Oops, our pagan roots are showing today. Even though Christianity has done its best to dye those roots and purify this day as its own, it’s worth looking back and putting it all in perspective.
From the Easter bunny and Easter eggs to the resurrection, it was all happening way before Christianity stamped its mark on the pagan spring celebration. Those bunnies are a leftover from the pagan festival of Eostre, a great northern goddess whose symbol was a rabbit or hare. Exchange of eggs is an ancient custom, celebrated by many cultures. The Sumerian goddess Ishtar was hung naked on a stake, and was subsequently resurrected and ascended from the underworld.
Here’s an article by Heather McDougall, published a year ago in the Guardian of the UK that reminds us of all those pagan connections..
Easter is a pagan festival. If Easter isn’t really about Jesus, then what is it about? Today, we see a secular culture celebrating the spring equinox, whilst religious culture celebrates the resurrection. However, early Christianity made a pragmatic acceptance of ancient pagan practises, most of which we enjoy today at Easter. The general symbolic story of the death of the son (sun) on a cross (the constellation of the Southern Cross) and his rebirth, overcoming the powers of darkness, was a well worn story in the ancient world. There were plenty of parallel, rival resurrected saviours too.
The Sumerian goddess Inanna, or Ishtar, was hung naked on a stake, and was subsequently resurrected and ascended from the underworld. One of the oldest resurrection myths is Egyptian Horus. Born on 25 December, Horus and his damaged eye became symbols of life and rebirth. Mithras was born on what we now call Christmas day, and his followers celebrated the spring equinox. Even as late as the 4th century AD, the sol invictus, associated with Mithras, was the last great pagan cult the church had to overcome. Dionysus was a divine child, resurrected by his grandmother. Dionysus also brought his mum, Semele, back to life.
In an ironic twist, the Cybele cult flourished on today’s Vatican Hill. Cybele’s lover Attis, was born of a virgin, died and was reborn annually. This spring festival began as a day of blood on Black Friday, rising to a crescendo after three days, in rejoicing over the resurrection. There was violent conflict on Vatican Hill in the early days of Christianity between the Jesus worshippers and pagans who quarrelled over whose God was the true, and whose the imitation. What is interesting to note here is that in the ancient world, wherever you had popular resurrected god myths, Christianity found lots of converts. So, eventually Christianity came to an accommodation with the pagan Spring festival. Although we see no celebration of Easter in the New Testament, early church fathers celebrated it, and today many churches are offering “sunrise services” at Easter – an obvious pagan solar celebration. The date of Easter is not fixed, but instead is governed by the phases of the moon – how pagan is that?
All the fun things about Easter are pagan. Bunnies are a leftover from the pagan festival of Eostre, a great northern goddess whose symbol was a rabbit or hare. Exchange of eggs is an ancient custom, celebrated by many cultures. Hot cross buns are very ancient too. In the Old Testament we see the Israelites baking sweet buns for an idol, and religious leaders trying to put a stop to it. The early church clergy also tried to put a stop to sacred cakes being baked at Easter. In the end, in the face of defiant cake-baking pagan women, they gave up and blessed the cake instead.
Easter is essentially a pagan festival which is celebrated with cards, gifts and novelty Easter products, because it’s fun and the ancient symbolism still works. It’s always struck me that the power of nature and the longer days are often most felt in modern towns and cities, where we set off to work without putting on our car headlights and when our alarm clock goes off in the mornings, the streetlights outside are not still on because of the darkness.
What better way to celebrate, than to bite the head off the bunny goddess, go to a “sunrise service”, get yourself a sticky-footed fluffy chick and stick it on your TV, whilst helping yourself to a hefty slice of pagan simnel cake? Happy Easter everyone.
Paganism and shamanism are more focused on the nature and they’ve developed among hunters and gatherers. Modern organized religions are more about human interactions, purpose of life and morality. Organized religions appeared when nature seemed to be under control. It’s not surprising that, as the environment is vanishing in front of our eyes and when the “enemy” (global warming, natural resources, overpopulation, is consumerism and economic growth good or bad) is in complexity between causes and effects, organized religions seem to be pretty powerless to say much about the future. It’s not enough to be a kind person.
You nailed it, Aleksander. Somehow, kindness seems to have fallen out of the equation.
DJan, thank you! I don’t want to be a “comment hog”! Sometimes my fingers start typing and don’t know when to stop, as does my pen when I’m writing by hand! I wish I had the same ability to be as communicative in social situations, but unfortunately I do tend towrds being the one who listens and doesn’t speak much. Guess that’s why it all comes spilling out in writing! In any case, I’m glad you do enjoy reading my “stuff” and I appreciate your comments!
I love this post! I have always fancied myself a bit of a Pagan, their celebrations seem so much more sensible to me, ironic as that may seem to many in the Western World. 🙂
Great post – a little late here as I’ve been celebrating, erm, well, whatever it is – but I’ll go along with the pagan roots. Didn’t realise the bunny connection but chocolate is chocolate whatever the origins and it’s a good reason to indulge! Hope you’ve enjoyed the weekend. We’ve had a great time, a lot of it with our wonderful 9 month old grandson so I’m a happy bunny or hare or whatever.
Good weekend here. Just curious, Mike. Do you get any feelings about your grandson as a reincarnated family member?
I haven’t had any feelings that my grandson is a reincarnated family member. In saying that I do, however, feel that I’ve always known him (he’s only 9 months). I could go on and on about him as we already have a special bond. He sat opposite me at our Easter dinner and every time I looked at him he smiled, laughed and clapped his hands. My daughter-in-law joked that she would have to seperate us if we continued to misbehave! But, getting back to the original question, I don’t recognise him as being a recent deceased family member.
Marky says his baldness is a solar panel for his love machine……….just sayin’.
I really enjoyed the post too. 🙂
I’ll tell Rob that! He’ll love it.
Amen X 2! Gyps, I’ll sneak you into the trunk when we go to the wedding! Oh what fun we shall have! 😉 And no, I only comment here, on your blog, and on Sansego. Maybe there’s another mathaddict out there lurking in the cyber woods! Lordy, all the food consumed today sounds more like Thanksgiving than bunny day! Hope everyone has a bunch of Tums, Rolaids, Zantac, Pepto, whatever. But the chocolate indulgence for me was such a treat. Night, all. Peaceful dreams…..
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The writer of the buzznow article linked above seems to think that the pagan roots of Easter started with a comment by a monk. No, it’s just part of history, and there really was a history with pagan spring celebrations before Christianity. But I suppose if you believe the Earth is 6,000 years old, then you might not accept pre-Christian history as anything but a myth…as in lie. And, of course, anyone born on Earth before Jesus must be in hell since the only people going to heaven are those who accept Jesus as their savior.
amen!!!
Djan….hhmmmmmm. I only post comments here on this blog and on Gypsy’s blog. Maybe twice on Sansego. Sooooo, wonder where you’ve noticed other comments made by me?? And yep, my writing is prolific, which my talking is NOT, unless I’m teaching or leading a workshop or seminar. In social situations, believe it or not, I’m the silent one! And Rob…BALD MEN ARE SEXY!!! Oh, yeah!
Trish, you lucky girl, you! Happy day, all, and I shall try to limit my comments in future! 😉
Oh please don’t limit your comments, mathaddict! And I have no idea where I saw the other comment on another blog, but it was good, let me tell ya! I always read every word…
Eggcellent post! For me its just been a good excuse to consume large quantities of chocolate…oh yeah! Thanks for a pleasure read today! I feel much better about wishing you a happy Easter now. Happy Easter
Mac Gregor family…hope you’re having a eggceptionally great day!
eggceptionally, for sure!
Whoa! I must say, mathaddict, that you do tend to lengthy comments. I saw a couple you left on other places than this, but they are always worthwhile. But before I forget, R&T, thank you for FINALLY showing me where the crazy bunny and egg part of the Easter tradition in this country comes from. I don’t know why I would be surprised.
But whatever, thank you again, and I do hope that you indulge yourself in a tradition of overdoing it on holidays. Cool post!
Happy indulgence to you, too, DJan!
Love it! Now why I know why I love Easter so much. And the only way to eat a chocolate bunny is ears first! 🙂
I just MUST share this! Last night I wrote an email to cousin Gyps about this very subject. It was a lengthy email, and just before I clicked the ‘send’ key, the entire text vanished into cyber space. I was furious. Couldn’t find it anywhere. Zip. Forever gone. But, here’s the gist of that message that somehow got eaten by the invisible cyber muncher: Hubby’s GA relatives were here for ten days last week. One is a fundamental evangelical pulpit-slamming fire and brimstone baptist preacher. (They’re all baptists) The entire visit was filled with this type of stuff until I thought I would absolutely have a screaming hissy-fit. (We have hissy-fits down South, for folks who don’t know what a hissy-fit is…it ain’t pretty!) I’ve reluctantly lived in a small closet for all my married life with my spirituality….Pagan-Wiccan since age 18…..as a means of not offending hubby’s relatives and keeping the peace. Well, after their visit, I said “NO MORE”. I had taken my small, unobtrusive bumper sticker off my SUV before they got here; did that out of respect and courtesy, ya know. 😉 OK. There’s a huge, huge family wedding scheduled for October 1st up thar in them thar mountains, probably about three hundred baptist born-agains and more of the same ole same ole. So, this Pagan-Wiccan gal has put her bumper sticker back on my vehicle and there it shall stay. What’s on the sticker? A Wiccan pentagram, with the phrase, “BORN AGAIN PAGAN”. Am I doing this for spite, asked my hubby. No, says I. I’m doing it because I’m pretty durn tired of hiding MY light in a closet and having them all force THEIR religion down my throat until I gag and choke! I told hubby if it embarrasses him, deal with it. The bumper sticker stays. And if THEY have a problem with it….well, I’ve been known to turn certain people into frogs! Or worse. Leaving the humor aside, I am definitely coming out of the spiritual closet and they can do with me what they will. I imagine they’ll be terrified of those things which they do not understand. Should be a fun four days and nights culminating in a baptist wedding. The GREAT thing is that all three of my sons and my daughters-in-law and my grandchildren are also Pagan-Wiccan, and they’re all going to put the bumper stickers back on their vehicles for the celebration. Again, not for spite. Just to show pride by stepping out of our smothering closet. Pagan and Proud!! If you don’t hear from me after October 1, you’ll know they’ve tarred and feathered me and burned me at the stake. Ah well. Been there, done that before, so it won’t be new. Hee Hee. Boil and bubble, toil and trouble…..
You go, girl!
None of us should have to hide our ancient roots (unless they are are grey and we can use any color we want).
Time to be out of the broom closet..
This post was rob’s – and he’s bald! No ancient roots there! 🙂
Sorry for the confusion…I was responding to mathaddict & “Born Again Pagan”.
🙂
Good for you! Toil and trouble up in that mountains!
oh, yeah, another day to have an OD of chocolate!!! and a late southern lunch of a picnic ham, potato salad, baked beans, deviled eggs [couldn’t resist a touch of the devil] – and 4layer chocolate cake for dessert – then biting chocolate bunny heads [ears come off with head] off and tossing jelly beans and hiding eggs – and that was just the grown-ups! ya’ll missed a great time – wish you could have all been here –
and cousin cj – well, if i thought for one iota of a second that you’d need reinforcers, i’d volunteer – however, this life and all the other lives we’ve shared lead me to believe that this could easily be a one W[oman/iccan] show with no problemo! and i’m with you, you know – power to the pagans! out of the broom closets, all! let’s ride out, speak up and act out!!! love your story – and you know, you and i are so so twins separated at birth – neither of us could ever ever be accused of brevity!!! [it’s like being southern! – just the way we are] – but just so you’ll know, if you are leaving long comments somewhere else, my feelings will be all hurt and i’ll have to have a hissy-fit cause you don’t ever leave me but a few little ‘ole words!!! 😉
i’ll excuse myself on the bald men remarks – i dare not!
Oh yum! Am sorry we missed that picnic!
Happy happy Pagan Day to all! Love this post! I wondered what happened to the haunted ghost ship comment? It simply vanished in a flashed when I clicked on the ‘post comment window’? Any ideas?
We switched posts!
oh, and i ALWAYS ALWAYS eat the bunny head first!!! is there some other way?
neat breakdown on it all, macgregors!!!
my pagan roots are showing, too! power to the pagans!!!
and happy spring and all it brings!
We switched around the post for today. Your comment on the ghost and the ship will go up with that post tomorrow!
Funny about the bunny head!