Easter's roots honor
the cycle of nature

By TOM RUE

For thousands of years, Pagans have honored the risen sun, the end of winter, and the arrival of spring during the first full moon on or following the vernal equinox.

But the older significance of the festival also has spiritual meaning. Known by the Romans as Aurora and by Germanic peoples as Ostara, Anglo-Saxon tribes worshiped the goddess Eostra, or Astarte, as the personification of the season that follows winter, as day follows night.

All that dies will be reborn

In Egyptian tradition, the moon-child Hathor, son of Isis, lay the Golden Egg of the sun, which goes into hiding for the colder portion of the year. Many countries have age-old traditions that involve painting spring eggs bright colors then hiding them for children or animals to find.

The central thread of a myth dramatized by the ancient Greeks at Eleusis is the earth mother goddess, Demeter, sorrowing over the kidnaping of her daughter, Persephone, who was whisked to the underworld while picking flowers. After a long, lonely winter of wandering in vain search, Demeter's soul is brightened by the return of Persephone, and crops again begin to grow on earth. However, while in Hades, Persephone unwittingly ate some of the "seeds of death" from a pomegranate given her by the god Pluto. As a result, the girl would have to rectum to the underworld for half of the year for the rest of eternity.

Many ancient religions celebrated life by enacting annual ritual-dramas that explained the creation of heaven and earth, the turning of the seasons, or the connection of humans to a divine order. Mystery dramas often included fertility rites connected with deities who died and were resurrected. Reportedly these festivals sometimes included displays of sensual abandon intended to portray, or to magically enhance, the fertility of the earth. In more symbolic rite a chalice and sword or ear of corn were sometimes used to represent the act of hieros gamos (holy matrimony) of the goddess and god as seen in nature.

Descriptions of the sacred dramas enacted at the great matriarchal temple of Eleusis are left to us by Homer in his Hymn to Demeter, which dates to the 7th century B.C.E. Some six centuries later Cicero wrote of there rituals, held at the vernal and autumnal equinoxes: "Nothing is higher than these mysteries. They have sweetened our characters and softened our customs; they have made us pass from the condition of savages to true humanity. They have not only shown us the way to live joyfully, but they have taught us bow to die with a better hope."

In its most elemental terms, the Eleusinian drama seems to represent the wedding of the corn goddess Demeter to the sky-god, fertilizing the earth with their gentle rain and sunshine. Nothing could be simpler, or more important, to an agrarian people.

Witchcraft today

Modern feminist and humanistic psychologists like Starhawk and Joseph Campbell have addressed the relevance Pagan deities and holidays have today to a culture alienated from itself and its origins. In reclaiming and honoring ancient rituals, many latter-day Pagans ascribe to the old religions that pay homage to both feminine and masculine divine principles, and that revere the planet as the central focus of human life.

Ritual is not a substitute for reality, but a pattern for it.'This can be as true for a Catholic celebrating the Eucharist as for a Pagan participating in similar dramas. By enacting rituals, we make universal archetypes manifest in our own psyches. We can undergo a timeless journey of human growth transcending individual differences. Creating one's own rituals, or modifying existing ones, can carry even more meaning for participants.

Contemporary witchcraft, or the religion of Wicca, is an eclectic blending of traditions and practices used to seek ecstatic attunement with the interdependent web of life. Witches see themselves, and everything that exists, as a vital part of a unified whole. The universe interacts in a physical and spiritual ecology that, it is believed, can be experienced in greater fullness by such means as ritual, trance, visual imagery, chants and song.

Since pre-Christian times, many cultures have revered witches, both women and men, as community healers, midwives, teachers, oracles and seers. They were shamans who bridged the realms of secular and spiritual reality. in approaching experimental passages like birth, significant life relationships, and death, witches are guided by the worship of various forms of a Great Goddess and frequently a male consort, sometimes represented, like Pan or Cernunnos, as personifying the animal world, with horns or antlers on his head.

The forced conversion of Europe by the Holy Roman Empire began in the cities but spread more slowly in the countryside. In Latin, Pagani (root of the word "Pagan") simply means "country-dweller." Over the years, these rural folk became known for their passive resistance to the iron-fisted laws of the church.

Under Roman rule, and continuing under Protestants like John Calvin, non-Christians in the old and new worlds were persecuted, denigrated and martyred. Witches were cast as evil- doers and forced underground. Goddess images were demolished or domesticated as saints, while the Horned One became identified with the Christian adversary of all goodness. The great witch hunt (1428-1560 C.E.), which peaked during the Spanish Inquisition, had a misogynist element absent from the high ideals of Christianity. In retrospect, the historical persecution of witches appears to be a means by which the patriarchy of the newer religions subjugated women.

Throughout the period recalled by witches as the Burning Times. and even down to today, traditional practices and teachings of "the Craft" have been passed down through families and small, decentralized cells called. Practices of these groups vary, since there is no central ecclesiastical authority, but the practice of witchcraft does not include the human or animal sacrifice often linked in the common mind with Satanism and Santeria, the Christian offshoot branches of occult practice.

Ethical magick

An authority on the subject defines "magick" (this spelling is sometimes used to distinguish it from parlor tricks) as "the Art and Science of causing Change to occur in conformity with Will."

Without any supernatural element, magick is the inner transformation of the practitioner, either for the experience alone or to bring about change in the external world. Borrowing another metaphor that combines art and science, magick is a form of spiritual alchemy. It involves mixtures of herbs, incense, invocations and chants, and the performance of prescribed acts inside a ritual circle surrounded by lighted candles at each directional quarter. By invoking the Old Ones, the practitioner focuses immanent powers to transcendent bounds of time and space in order to attain the desired objective.

Modern witchcraft emphases ethical practice. Counsel known as the Wiccan Rede dictate: "An' it harm none, do as ye will. This archaic phrase in Scottish dialect essentially means: "Do as you will, provided you cause no harm." In its broadest meaning, this is a powerful injunction. Whether engaged in group or solitary practice, most witches are extremely cautious about not performing any spellwork (comparable to prayers or healings) without the express consent of the beneficiary or recipient. They carefully weigh whether the action could cause harm to anyone else. Similar to the Eastern idea of karma, a fundamental Wiccan precept known as the Threefold Law holds that whatever acts are wrought, whether positive or negative, rebound to the doer three times over.

Ground of being

Many adherents find Wicca and other forms of Paganism a fulfilling and authentic expression of an existential quest for contact with a ground of being, an experience of the divine in many different guises.

While temporal death is one universal, the festival of Ostara reminds us of the eternally cyclical, resurrective nature in ourselves and all that surrounds us.