian, Norse, or Christian, or any you-name-it religion.   We are always the heretics that work outside the Priesthood, where we see the mythic scriptures for what they truly hold!  The mysteries are the mysteries, and those who have the Sight have never lost sight of them!  So don’t be afraid to even explore Easter for what pagan mysteries it holds.  After all, the name Easter so obviously comes from the same root as Ostara, namely “Austrø”, to shine, light.

Coming at Ostara from my tradition I pull from the qualities of spirit so present at this time.  The liberty of the Light from darkness brings illumination & liberty from ignorance!  But I note that the liberty of this new world is delivered by the Mad March Lunar Hare with his crazy coloured Eggs.  The Mad March Hare is a figure of Lunacy, Mayhem & Misrule, which ties into the Pied figure of the Fool that makes a mockery of the uptight pomp of societal order and its political powers.  This combination of mayhem, misrule and the achieving of liberty, of clarity of sight & the vision of the world from outside the box.  A ship of fools delivers the misrule, where society for a moment can let down its hair and get healthy and get a healthy perspective on itself.  A cleansing of the baggage that blinds us.  Not taking oneself so damn seriously is a key to letting those tight fists relax for a second.  The whole season seems to scream this approach from the Lupercalia, through the Mad March Hare, to April Fool’s Day.

This year with all the craziness that is going on in our world, all the uncertainty and stress, I find myself braced for the fall of the next shoe.  Ye Gods did I ever need the season of misrule and mayhem to deliver a vacation out of this box of divisiveness.  I need my mouth to open wide in laughter instead of screams!  I need to see the world for the ridiculous parody it has become.  I need to wear my clothes on backwards or better yet cross dress just for the pure delight of giving the finger.  I need the Mad March Hare to deliver chocolate eggs and find that lost inner child, with his face covered in chocolate, laughing at the world.  Bring on the Ship of Fools, here’s my ticket to board!

But you do you.  Contrariness is the order of the day and don’t let anyone tell you how you need to do your Ostara Spring Rite.  Find your inner Witch and set them free!  Dance to your own drum and screw the world if it doesn’t have a sense of humour! May the Blessed Witchery, Contrariety, and Fuckery Be!