Happy Ostara! Part 1

Many of us know Easter to be one of the most renowned celebrations in the Christian world.
However, few know that its origins can be traced in the historical alcoves of Pagan spirituality.

Spring Equinox (or Vernal Equinox) is a crucial time in human consciousness and is placed in between the 19th and the 21st of March. The rebirth of Nature from the shadows of wintry gloom represented the archetype of the God’s rebirth and victory over the forces of Dark and the theme of the “harrowing of Hell”.

The latter is roughly translated into Greek (κατελθόντα εἰς τὰ κατώτατα) and Latin (descendit ad inferos) meaning the “descent of Hell” (also katabasis). This concept has been picked up by Christianity to describe Christ’s triumph over Hell and the release of its righteous captives. Yet it is clearly understood by an observation of the Moon’s cycle: the moon is not visible for three days (when the New Moon is born) and this is explained as being the Goddess’ 3-day sojourn in the underworld.
Thus Christ as a solar deity, doesn’t necessarily follow the tradition of the descent of the Lunar Goddesses in the underworld.

Yet the Vernal Equinox is certainly represented as being the victory of the God of Light over the God of Darkness. A perfect example can be found in the Welsh myth of Llew and Goronwy (http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Forum/7280/LLew.html) where Llew (the god of Light) kills Goronwy (the god of Darkness) with his spear (literally the hours of light start increasing whilst the hours of dark decrease).
The virgin Goddess (the Earth goddess) mates with the Sun God and conceives at the Vernal Equinox.

A more interesting myth is that of Cybele, the Phrygian fertility Goddess, and her companion, Attis. He was said to die and resurrect during the Vernal Equinox. Attis, born of a virgin, was a vegetation God just like Osiris, Dionysus or Orpheus and, like Nature, was reborn in this particular period.

Easter itself instead betrays its origins: Eastre (or Ostara) was a Saxon Goddess whose sacred animal was the hare, however Ostara, being a lunar Goddess, celebrates the Vernal Full Moon. This explanation arises from the writings of the Venerable Bede (De temporum ratione, XV):
Eostur-monath, qui nunc paschalis mensis interpretetur, quondam a dea illorum quae Eostre vocabatur, et cui in illo festa celebrabant, nomen habuit.

(Eostur-month, which is now interpreted as the paschal month, was formerly named after the goddess Eostre, and has given its name to the festival)

The name Eastre, betrays the root east-, thus suggesting a connection with dawn (and more specifically with the Greek Goddess Eos). In the northern hemisphere spring is the rebirth of Nature, a "dawn" of a new cycle with marks an important part of agrarian and rural societies.
For Northern people Ostara marked the beginning of the resurrection of light, of the victory of Sunna over the wolves - thus the people had to encourage this rebirth by specific rituals.

PART 2 WILL BE ADDED BY THE END OF THE WEEK

Read more...

Magic in the Ancient World

Take a look at my article on The Roman Forum about Magic in the Ancient World. It's been quoted on various websites and blogs:
What is Witchcraft?
Witchvox
About.com

The article is here

Read more...

Hypatia, Pagan Martyr

Alexandria, March 415 AD. The city has mixed feelings concerning the vicious lynching and subsequent death of one its highest (if not) highest representatives: Hypatia.

Her crime: being a Pagan in the growing turmoil of Christian persecutions, more specifically, a representative of the prestigious Neo-Platonist School founded by the philosopher Plotinus.

She was described by Socrates Scholasticus in the following way:
There was a woman at Alexandria named Hypatia, daughter of the philosopher Theon, who made such attainments in literature and science, as to far surpass all the philosophers of her own time. Having succeeded to the school of Plato and Plotinus, she explained the principles of philosophy to her auditors, many of whom came from a distance to receive her instructions. On account of the self-possession and ease of manner, which she had acquired in consequence of the cultivation of her mind, she not unfrequently appeared in public in presence of the magistrates. Neither did she feel abashed in going to an assembly of men. For all men on account of her extraordinary dignity and virtue admired her the more.

An influential member of the community (and a close friend of Orestes, Prefect of the city) Hypatia was renowned for her rhetorical skills, her philosophy and her beauty.
A peculiar anecdote describes her reply to a young man who was much in love with her, she showed him her menstrual rags and said "Is this what you love?" (Do you love what perishes?) (this anecdote was told by Damascius, the "last of the Neoplatonists").

We have lost most of her works although we do know that she edited the third book of her father's commentary on Ptolemy's Mathematical Treatise and charted celestial bodies (with astrolabes), hydroscopes and hydrometers (to measure the density of liquids).

Yet she lived in troubled times; times that could not spare the lives and thoughts of the intellectual pagan élite.
Intolerance thrived - in 380 Theodosius made Christianity the official state religion of the Roman Empire which became enforced in Egypt around 392. Christians became persecutors (by far worse than the persecutors they had suffered in the early days), the property of Pagans was confiscated, temples were closed and destroyed and in Lower Egypt sacred texts were destroyed (whilst the Nag Hammadi texts were being hidden in Upper Egypt).
In Alexandria the intolerant Pope of Alexandria, Theophilus, (also a Saint of the Coptic Church) was responsible for the crisis that brought upon the street wars between Pagans and Christians and the destruction of the Serapaeum (the temple of Serapis, the Hellenistic-Egyptian God).

Responsible for Hypatia's vicious death (which will follow below) was the action of the bishop Cyril (nephew of Theophilus) openly detested a powerful pagan woman (thanks to the works of people like St. Augustine, the image of women was polluted) like Hypatia.
Her death was barbarous and the consequence of the distorted and intolerant minds of the Christian Mob:
Yet even she fell a victim to the political jealousy which at that time prevailed. For as she had frequent interviews with Orestes, it was calumniously reported among the Christian populace, that it was she who prevented Orestes from being reconciled to the bishop. Some of them therefore, hurried away by a fierce and bigoted zeal, whose ringleader was a reader named Peter, waylaid her returning home, and dragging her from her carriage, they took her to the church called Caesareum, where they completely stripped her, and then murdered her by scraping her skin off with tiles and bits of shell. After tearing her body in pieces, they took her mangled limbs to a place called Cinaron, and there burnt them.

Hypatia's legacy never truly died (she was admired by Voltaire, Vincenzo Monti, John Toland and also has a lunar crater to her name) but her death was but one of many, perpetrated by the hand of intolerance and religious folly.

Read more...