Winifred Hodge Rose
Here’s a suggestion for a solitary rite to honor Eostre / Ostara. You can easily adapt it for a group if you wish, and add any other elements, readings, or activities you’d like to the ceremony. For more information about this Goddess and about the poems in this rite: https://heathensoullore.net/celebrating-eostre-ostara/
Prepare these things ahead of time if you want to use either or both of them:
Boiled Eggs and Greens as Offerings to share during the Blot
Boil one or more eggs beforehand, if you are able to eat eggs. You can dye the egg(s) if you like. You might like to have a leaf or two of fresh greens available as well, like crispy Romaine or other kind of lettuce, arugula, etc. This will be offered to Eostre’s wild Hare, if you view her as having a companion animal the way some of our other Deities do. And if you are not able to eat eggs, you can eat some of the lettuce instead, during the ceremony. Alternatively, you could use a chocolate egg if you feel that’s appropriate. Or both—have real eggs and chocolate eggs or candy-coated almonds. Up to you! Lay the greens in a decorative bowl like a nest, and place the eggs on top of them for the ceremony.
Painted Eggshell Decorations / Offerings
If you’d like to get more elaborate with an offering to Eostre / Ostara, you might enjoy painting or drawing on the shell of one or more eggs during (or before or after) the ceremony, and then hang them on a branch, tree, or other suitable place.
If so, prepare the eggs like this: first gently but thoroughly wash however many whole, raw eggs you want in vinegar and water (this is to provide a clean surface so the paint or marker will stick). Soak them briefly, but not for more than a few minutes, since the vinegar-acid can weaken the eggshell.
Dry them, then poke a small hole in the top and the bottom of each egg, making sure to pierce the inner membrane as well. Hold the egg over a bowl and blow into one of the holes until all the inner egg has come out the other hole and the eggshell is empty. (Make an omelet or scrambled eggs or custard with the filling, after removing any bits of shell that might be mixed in.) Set the whole eggshells aside for the insides to dry for an hour or so.
The eggshells are now ready to be painted, either before, after, or during your Eostre / Ostara ceremony. You can find many ideas for painted eggshells online, and better yet, use your own ideas—perhaps the World Tree, or spring scenes. You can use markers, watercolors, acrylic, oils, or most other kinds of paints as you wish. You will have to paint one side of the egg at a time, then allow it to dry before you paint the other side so the paint is not smudged during handling and drying.
Then make hangers for the eggshells if you want to hang them. Break a short piece off the end of a toothpick and tie both ends of a looped piece of thread to the middle of the piece. The thread-loop should be long enough to fit over a small branch or other place you will hang the eggshell.
Insert the toothpick-piece through the top hole in the shell and tug gently on the thread until the toothpick is fixed in place. You now have a loop by which to hang the eggshell. These eggshells can be hung from a tree-branch outside, or a decorative branch brought inside, or from any other place you’d like, as an Eastre / Ostara decoration. If you don’t want to hang the eggshells you can just lay them in a pretty bowl as a decoration—in that case, you don’t need the hangers. After the holiday the eggshells can be saved for use again next year by wrapping them in tissue and storing them in an egg carton.
Flowers or Greenery
It’s appropriate to have flowers, greenery, or a potted plant to decorate your altar for the ceremony, especially if you’re holding it indoors.
Preparation for the Ceremony:
– Decide which date you want to celebrate Eostre / Ostara, whichever date is meaningful and feasible for you. Sunrise is the ideal time for this ceremony if you’re up for that. Find out the time of sunrise in your locality on the day you’ve chosen, using a paper or online almanac, and plan to begin your ceremony a bit earlier than that time.
– Decide on the location you want to do this. If possible, celebrate this outdoors; if not, set up in front of an eastern window in your home if you have one facing in that direction. Otherwise, simply face east in your home, preferably at or near your harrow / altar.
– Items to have ready in place: a horn, mug, or other vessel containing your preferred Blot-drink. In the text below, this is referred to as the ‘horn,’ whatever form it takes. If you are not able to do this ceremony outdoors, have one or more candles and a lighter, and if possible some flowers or a potted plant, placed near where you’ll be celebrating. Also have a small bowl with a little water in it for the blessing bowl, plus a Thor’s Hammer or other symbol you use for blessing the space you are in.
– If you’re holding it at dawn, get up before dawn on the day you want to celebrate so you can have everything in place and begin a little before the dawn.
In this ceremony I’ve included the steps and the words that I use for my own Blots. Feel free to substitute your own words and practices however you wish! Use the name Ostara, Eostre, Hausos, or whatever form of her name you wish. Also: if you are doing this outdoors and feel uncomfortable speaking or doing any of these actions in public, you can simply stand or sit facing the dawn and do any or all of the ceremony silently in your imagination, your thoughts, your heart. At a minimum, you might have a boiled egg or candy egg with you and eat that during the ceremony. If you are celebrating with a group, change the wording as appropriate.
Eostre / Ostara Ceremony
Face the East for this ceremony, at Dawn if you choose. Mindfully light one or more candles to imitate the Dawn.
Opening:
As I celebrate you, Eostre / Ostara, on your holy day, I honor your power to bring us renewal, fertility and creativity, to release me from the constraints of winter and set free my urge to create, to celebrate, to renew my life. Hail the Spring and the Dawn: Hail Eostre / Ostara!
Hallowing:
Circle the sacred space, or turn around in place with a lighted candle, holding a Thor’s Hammer or other sanctifying symbol in your other hand. Speak these words, or your own preferred words, and raise the Hammer when you say “Thor hallow,” or use the name and token of your sanctifying Deity.
Fire I bear around this frithyard,
And bid all here keep frith;
Flame I bear to enclose,
Bidding bale-wights flee away.
Thor hallow, Thor hallow, Thor hallow this holy stead.
Set candle and Thor’s Hammer on your altar.
Calling:
Hear me, all you hallowed folk,
Both high and low of Heimdall’s kin!
I hail you, Holy Ones of all the Worlds that are!
Ever shall frith and faith hold firm
Between myself and you:
The wellsprings of my souls.
Raise horn and drink; pour a little into the blessing-bowl.
Eldfathers, eldmothers, kindred of old,
Rooted in might, holding troth with your own,
Behold the new roots, the green shoots from your boughs,
And bless me: the fruit of your branches.
Raise horn and drink; pour a little into the blessing-bowl.
Landwights blessed, land’s life-givers,
Holy hold this stead, all harm withstand.
Be welcome here, all good wights,
And share the blessings with me.
Raise horn and drink; pour a little into the blessing-bowl.
Honoring Eostre / Ostara
Recite, chant, or sing one or both of the following poems, or use any other inspirational reading, songs, or words of your own.
Ostara’s Dance
1. Ostara comes in rushing swiftness, dawntide gold,
Her glowing brightness, cool and clear, we now behold!
She glides between the shimmering stones
With gentlest step, our lithe maiden glowing:
With blessing treads the mountain’s bones.
2. Her flashing gaze, her soul’s clear main, make bright the air,
No Elf-queen mighty, full of grace, could be so fair!
She glides between the shimmering stones
With gentlest step, our lithe maiden glowing:
With blessing treads the mountain’s bones.
3. With floating grace upon the sward the Elf-maidens come,
To spin about the Springtime Queen, their souls’ sweet home.
She glides between the shimmering stones
With gentlest step, our lithe maiden glowing:
With blessing treads the mountain’s bones.
4. Ostara, Lady, come to us, your folk do call,
Your springtime gifts, your blessing give, to one and all!
You glide between the shimmering stones
With gentlest step, our lithe maiden glowing:
With blessing tread the mountain’s bones.
Lady of Light
1. When the hounds of spring are on winter’s traces,
The mother of months in meadow or plain
Fills the shadows and windy places
With lisp of leaves and ripple of rain.
2. Come with bows bent and with emptying of quivers,
Maiden most perfect, lady of light,
With a noise of winds and many rivers,
With a clamor of waters, and with might.
3. Bind on thy sandals, O thou most fleet,
Over the splendor and speed of thy feet;
For the faint east quickens, the wan west shivers,
Round the feet of the day and the feet of the night.
4. Where shall we find her, how shall we sing to her,
Fold our hands round her knees, and cling?
O that man’s heart were as fire and could spring to her,
Fire, or the strength of the streams that spring!
5. For the stars and the winds are unto her
As raiment, as songs of the harp-player,
For the risen stars and the fallen cling to her,
And the southwest-wind and the west-wind sing.
6. For winter’s rains and ruins are over,
And all the season of snows, and sins;
The days dividing lover from lover,
The light that loses, the night that wins;
7. And time remembered is grief forgotten,
And frosts are slain and flowers begotten,
And in green underwood and cover
Blossom by blossom the spring begins.
(“Lady of Light” is excerpted from the poem Atalanta in Calydon, by Algernon Charles Swinburne)
Sumble and Offerings
First, raise your ‘horn’ and speak to Eostre / Ostara as your heart bids you. Then drink, and pour a little into the blessing bowl.
Next, eat one of your real or candy eggs, if you wish, as the token of a feast shared with her, and / or eat a leaf of greens. Then you may offer the greens to her and her Hare together, in token of the fresh growth and leaping life she brings to the land. If you’re outside you can leave them in a suitable place; if you’re inside you can dedicate the leaves, then put them outside when you have a chance.
Finally, if you want to paint or decorate boiled eggs or blown-eggshells during this time you are sharing with Eostre / Ostara and hang them when you’re done, you may do so now. If you have some that are already decorated you can hang them where you wish now, inside or outside, while dedicating this offering to her.
Blessing
Use a flower, leafy twig, leafy greens, or your fingers to sprinkle liquid from the blessing-bowl around yourself, your altar, and your surroundings, saying “The blessings of the Holy Ones, now and always.”
Thanks-Giving and Closing
Holy Eostre / Ostara, I give thanks for your presence and blessings in my life, and for the gifts of Spring and new beginnings that you give to the world. I take joy in my kinship with you and all our Holy Ones, and with the Feorhcynn: with all that lives. May the frith among us strengthen and deepen day by day, as I walk my Heathen path in the beautiful light of your Dawn.
This rite is ended. I go forth now in frith, and bear gifts of wisdom and blessing with me, always!
Disposing of the Blessing Bowl:
If possible, pour the remaining liquid in the blessing-bowl out in a suitable place outside. If that’s not possible, you could pour it into the pot of a house-plant, or drink it all. If you must pour it down the drain, first say a prayer to the Earth-mother, asking her to accept this offering however it reaches her, and saying that you mean no disrespect to her by pouring it down the drain.