Ostara - The spring equinox

I can always tell it’s spring when the air has a certain scent. It’s floral, it’s nostalgic, it reminds me of bug catching and flower picking. I get overwhelmed with memories when that certain scent pops up, and now that I’m older and more confident in my spirituality, it triggers excitement for the upcoming sabbat.

Ostara basics

Ostara (os-tar-ah) is another name for the spring equinox. Like Samhain, Ostara is celebrated when day and night are the same length, but instead of it symbolising the nights growing longer, it celebrates the days growing longer.

It is a time of rebirth, growth, fertility, and renewal; a time to celebrate the earths reawakening and the birth of many animals. The goddess Eostre (or Ostara) is honoured along with other goddesses associated with fertility.

It is believed that Ostara was the basis for the christian easter due to the many similarities between them, and that’s something I’d like to explore in a later blog post.

How to celebrate:

Altar

As with every other sabbat, a great way to celebrate is with decorating your altar or creating a new one dedicated only to Ostara. You will want to include pastel colours, eggs and bunnies/hares, baby animals (chicks are especially commonly associated with Ostara), and use crystals like citrine, amethyst, and rose quartz. Also, add some fresh in season flowers! Any flower that is blooming where you live is perfect, as we’re celebrating nature and what’s in season rather than gathering things that have come from overseas. You can also add in herbs like lavender, rosemary, chamomile, and rose buds and petals.

Decorate eggs

Egg decorating during the early spring happens all over the world, from Egypt to India to Ukraine, and due to pagan/pre-christian religions not having many written texts, it’s hard to say why. But what we do know is that around the world, eggs symbolise fertility. So get out your dyes, natural dyes are great, and decorate them with pastel colours. You can even decoupage them, or burn designs into them. However you decorate them, just make sure you either remove the insides or use egg shapes made from other material so they don’t go off!

Connect with nature

Get in your garden, go for a walk, just get yourself into nature to see the beauty of the awakening earth. If doing some planting, try to plant some native things! I personally will be going for a nature walk to do some wildlife/nature photography! Also, try to feel the earth under your feet, kick those shoes off and just feel mother earth waking up – the wind in the trees is her sighing, the ground is her breathing.

Feast

One major part of Ostara is to indulge yourself on freshly grown seasonal crops. Go to a farmers market and pick up some fruits and veggies, and after cooking your feast, invite your friends, family, and neighbours! The spring equinox is the perfect time to connect with your community, and what better way to do that than over food.

Craft

Spring is mother natures way of crafting, she creates the blooming plants, the baby animals, the beauty of nature, and what better way to honour that than by creating our own crafts. So make something beautiful, full of colour and cuteness, and dedicate it to the beautiful mother earth.

I hope y’all have found some inspiration on how to celebrate Ostara in your own way. And please remember, that celebrating sabbats isn’t something you need to do ‘right’, it’s the attempt and intent that matters.

Althea xx