Mama Dynamite: Happy Goddess Eostre

Ever made an Easter Tree?

Paint a few twigs in a pot and decorate with Easter paraphernalia. Hey presto!

It transpired we were sub-consciously makin a Tree of Fertility, channelling our Pagan roots and discovering the real meaning of Easter in the process.

Many moons ago, our Pagan ancestors carried out Easter rituals such as decorating trees and eggs in the vibrant spring sunshine colours in order to encourage fertility in the soil for the seasons ahead. That was their way of blessing the land and encouraging good harvests.

For Pagans, who established the origins of Easter thousands of years before Christianity, Easter time is about the rebirth of the sun and celebrating the wonder of nature. It's about a goddess of fertility called Eostre who is depicted with a rabbit's head and the symbols of eggs and rabbits.

These fertility symbols have become so intrinsically linked with Easter that we no longer question why we surround ourselves with them, or why images of the Easter bunny (the modern day translation of the Goddess Eostre) are everywhere.

Goddess Eostre

The word Easter shares the same origins as "east" and "eastern," which is the direction of the rising sun.

The blossoming of spring is a life-renewing time of the year for us all, when winter has finally passed and the sun is born again.

Catholic Ireland celebrates a different type of Easter for the anniversary of the son of god.

Do your own research about the history of Easter and you'll find that early Christians only started to embrace Easter after they realised it was such a big celebration in the Pagan calendar. In a bid to convert them to christianity, they blurred together the Spring Equinox with Christ's resurrection.

How different is it really? Only one letter.. SON instead of SUN.

In fact, 'son' and 'sun' are interchangeable as historical symbols of renewal and spring equinox. Consider for one minute, the coincidence of Easter being exactly 9 months prior to a very famous December 25th celebrated birthdate? A human life cycle, especially with all those fertility symbols abounding at Easter.

Easter might represent the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus Christ for the religious, but its origins derive from the annual "crossification" of the sun through the vernal equinox (Spring), when the sun is resurrected as the day begins to become longer than the night.

There's so many similarities that you can see why Easter is a special time for everyone, even if most people are only interested in chocolate eggs.

So this weekend, I'm stuffing my face with the kids' chocolate and hoping the sun shines bright in the sky.

Happy Easter everyone