Friday, March 21, 2008

Easter Weekend Muse


You know, it's amazing to me that I have lived this long on the planet and never inquired as to why we celebrate Easter with bunnies and colored eggs. As usual, when you look up one thing you tend to find something else completely unexpected and this was no exception. Something I was never taught in Sunday school way back when, is how many of the Christian stories and customs parallel pagan and other traditions that go back thousands of years.


You can read more here.



Easter celebrations were held hundreds of years before Christ was born as festivals of spring honoring Eostre, the great mother goddess of the Saxons. This name was fashioned after the ancient word for spring, Eastre. The goddess Ostara was the Norse equivalent whose symbols were the hare and the egg. From this comes our modern tradition of celebrating Easter with eggs and bunnies.

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