Dancing around the fire pit in the nude tonight.
Hey, just thought of something. Easter and Estrus could have similar roots too.
Easter's Holiday and Culture Origins are found back in Pagan times
☥☽✪☾DAW ☽✪☾
2012/04/06 22:40:42
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When we use the word Easter, we think first and foremost of the Christian festival. But the word itself is not part of the Christian tradition. In the first quarter of the eighth century AD, the Venerable Bede, a Northumbrian monk and scholar, composed a text called On the Reckoning of Time.
This work describes how to calculate the date of Easter – a vexed theological question of the time – and along the way it also gives us some clues to the names that pagan Anglo-Saxons gave to the months of the year, before their conversion to Christianity.
EASTER is a Pagan hoilday called Ostara
Easter gets its name from the Teutonic goddess of spring and the dawn, whose name is spelled Oestre or Eastre (the origin of the word "east" comes from various Germanic, Austro-Hungarian words for dawn that share the root for the word "aurora" which means " to shine"). Modern pagans have generally accepted the spelling "Ostara" which honors this goddess as our word for the Vernal Equinox. 
Because the Equinox and Easter are so close, many Catholics and others who celebrate Easter often see this holiday (which observes Christ's resurrection from the dead after his death on Good Friday) as being synonymous with rebirth and rejuvenation: the symbolic resurrection of Christ is echoed in the awakening of the plant and animal life around us. But if we look more closely at some of these Easter customs, we will see that the origins are surprisingly, well, pagan! Eggs, bunnies, candy, Easter baskets, new clothes, all these "traditions" have their origin in practices which may have little or nothing to do with the Christian holiday.
For example, the traditional coloring and giving of eggs at Easter has very pagan associations. For eggs are clearly one of the most potent symbols of fertility, and spring is the season when animals begin to mate and flowers and trees pollinate and reproduce. In England and Northern Europe, eggs were often employed in folk magic when women wanted to be blessed with children. There is a great scene in the film The Wicker Man where a woman sits upon a tombstone in the cemetery, holding a child against her bared breasts with one hand, and holding up an egg in the other, rocking back and forth as she stares at the scandalized (and very uptight!) Sargent Howie. Many cultures have a strong tradition of egg coloring; among Greeks, eggs are traditionally dyed dark red and given as gifts.
When the Anglo-Saxons were converted to Christianity, the name of the month in which Easter usually fell was transferred to the name of the festival itself
When the Anglo-Saxons were converted to Christianity, the name of the month in which Easter usually fell was transferred to the name of the festival itself
As for the Easter egg hunt, a fun game for kids, actually has a darker meaning, For centuries pagans were forced to hide thier religion due to Because of centuries of religious propaganda and misinformation, Pagans were once killed For thier Religious belief
As Christianity rose and the ways of the "Old Religion" were shunned, people took to hiding the eggs and having children make a game out of finding them. This would take place with all the children of the village looking at the same time in everyone's gardens and beneath fences and other spots.
It is said, however, that those people who sought to seek out heathens and heretics would bribe children with coins or treats, and once those children uncovered eggs on someone's property, that person was then accused of practicing the old ways
Traditional foods play a part in this holiday, as with so many others. Ham is the traditional main course served in many families on Easter Sunday, and the reason for this probably has to do with the agricultural way of life in old Europe. Inlate fall, usually in October, also known as the month of the Blood Moon, because it referred to the last time animals were slaughtered before winter, meats were salted and cured so they would last through the winter. Poorer people, who subsisted on farming and hunting, would often eat very sparingly in winter to assure their food supply would last. With the arrival of spring, there was less worry, and to celebrate the arrival of spring and of renewed abundance, they would serve the tastiest remaining cured meats, including hams. This also marked a seasonal end to eating cured foods and a return to eating fresh game (as animals emerged from hibernation looking for food), and no longer relying on stored root vegetables, but eating the young green plants so full of the vitamins and minerals that all living beings need to replenish their bodies in spring.
Modern pagans can observe these same customs by eating the fresh greens and early vegetables abundant now: dandelion greens, nettles, asparagus, and the like. There are some Witches who believe that fasting at the Equinox is very healthy and magical: it clears away all the toxins stored over winter, when we eat heavier foods to keep warm, and can create an altered state of consciousness for doing Equinox magic. By eliminating all the "poisons" from our diets for a few days (including sugar, caffeine, alcohol, red meats, dairy products, refined foods), and eating lots of fresh fruits and vegetables, we not only can shed a few pounds and improve the appearance of our hair and skin, but also improve our health over the long term. The overall benefit to health from an occasional cleansing fast helps strengthen our immune system, making our bodies more resistant to illness, and help us feel more alert and energetic. Try it! Be sure to "break" your fast slowly, reintroducing your normal foods one at a time, instead of going from several days of fruits, grains and herbal tea to a feast of steak, potatoes and chocolate cake! The breaking of the fast can be incorporated into the cakes and wine portion of your ritual, or at the feast many Witches have afterwards.
Speaking of food, another favorite part of Easter for kids, no doubt, is that basket of treats! Nestled in plastic "grass" colored pink or green, we'd find foil-wrapped candy eggs, hollow chocolate bunnies, jelly beans, marshmallow chicks (in pink, yellow or lavender!), fancy peanut butter or coconut eggs from Russell Stover, and of course our Mom always included one of the beautiful ceramic eggs she painted by hand. Like that other holiday where children are inundated with sugar (Hallowe'en), no one seems to know precisely where, when or how this custom began. And why are the baskets supposedly brought by a bunny???
Everyone knows Peeps, those overwhelmingly sweet little marshmellow critters that appear every Spring in the grocery store. Put your leftover Peeps to good use this Ostara / Easter, and make them into a delicious ambrosia salad! For the most colorful results, use yellow or pink Peeps.
Prep Time: 30 minutes
Total Time: 30 minutes
Ingredients:
1 pkg of 12 marshmellow Peeps (chicks or bunnies)
2 cans mandarin oranges
2 cans pineapple tidbits
1 jar maraschino cherries
2 chopped bananas
2 C. shredded coconut flakes
1 16-oz tub cottage cheese
1 8-oz tub of Cool Whip or other dessert topping
Preparation:
Dice the Peeps into small pieces. Drain the juices from all the fruit. Mix all ingredients together, and allow to chill in the refrigerator for a few hours. Serve as dessert following your Ostara/ Easter celebration
Everyone knows Peeps, those overwhelmingly sweet little marshmellow critters that appear every Spring in the grocery store. Put your leftover Peeps to good use this Ostara / Easter, and make them into a delicious ambrosia salad! For the most colorful results, use yellow or pink Peeps.
Prep Time: 30 minutes
Total Time: 30 minutes
Ingredients:
1 pkg of 12 marshmellow Peeps (chicks or bunnies)
2 cans mandarin oranges
2 cans pineapple tidbits
1 jar maraschino cherries
2 chopped bananas
2 C. shredded coconut flakes
1 16-oz tub cottage cheese
1 8-oz tub of Cool Whip or other dessert topping
Preparation:
Dice the Peeps into small pieces. Drain the juices from all the fruit. Mix all ingredients together, and allow to chill in the refrigerator for a few hours. Serve as dessert following your Ostara/ Easter celebration
Hot Cross Buns
Hot cross buns have their origin in the pagan springtime festival honoring the goddess Eostre or Ostara, from whose name "Easter" is derived. The buns, decorated with small crosses to symbolize the quarters of the moon or a bull's horns, were thought to ensure fertility and the goddess' protection in the coming year. These buns were incorporated into Christian tradition. Today the cross represents that upon which Jesus was crucified, and the buns are eaten throughout the Easter season.
Candy
The Christian tradition of eating candy eggs and rabbits, both symbols of life and fertility, comes from the pagan idea that one could assume the qualities of a given symbol by eating something that represented it. Candy rabbits and eggs are a way of celebrating the essence of spring and the qualities of fertility and life.
Easter Baskets
According to Witchvox.com, in pagan tradition, baskets full of treats were left out for fairies at different times of the year. This was said to save the basket provider from becoming the subject of fairy mischief. At Ostara, these baskets were filled with sweet things, corresponding to the nectar in new flowers. This is most likely the origin of the traditional Easter basket, filled with real or artificial grass, candy, eggs and other treat
Eggs
Eggs were symbols of life, fertility, immortality and rebirth in many cultures. Pagans often colored and ate eggs during spring festivals, celebrating the return of the sun after winter and the fertility of new soil. The pagan tradition of including eggs in spring festivals carried over very naturally into Christian tradition, in which the egg symbolizes the resurrection of Jesus and his immortality.
Lamb and Ham
The tradition of eating lamb or ham at Easter finds its roots in pagan times. Pagans would preserve meat to eat throughout the winter. By the time spring arrived and livestock began to reproduce, people would eat the last of the cured or salted meat, knowing that there would soon be more. Lamb is also directly associated with Jesus, called the "lamb of God."
Read More: http://www.ehow.com/about_6910694_pagan-easter-foo...
Top Opinion
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Racefish 2012/04/07 12:59:19
Sounds Pagan to me.
and Civilization only started when jesus was born
WTF are they insane the pyramids are over 7000 years old jesus is less than 2000 years ago
there are evidence of civilizations dating back 20,000 years and more
and over 500 religions but oh no God chose Goat farmers living in the desert to be his chosen people not Civlizaed people
Hey, just thought of something. Easter and Estrus could have similar roots too.
you have Greek Egyptian Persian babylonian Celtic norse etc types of Pagans
Happy Eastre
EASTER is a Pagan hoilday called Ostara
Easter gets its name from the Teutonic goddess of spring and the dawn, whose name is spelled Oestre or Eastre (the origin of the word "east" comes from various Germanic, Austro-Hungarian words for dawn that share the root for the word "aurora" which means " to shine"). Modern pagans have generally accepted the spelling "Ostara" which honors this goddess as our word for the Vernal Equinox.
Thanks for the Info my friend!!!