What Do Bunnies or Eggs Have to Do with Easter?
Another FREE post from the Bliss Blog.
Easter is the Christian celebration of the resurrection of Jesus. But before Jesus, there was another celebration around the same time of the year; the celebration of the Vernal (spring) Equinox, which falls this year on March 19th just after 11 pm EST, when the sun enters Aries. It’s the day when once again, day and night are equal, and from that day on, every day will be a few minutes longer, every night a few minutes shorter, until the autumnal equinox when the nights once again take over. The return of the sun became the return of the son, and the old Celtic holiday of Ostara became Easter. It’s always much easier to convert the masses if you convert their holidays along them.
I would so much rather find things in common than the opposite, though, and this holiday’s energy is so universal it just has to be discussed.
Like many other things in the Bible, Jesus’ story was foreshadowed by earlier stories from far older sources. His story is an evolution of those older events and tales, a validation of them, rather than a contradiction of them. So, it’s all a beautifully intricate tapestry of humanity’s understanding of nature and the divine, all woven together to deliver a single message.
At Ostara, the Vernal Equinox, spring usurps winter from his cold throne. Spring represents life, rebirth, youth, innocence, and pure potential. Winter repesents age, wisdom, completion, fulfilment, reflection, rest, and the temporary and fleeting illusion of death.
Metaphorically, the holidays of spring bring the same universal message. Death is just a temporary condition that we don’t fully understand. We see it as The End, but it’s really just part of the cycle. Life always returns. Life never stops. It may appear to be gone for a while, but like the moon, it’s there, the whole time.
This is the message of the resurrection story, too. A miralce to prove once and for all that death is not permanent, not insurmountable, and not an ending. That we return.
As above, so below
When we see a pattern in one part of life, we can expect to see the same pattern reflected in all parts of life, no matter how big or how small. Have you noticed how much an atom resembles a solar system? It really is simply a solar system on a very small scale, with protons and neutrons as a miniature sun, with electrons orbiting around it at a great distance (by scale.) Is the sun our nucleus? Is the earth an electron?
By extension that would mean that if an atom is a solar system, than anything containing atoms is a galaxy. Your sofa is a galaxy. Your house is a bigger galaxy. Your house must be a universe, and yet it’s part of one march larger. Everything in nature is true in bigger, and bigger, and bigger scales, as well as in smaller and smaller and smaller scales. The Universe is a living fractal, each part an echo and a reflection of all the other parts.
That got deep. Let’s lighten back up.
So what about the eggs and bunnies?
Well, what’s the first thing you think of when you think of bunnies? “They reproduce like rabbits” is an old saying for a reason. (Personally, I default to tribbles.) Rabbits (and tribbles) represent fertility. Fertility is what makes life. Fertile soil grows crops. Fertile animals bear young. Fertile people fill the earth. (It’s full, folks, we can slow down a bit.)
So bunnies are about life. See the tie-in? Rabbits are also critters that move ahead by hops and leaps, so they represent taking jumping into motion and action. The starter’s pistol goes off for us as Spring rolls, doesn’t it? It’s time to move!
Eggs are a symbol of life.
Eggs were sacred to the druids, who wore egg-shaped stones to honor the power of life, and especially life at springtime. They are the whole of potential, all contained in one tiny shell, ready to spring forth.
Like the earth in winter, the egg appears lifeless and void. But inside, there is life, and all that is needed to support that life, growing and preparing to burst forth. Just like the life in the ground, beneath the snow, nourished and cared for and safe, waiting to bust forth at the kiss of the sprintime sun.
The symbolism of the egg reminds me of The Fool in the Tarot; pure potential; that today is the first day of the rest of your life kind of energy; the moment when everything is possible. That’s what this time of year feels to me. Springtime is ready to bust out all over. Right?
So decorating the eggs, and bunny imagery would be readily recognized by our most ancient ancestors, those older than Christianity, as ways of acknowledging and honoring the season and its symbolism of life over death, light over dark, spring over winter, hope over despair, love over hate, peace over war, and good over evil.
How perfect then that these symbols have been adopted to help celebrate a holiday like Easter, that celebrates the very same things?
The Fairy Realm
Rabbits and Springtime are closely tied to the Fairy Realm and the “Otherworlds.”
The period surrounding the birth of spring can be a powerful time for communing with nature and receiving messages from the nature-spirits.
I see you crooking that eyebrow
Everything that is physical started out as nonphysical—a thought, an idea, a desire, a wish. Everything physical has a non-physical part. You know how everything casts a shadow? And how everything has a reflection. We, here in the physical are the shadow and the reflection that is cast by our true selves, our non-physical selves. I know that seems counter-intuitive. You’d think the non-physical would be the reflection, but no.
Everything we are in the physical world grew from, emerged from, evolved from our non-physical selves. Everything. Which means that all living things, all physical things must have a non-physical counterpart—a spiritual twin or essence. A specific set of energies manifest as bunnies.
I almost wrote “a specific set of energies codes for bunnies.” I’ve been studying biology all week. And honestly, it feels the same. Specific sets of genes code for specific proteins. Specific groups of nucleotide monomers combine in sets of 3 to create different genes, and those genes create different proteins, that build the tissues, that build organs, muscles, and body of the organism being created.
Everything physical is an expression of the non-physical energy live-streaming through it. Every body plant, every tree, every blade of grass.
Rabbit’s most prominent feature is the ears. Listen for messages during this season of the rabbit. This is a beautiful time to quiet our minds, to be still and listen. Wonderful things might come to us if we do.
This is a time for planting seeds, both literally and symbolically. What are seeds, if not tiny eggs? Inside them there is life and all that’s required to nurture it until it’s ready to burst forth. As above, so below. A seed and an egg are the same thing on different scales of size.
Everything we want to build in the coming season of light, from now until the end of the growing season at Samhain, should begin now and in the weeks to come. It’s time to begin.
Fresh air. Rebirth. Youth. Beginnings. Ideas. Fresh starts. Seeds. Spring. Sunshine. Dawn. Newness. Rejuvenation. The East. Pastel Colors. Yellow, pink, lavender, mint green, robin’s egg blue. Communication. Inspiration. The Wind. Fresh air. Travel. Motion. Communication. Ideas. Whispers. Intuition. Messages. Smells. Feathers. Flowers. Bugs. Incense. Birds. Clouds. Morning. Children. Fertility. Potential. Butterflies.
Fairies, sylphs, and leprechauns—these are what ancient Celts named the non-physical essences of nature. All of these and more are parts of the energies of this blessed time of year.
We can talk to them, and we can listen to them too, through feelings, emotions, sensations we experience when we go silent surrounded by nature.
Spring 2024
As I pen this post, my area has a snowstorm warning, and we’re predicted to have several inches of the white stuff by Monday morning. But it’s a warm spring and has been a warm winter. The ground is green, not white, and it’ll be green again as soon as the storm passes, with our daily temps due to return to the 50s where they’ve been for a few weeks now, with some days in the 60s. Spring is arriving early.
Embrace it. I intend to. I’m going to get outside and get my hands in the dirt as early as I possibly can. I’m moving my daily meditation outside on every day it’s warm enough. And I’m starting to plant plenty of seeds already, both real ones, and metaphorical seeds for the events I hope will play out in my life over this coming season of fertilisty, growth, and expansion!
Happy Spring, and maybe your Ostara be blissful!
RELEASING TUESDAY
Releasing the day after tomorrow! Preorder today in paperback or ebook at all your favorite retailers!