Wednesday, April 07, 2004

Worshipping the goddess Eastre

Just in case some of you have had the misfortune of being born into a world where they tell you lies about everything, here's the scoop on Easter.

As with most (literally most, almost all) Christian 'holidays', the celebration of Easter has nothing to do with Christianity, and never did until the Christians came up with the remarkably persuasive tactic of killing off all of the people who didn't believe what they believe. Prior to that, Easter was a Saxon festival that happened each spring, celebrating the return of Eastre, the goddess of fertility. I don't know about you, but given the choice of dead-guy-on-a-pole vs fertility goddess, I'm taking the goddess, but that may just be how I am wired. Being as Eastre was a fertility goddess, it's only natural that symbols of fertility (like the egg, for obvious reasons, and the bunny rabbit, whose superfecundity must have seemed magical) came to be associated with the celebration. The peasantry would boil the eggs with leaves and flower petals to color them; those who were more well off would coat the eggs in gold leaf. (Ahh, see how it all fits together when you've got the cultural context?) I remember asking, as a child, what the connection was between Jesus and the Easter Bunny - I'd figured out the whole Santa thing, and I wondered if similar rules applied (like maybe Jesus dresssd up as the Easter Bunny? So what the hell are the eggs for then?)

I can get into the Goddesh worship (I know the faces of many and the secrets of one), but I think I'll limit the bunnies to Oolong and Yuebing, and maybe this guy:

you smell like butt


oolong has a posse