02/03/2026
The weeks are flying by and the days are thankfully now noticeably longer. Blossom is appearing and spring is certainly in the air and on the birdsong.
The next seasonal celebration for those tuning into nature’s cycles is the Spring or Vernal Equinox on 20th March, when the sun’s rays fall directly on the equator, creating an equal length day and night. A perfect balance.
As more people feel drawn to celebrating the neopagan ‘Wheel of the Year’, I’ve noticed an increasing use of neopagan names and terminology, sometimes presented as ancient practice. This is completely understandable when we take things at face value. We’re all searching for meaning, continuity, and connection from a broken lineage and finding familiarity in nature-centred practices that can feel older than they are, as they are resonating with something deep and instinctive within us.
The name ‘Ostara’ for the spring celebration at the Equinox has come from the mid-20th century, coming from and popularised by the Wiccan religion, while the word itself was originally attributed to folklorist and fairytale writer Jacob Grimm. The name Eostre however, is much, much older. Eostre appears in historical record, only once, in the 8th century writings of Bede, who wrote about a goddess Eostre, whose Spring feasts and celebrations fell around the time of the old month Eosturmonath that was named after her. He also wrote confirming that the Christian festival of Easter was named after that too.
Eostre is linguistically connected to the old Anglo Saxon word for east, which is rooted in a more ancient name and meaning, drawing on the qualities of sunrise and dawn light. At this time of year the sun rises precisely due east at the equinox. It makes sense to me that Eostre was a goddess of the dawn and likely celebrated by connecting to the palpable change in the quality of light that brings transformation and renewal. We can all see and experience this for ourselves at the threshold of spring.
Eostre viewed in this way shares many traits to the other goddesses of the dawn such as the Greek Eos (also named after the rising eastern sun) and the Roman equivalent Aurora. I am enjoying exploring that Eostre is a quality of light and sense of renewal that we experience, rather than simply the name of a festival or a mythological goddess.
In the absence of historical record, the sky is one of our greatest resources for connecting to ancient practice because its rhythms and cycles of the sun, moon and stars, are the same ones our ancestors watched and oriented to, thousands of years ago. We are still living under those same patterns of light and seasonal cycles.
When seasonal celebrations become named and fixed in the calendar, we often miss their original experiential purpose. Nature-based practices were never going to be about doctrines, scripted rituals or populist marketing angles, or about needing the ‘right’ altar decorations. When we forget our living relationship with the seasons, the land beneath us and the sky above, we lose the thread of something that is much older, simpler, subtler and more important. Much is lost when we replace our own experience with prescription or consumerism, or when we only follow how we think we ‘should’ be celebrating.
The older I get and the more seasonal celebrations I cycle through, the less I am interested in spiritual hyperbole or in re-enacting someone else’s ideas based in something I can’t verify experientially. I find it more meaningful to just allow the qualities of the seasons to speak to me through noticing the subtle changes all around. We can allow meaning and ritual to arise naturally from our direct experience and allow ourselves to open to that wholeheartedly. There can be nothing more authentic.
So for this season of Eostre, I want to take more time to pause and listen, to look around me and especially to the east, to greet the returning light as it finds me. Rather than relying on any fixed rituals or meanings, I want to allow my relationship with the seasons to continue to deepen through my direct experience, though awareness, attention and presence.
I resonate so much with what Hildegard of Bingen called viriditas, the sacred greening of the land that starts to return at this time of year. It’s not only in the plants and trees, it’s within us too, when we allow ourselves to take that time, space and stillness to pause, observe and remember our interconnection to the cycles and all living things.
[This is an extract from a longer article exploring Eostre and Ostara and some suggestions for simple seasonal celebrations, on www.mysticholisticworcester.co.uk]
