Easter?

What is Easter a Celebration of?

Many would say it is a Christian Religious Celebration which has become part of the calendar year in those countries where Christianity was or is a dominant faith.

Easter, though, started as a spring festival in the northern hemisphere. The equinoxes and solstices were celebrated pre-Christian arrival. The Spring Equinox, where the amount of daylight and the amount of dark are identical. was a signal of the ending of the long darkness of Winter and was celebrated.

During a recent Zoom, the celebration of Easter came up in conversation. One of the participants had found that due to the Covid Pandemic she had had to really establish yearly divisions and celebrations for herself. Like so many of her generation her year had been divided by religious festivals but as she no longer was a member of a religious community she had found the days and months just blended togetehre.

Finding out that so many of the religious festivals were actually piggy backed onto pagan festivals of the northern hemisphere she has broken her year into celebrations which are nature based.

 As Mel lives in Australia, she has always found the celebration of Easter and its association with Spring to be really weird. So last year although she still had an Easter Egg, she devised a menu which was more autumnal. Her table runner was autumnal in colour. She actually found that her celebration was right for her as she was entering a time of the year of preparing for winter.

So, yes, we can celebrate the changing seasons. We might find that our bodies are actually in tune with nature and more than we realise.

I will celebrate Easter. I will celebrate the fact that early morning sunlight with a hint of heat is on its way. I will celebrate that growth is all around in nature. I will definitely celebrate and toast life. It is a precious gift.

So, if you are celebrating Easter, Spring, Autumn enjoy your celebration and celebrate it in the way that brings you joy.