Who Is The Eastre Rabbit? The Naming Of The Female Hormone Oestrogen & The Spring Goddess Eastre.

[♥ Lily ♥]

Who Is The ''Eastre'' Rabbit?



Did you ever wonder why rabbits and eggs are symbols of Easter..? Before Passover and Easter, many ancient cultures

celebrated the Rite of Spring…

Before Christianity, Easter, Eastre, Eostre was goddess of dawn, spring and fertility.

No, it’s not a typo: Eastre is a Goddess and she loved rabbits.
Did you ever wonder why we associate rabbits and eggs with Easter..?
It goes back to a Beautiful, Bountiful Pagan Goddess…

This time of year is Passover and Easter, and many ancient cultures have celebrated the Rites of Spring…

Our Mother and Father



Earth is referred to as Mother since ancient times: “Mother Earth” and “Mother Nature.”
Watching the cycles of Nature one sees that rain falling brings life to Earth,
so ancient cultures saw Father as Heaven, and Earth as Mother.

The union of this heavenly Father and earthly Mother brought forth abundant crops,
as the rains from the sky met the welcoming earth.
Festivals like “The Marriage Feast of Canaan” were Spring fertility rites in ancient times which celebrated this intercourse.

Christian 'Easter' falls around the same time as Pagan Easter and after the Judaic Passover, which is fixed by a lunar cycle.
The Jewish Passover was known as “Pasch”, taken from the Hebrew “Pesach”, meaning “to pass over”.
It commemorates emancipation of the Israelites from slavery in ancient Egypt.
The rituals of Passover remind us to honor freedom as Easter symbolises new life and the potential of renewal.
Spring abounds with reminders of change and promise everywhere!

Eastre, the Goddess



Before Christianity, “Easter” (Eastre, Eostre) was a Teutonic goddess of dawn, spring and fertility.
She is also called Ostara, goddess of dawn, with sunrise celebrations centered on growth and renewal.
Prayers to her assured abundant crops, and eggs were eaten and exchanged as talismans.

Other Names of Spring Goddess:

Ostara
Ostare
Ostern
Eostre
Eostra
Eostur
Eastra
Eastur
Austron
Ausos
Ishtar
Ashtur

Symbolising the beginning of Spring, with brightening and longer days after vernal equinox,
Eastre is full of growth and passion of new life. She was the Great Mother Goddess of Northern Europe.
She is a goddess of dawn and spring, and her name derives from dawn, the light arising from East.
The word, East is related to her and the female hormone, estrogen is named for her.



The Rite of Spring

Eastre’s male consort was the Sun god, and rites of spring were celebrated in her honor on the first day of spring.
Pagan celebration were on the first full moon following vernal equinox.
The full moon represents a “pregnant” phase of Eastre, passing into fertility to give birth to the Sun’s offspring.

“Eastre” is derived from the direction East, and the Spring Goddess is associated with dawn.
Eastre is related to the Indo-European Hausos, Goddess of dawn, and the Roman and Greek Godesses, Aurora and Eos.
In German Austron means dawn, derived from Aus, “to shine”.
The ancient word for Spring was Eastre, and Goddesses in many cultures are celebrated as the bearer of springtime.

Aphrodite ~ Cyprus
Ashtoreth ~ Israel
Astarte ~ Greece
Demeter ~ Mycenae
Hathor ~ Egypt
Ishtar ~ Assyria
Kali ~ India
Ostara ~ Norse Goddess of fertility

The middle east celebrates many Spring festivals, including the Iranian Nowruz, ascension of the mythological king of Persia.
Commemorated by Azerbaijan, Afghanistan, India, Turkey, Zanzibar, Albania, Kurds, and central Asia,
it is a Zorostrian holiday, and celebrated by Baha’i’ and Nizari Ismalili Muslims.

Sham El Nessim has been celebrated since 2700 B.C. and ancient Egyptians celebrated this creation story with a feast at the Great Pyramid.
The feast of Shemu, means ‘renewal of life’ later changed to ‘shamm’ (smelling or breathing) and ‘nessim’ (breeze).
Sham El Nessim is celebrated as a national holiday, and is celebrated by Christians and Muslims as “Easter Monday”.

Rabbits & Eggs



Eastre represents renewal and fertility, and eggs and rabbits were sacred to her.
Rabbits are potent symbol of fertility, as a female can conceive a second litter while still pregnant with the first!
The markings of the full moon were believed by some Eastern cultures to be an image of a rabbit pounding a mortar.

Some Asian folklore has rabbits living on the moon.
Chinese Goddess Chang’e lives on the moon, because an overdose of immortality caused her to float up,
and the Jade Rabbit continually pounds the elixir of life for her.
In Japanese and Korean folklore, rabbits pound mochi and tteok. a mashed sticky rice.



The Earth in Spring is full of fertility and awakening, so the egg is an obvious symbol,
and it has been a symbol of rebirth since ancient times
The hare was sacred animal of the Spring Moon.
At vernal equinox one of Eastre’s hares laid an egg, the Egg of New Life.

Egyptians and Greeks buried eggs in tombs of the dead as a sign of resurrection,
and the egg is a symbol of nature rebirth and regeneration. Eggs were decorated and given as gifts,
and dyed eggs were part of early rituals in ancient Near Eastern civilizations.
These could have been the first Easter eggs!



Easter egg decorating is an art in Germany and Russia, and old Spring rituals in Germany and Sweden consist
of throwing an egg into the air “to ensure grain will grow as high”

With all this growth and abundance around us, it might be a good time to create intentions for this year.
Imagine yourself reborn anew, filled with Spring energy, and use it to clear away something that no longer serves you.



Things to Energise You!

Decorate your home with Spring flowers; crocuses, daffodils, violets, lilac, lilies, roses, iris
Add something green: a plant, candles, soap to represent growth and expansion
Work on projects and ideas initiated around Winter Solstice



Here are some favourite Spring Flower symbols. Add some to your home!

Dogwood: 4 petals symbolize 4 directions
Iris: Purity, wisdom, faith, birth blessing, life and resurrection
Honeysuckle: Rebirth, renewal, spiritual sight, versatile mind
Jasmine: Lunar, psychic, spiritual love
Lily: Strong associations with fertility, purity, rebirth
Rose: True love, joy, yellow roses for Eastre

The soil is prepared, planting season has begun, so sow your seeds and hard work will bring you full bloom!

http://www.elephantjournal.com/2010/...eastre-rabbit/

[♥ Lily ♥]

The Pagan Origins of Easter.

http://www.religioustolerance.org/easter1.htm

http://www.theguardian.com/commentis...agan-symbolism

http://rcg.org/books/ttooe.html

[♥ Lily ♥]

[♥ Lily ♥]

Pagans celebrate the natural calendar cycle according to the hemisphere in which they live in on the planet.
Ancient sites like Stonehenge are aligned with the Equinoxes in nature, and the Summer and Winter Solstices.
Every December, we decorate tall Nordic Yule trees pointing to the light,
and a traditional 5-pointed silver star placed on top of the Yule tree,
with lights on the Yule tree to celebrate the rebirth of the ancient sun-god,
the return of daylight after the shortest day of the year in the northern hemisphere
every December, gift-giving, feasting, making log-fires and cakes, and Santa Claus and his reindeers stems from Father Odin.
This ancient nature festival is called 'Yuletide' in England, Germany and Scandinavian cultures.
Singing songs like Solstice Night (Silent Night) and other Pagan songs (now christianised too)
is also another part of the seasonal festivities of Yuletide and the Winter Solstice in December.
It was known as 'Sol Invictus' ('Feast of the unconquered sun') in ancient Pagan Rome,
and feasting and gift-giving happened every December for 5 days.
Halloween stems from the Celtic Pagan festival of Samhain.
The biggest Pagan festival is that of Beltane (May Day) and traditional customs and folk traditions of maypole dancing
are still held across the British Isles which symbolises weaving seeds in nature.
Massive Pagan festivals are held in Edinburgh, Scotland, every Beltane, with lots of sky-clad (nude) dancing
by Pagan Celts on Carlton Hill.
The second biggest festival celebrated by Pagans is Samhain (Halloween).
Valentines Day is another ancient Pagan festival, just like Yuletide, Eastre, Halloween, etc.
Many Pagan festival dates were stolen by the new Judeo-Christian religion which was forced onto Pagan Europe 1000 years ago,
in order to seek converts during the times of these big nature festivities across Europe.

[♥ Lily ♥]

The weekdays and month names are all named after ancient Pagan Gods & Goddesses.

http://www.theapricity.com/forum/sho...ighlight=Pagan

[♥ Lily ♥]

http://www.theapricity.com/forum/sho...ighlight=Pagan

[Pjeter Pan]

How the fuck is valentines day pagan?

[Neon Knight]

"Ēostre or Ostara (Old English: Ēastre, Northumbrian dialect Ēostre; Old High German: *Ôstara) is a Germanic divinity who, by way of the Germanic month bearing her name (Northumbrian: Ēosturmōnaþ; West Saxon: Ēastermōnaþ; Old High German: Ôstarmânoth), is the namesake of the festival of Easter. Ēostre is attested solely by Bede in his 8th-century work The Reckoning of Time, where Bede states that during Ēosturmōnaþ (the equivalent of April), pagan Anglo-Saxons had held feasts in Eostre's honor, but that this tradition had died out by his time, replaced by the Christian Paschal month, a celebration of the resurrection of Jesus."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C4%92ostre

[♥ Lily ♥]

How the fuck is valentines day pagan?

http://www.witchology.com/contents/f...nes_static.php

[Óttar]

Kali in India is not in any way associated with the spring-time. While Easter goes back to "pagan" springtime rites, a quick glance at those posts seem to be typical of the sweeping claims made by mythicists who produce scanty evidence for their claims including false etymologies which I hate with a passion. False claims and false etymologies are particularly loathsome because they can be corrected by simple fact-checking AND the shitty scholarship will only serve as fodder for Christians who will use the shitty scholarship to try and prove that they did not indeed hijack "pagan" traditions for the invigoration and development of their shit desert cult.