The Deeper, Universal Meaning of Easter
I love Easter. Having been raised Catholic, when I was a child, Easter always felt like such a joyful celebration of life. I would go to the Easter Sunday Mass in a new springtime dress, feel the first real warmth in the air, and see beautiful flowers blooming all around. We would hear about Jesus being resurrected, and the miracle of life after his crucifixion. My family raised rabbits, and often this was the time of year when the new baby bunnies would be born! All was a message of hope, life, and light.
Now that I'm an adult, and have merged the sacredness of the Catholic beliefs with the earth-based groundedness of shamanic, alchemical, and ancient wisdom traditions, it's fascinating to reflect on the themes of Easter at a much deeper level than I did when I was young.
Easter is held on the first Sunday following the first Full Moon after the March Equinox. This way of choosing a date reflects our earth-based (pagan) heritage, because choosing the date of Easter each year requires a correlation between the lunar cycles (new moons & full moons) with the solar year (as the date of the equinox is based on the movement of the sun).
Here is a calendar of the dates of Easter, for the years 532-632 AD, from the Museum of the Ravenna Cathedral in Italy. This Easter calendar is written in marble:
Calendar of the dates of Easter, for the years 532–632 (marble, in Museum of Ravenna Cathedral, Italy).
But what's even more intriguing is WHY we celebrate Easter. So let's explore that for a bit ... There are many facets to consider.
If we look at the mythology and spiritual traditions from a vast array of ancient cultures, we find the story of the Solar King. This God or King is often depicted with the Sun around or above his head, such as Jesus or the Egyptian God Horus; or even considered to be the actual personification of the Sun, such as the Zoroastrian Mithra or the Greek Helios. There are many other Solar Gods! You can find an exhaustive list of solar deities here.
However, I always think it's best to go even further back in time, to gather information from the most ancient records we can find, as these will be more aligned with Source and our original human perception of reality ... Before any distortions began to creep in.
This becomes quite fascinating, because when we go really far back, we find that the Sun was perceived as Feminine, so we have evidence of Sun Goddesses and Moon Gods from much more ancient times.
For example, the Egyptian God Thoth was a Moon God. We know that Thoth was far more ancient than Egypt itself, because in the hieroglyphs it is clearly stated that he existed BEFORE the Egyptian civilization - So this perception of the masculine moon comes from extremely early civilizations such as Atlantis & the older prehistoric North African cultures.
Here is the Thoth, the Moon God, accompanied by the Goddess Seshat, who wears the 7-pointed star above her head (photo taken in Abydos Temple):
In more recent languages (e.g. Latin, Greek, French, Italian and Portuguese), a masculine gender is assigned to the Sun, and a feminine gender is assigned to the Moon.
However, in older languages of the same Indo-European family (e.g. Sanskrit, German and old Goidelic) the Moon is masculine and the Sun feminine.
Similarly, in the very ancient, pre-Babylonian Sumerian tongue, the word for moon is explicitly masculine; and in Arabic, the word for "sun" is feminine.
Thus, underneath the surface of later male-dominant cultures, there is a worldwide wealth of evidence of a much older Sun Goddess, as well as of a Moon God. Other Moon Gods include Sin of the Mesopotamian culture, Igaluk of the Inuit, and the Hindu God Chandra.
The Tuvan people, an indigenous culture in Siberia, still view the Sun as feminine and moon as masculine.
Features that occur over and over again in the context of sun-goddess religions are sacred caves where the sun hides and then is rejuvenated, often by a divine mirror power.
Mirrors as ritual objects, sometimes in the form of bowls that were filled with water, have been found in ancient Sun-Goddess sites in Britain and Ireland, Egypt, Korea and Siberia. They were associated with shamanic or theurgic religion and hence also with the healing arts. The ancient bowls associated with Sun-Goddess sites (e.g. Newgrange near Loughcrew, Ireland) were filled with water, and like mirrors, used to symbolize the Moon's power to reflect the Solar effulgence.
Another Sun Goddess is Amaterasu in the Japanese tradition, who disappeared into a cave, taking the source of light & life with her, and casting darkness upon the land, so that it seemed all hope was lost. When she was given a mirror to reflect her refulgent beauty, she emerged from the cave, bringing light back to the world.
The Sun Goddess Amaterasu, emerging from the Heavenly Rock Cave and bringing the light of the sun back to the land:
Amaterasu emerges from the Heavenly Rock Cave (Shunsai Toshimasa, 1887)
What is really interesting to me about the Sun Goddesses and Moon Gods is that, in these more ancient understandings of the Solar and Lunar expressions, we see a divine cooperation between the two. The mirror (found in many of these very ancient traditions, sacred sites, & myths) represents the reflective power of the Moon, but it requires the light of the Sun to shine into it.
Only when masculine and feminine - Sun and Moon - work together, can we have the proper light and the needed conditions for life to flourish.
And so it is with determining the date for Easter each year! The date of Easter (as explained above) requires a coordination between the Moon Cycles and the Solar Year.
But let's not forget another (perhaps the most) important aspect of Easter - LIFE itself! The miracle of resurrection.
In the Christian traditions, Easter is celebrated because Jesus died on the cross; 3 days later, he rose again, fully alive; and after some additional time that he spent teaching the people on Earth about life, death, and resurrection, he ascended to Heaven to be with his Father.
Resurrection is absolutely the most resounding theme that we feel & read & receive again & again in Egypt, when we stand in the temples, or gaze at the ancient eyes of the Sphinx, or climb through the narrow passageways of the Great Pyramid. Osiris dies at the hands of his evil brother Set, and then Isis and Thoth use their magic to resurrect him, to bring him back to life ... Not permanently ... But just long enough to create new life, for Osiris and Isis to conceive Horus, the Solar God who represents Highest Consciousness and who will bring justice and truth back to the land.
In commemoration of this magical act of restoring life itself, the pharaohs and the high priests & priestesses of Egypt would undergo shamanic resurrection ceremonies in which they would travel to the other side of the veil, merge with the Immortal Stars, and then return to their physical bodies renewed and transformed. Absolutely everything created during the Egyptian civilization: The hieroglyphs, the sacred geometrical structure of the temples aligned with the stars, the artwork in the tombs, and the sacred rituals and ceremonies held at Abydos, Dendera, Saqqara, the Giza Plateau, and other locations - ALL had one sacred & critical focus: To ensure the continuation of LIFE itself.
Resurrection is the basis of the potent Eleusinian Mysteries in Greece, the long-standing Soma Cult found in the ancient Hindu Rig Veda texts, and the beautiful Sumerian hymn The Descent of Inanna (which was written in 1750 BC by the first known woman poet, a Sumerian high priestess named Enheduanna who lived in the ancient city of Ur).
How do the Sun and Moon relate to this theme of Resurrection? They embody it in every motion they make in their cyclical travels across the sky.
On a daily basis, the Sun is born at dawn, dies at sunset, stays "dead" through the cold & dark night, and rises again (is resurrected) each morning. Who can deny the surge of hope and joy that rises in our hearts after a long night, when the sun finally brings its redeeming light back into the sky?
The Pyramids and Sphinx glowing in the Sunrise, Giza Plateau, Egypt:
On a monthly basis, the Moon begins as a slender, delicate crescent (representing the beginnings of new life), then grows larger each night until it is round and glowing (like a woman's pregnant belly), then grows smaller and smaller until it disappears - Or dies, reabsorbed into all-that-is. But this is not the end of the story. For the moon will always reappear 3 days later (just as Jesus rose after 3 days) and grace the nighttime sky again with beautiful silvery light.
We see the story of life, death, and resurrection in every facet of nature. In the trees, which grow full and verdant in the summer, then their leaves fall off and die away in the autumn, so that the tree seems to become completely still (the appearance of death) all winter long. But all is not lost. We know and we TRUST that in the spring, the leaves will re-emerge as tender shoots and will grow full and green once again.
We see life, death, and resurrection in the rise & fall of the tides, the disappearance & reappearance of the planets and certain key stars (such as Sirius) in the nighttime sky, as well as in our own life cycles. This is how we know reincarnation must be true, for death is never an ending - Nature shows us this again & again at every minute & every season.
Death is actually a new beginning, a chance to take on a new form, an opportunity to start over & begin anew.
So THIS is what we celebrate at Easter. All of the above, which is quite a lot, but primarily, these two themes:
(1) The sacred cooperation of Masculine & Feminine - Moon and Sun - In creating the conditions for life to thrive; and
(2) The miracle and magic of Resurrection, the renewal of the life force, and the rituals & ceremonies to ensure the continuation of Life Itself.
How can you connect in with these themes? I invite you to let your heart lead you, over the next few days, to plan a ritual that will anchor the sacredness of Life Itself into your awareness and into your own life patterns.
Here are some ideas to inspire you. See what resonates the most for you, and always follow your own guidance:
Place a shallow bowl of water outside to reflect both the Solar and Lunar light, and then save this Easter/Life Water for future rituals.
Planting new seeds is a wonderful way to honor life.
You could plant flowers and shrubs that will feed the pollinators and birds in your local area throughout the spring & summer.
Start an herb garden or a vegetable garden.
Stand outside at night under the beautiful Moon, or during the day beneath the golden glow of the Sun, and feel in your heart how deeply & intricately the Lunar & Solar energies work together to reveal to us the magical, infinite cycles of life, death, and resurrection.
So often, we get busy with our tasks and responsibilities, and we forget to honor Life Itself. Easter is a wonderful reminder to pause and take note of the miracle and magic of life, and the continual renewal of life force that we see amplified all around us at this time of year.
Happy Easter! 🌷🐇🌟
Much love,
Jocelyn Star Feather
Founder of Sacred Planet