The Rites of Spring

The Anglo Saxon goddess Eostre, (were she other than a necessary explanation of the season of spring,) smiles benignly from her stone carved features as the populace of the ‘Christian’ world eat themselves sick on pre-formed chocolate and give gifts of stuffed toy baby rabbits to each other.  They would, as an afterthought, acknowledge that ‘Easter’ was some sort of Christian festival for some who still believed in that sort of thing.   Would they be at all surprised to learn what the word ‘Easter’ means?  Perhaps, but only for a while. Once learning that they were indeed celebrating the festival of a pagan spring goddess, and actually using the correct word to do so, would feel exonerated from even regarding the Christian Remembrance of Christ’s death and the meaning of that.  That doesn’t involve anything so fun as bunnies, and chocolate eggs, that involves the cruel torture and death of a man they are not sure even existed…and they do not consider that a suitable subject for children, which, after all, is what Easter is all about, isn’t it?