Happy Easter: Ostara vibes bringing the decent of Inanna
Easter, the predominantly Christian celebration these days, is something that has also evolved into a cultural holiday; something lacking context and full of sugar, fillers and peeps. In our household, we try to find the seed of truth to all stories and even if we’re not Christian by faith, we still want to partake in the holiday and explore what it celebrates. When a recent friend, and pastor, mentioned how closely (hauntingly so) Easter will ring true to the ‘true resurrection’ as churches and tombs will be empty all over the world this year.
A major vacancy in the ritual but an opportunity of inner reflection to strengthen belief.
To Christians, this is a day to celebrate the resurrection of their prophet, Jesus Christ. The Ides of March brought Jesus long nights hanging on the cross, bleeding out and slowly dying in the company of his loyalist followers. After being entombed, the grief blanketed the hopeful like a plague. This ‘time of year’ is one of deep lingering Winter, an awakening to those who may not make it to the Summer days and to see our resources passing with each day we cannot plant seeds.
Frozen ground, sickness and mold, transition and melting, and for many… death. Spring brings showers of rain, floods of destruction, landslides and volcanoes, tornadoes and shaking of the Earth. Transition that breaks the egg of who we are, and takes us from a safe, dependent egg of safety and thrusts us, cracking and shattering, into a new world. One that is wide open, vulnerable, limitless and scary at times. Spring takes us to a place of potential and for some, that brings a place of discomfort, paranoia and fear. Trust that this is a process bigger than yourself, that like Christ, we will die but live again. Energy will transform, people survive and legacy lives one.
The power of three days - three.
Druids, pagans, Wicca, even satanists who pray to the divinity of Mother Earth have already ritualized their gratitude for the longer days. Ostara, the egg and goddess of fertility have brought their lessons of labor and life. The awakened are prepared, observing the great wide open, but taking the next right step.
Some traditions of this special time, a time to be reborn and seize the moment, date back to Sumerian, Babylonian and more ancient eras. These ominous times take us deep into human psyche.
Still a female energy of life and death, laboring pain and birthing new life, but appearing as a personification of the Goddess Venus. I love to read the history and see the correlations with modern belief and take the Easter basket, candy-coated peeps and breath life into the present moment.
Read on:
“Ishtar’s primary legacy from the Sumerian tradition is the role of fertility figure; she evolved, however, into a more complex character, surrounded in myth by death and disaster, a goddess of contradictory connotations and forces—fire and fire-quenching, rejoicing and tears, fair play and enmity. The Akkadian Ishtar is also, to a greater extent, an astral deity, associated with the planet Venus. With Shamash, the sun god, and Sin, the moon god, she forms a secondary astral triad. In this manifestation her symbol is a star with 6, 8, or 16 rays within a circle. As goddess of Venus, delighting in bodily love, Ishtar was the protectress of prostitutes and the patroness of the alehouse. Part of her cult worship probably included temple prostitution. Her popularity was universal in the ancient Middle East, and in many centres of worship she probably subsumed numerous local goddesses. In later myth she was known as Queen of the Universe, taking on the powers of An, Enlil, and Enki.”
For those in the Gypsy Tribe, we can correlate the shadow work, the inner YIN growth, the depths and voids of our soul and inner thoughts, feelings and triggers into the ‘spaces unknown’. These dark caverns of our soul are the infamous ‘demons’ that Christian clergy scream to avoid, and for good reason. However, without self-exploration, rattling of the soul, breaking of the Earth and skin, we will never achieve the level of growth that gives us depth.
E(W) = A(F)
To know how you feel, despite what the world says, and act accordingly is the way.
The stormy clouds, going silent and dark, as something looms on the horizon much bigger than I - I feel the primal urge to bow. Her grace, her blessing to live one more moment, that I am small and yet full of love and purpose to live on.
The Descent of Inanna is not the only motivating story of Gods and Goddesses (usually Goddesses) dying and living again. Faith to overcome, legacies of perseverance and stories of strength in so many cultures; the anecdotal evidence for me, that cumulatively, we feel something bigger than ourselves this time of year. A fickle proof, mystery and myth woven into survived stories, that help me believe in something greater than myself. No religion has to be ‘right’, they simply are telling their story, their culture’s narrative, of how WE survive in our hearts and mind through dangers untold and hardships unnumbered.
“Dr Nugent points out that the story of Inanna and Damuzi is just one of a number of accounts of dying and rising gods that represent the cycle of the seasons and the stars. For example, the resurrection of Egyptian Horus; the story of Mithras, who was worshipped at Springtime; and the tale of Dionysus, resurrected by his grandmother. Among these stories are prevailing themes of fertility, conception, renewal, descent into darkness, and the triumph of light over darkness or good over evil.”
“Add two drops each of lemon, peppermint, frankincense, and lavender oils to a warm bath. Submerge yourself in the tub and plan on meditating for at least twenty minutes. As you soak in the tub, visualize the water washing through you. See it washing away any dirty, dingy areas of energy and replacing those areas with a crisp, bright white light. Deeply breathe in the scent. Feel it fill your lungs with that same white light. Visualize the white light pouring into your blood and then flowing throughout your arteries and veins. Chant either out loud or to yourself:
”I am reborn.
I am refreshed.
I am renewed.””