Ostara _ rituals, recipes, & lore for the spring equinox ( PDFDrive )

not only did people know that the equinox existed and occurred, they kept track
of when it would happen as it must have held some sort of significance for them.
Whether they saw it as a time of balance, a time of new beginnings, or simply as
a time to plant, people took notice of the equinox and marked its occurrence
often in elaborate ways with grandiose, complicated structures.
Ostara’s Relationship to Other
Holidays
The themes of Ostara are most closely associated with the Christian Easter,
though they don’t always fall very close on the calendar. Easter is held on the
first Sunday after the first full moon that happens either on or after the Vernal
Equinox, unless that full moon is itself on a Sunday, then Easter is delayed a
week. Debates still go on as to whether or not Easter was “stolen” from Ostara
(or any pre-Christian equinox feasts of fertility) or the other way around.
At Easter, Christians celebrate the resurrection of Jesus Christ, considered to
be the son of God, who was sacrificed two days earlier on Good Friday. This
provides a parallel with the themes of resurrection and rebirth often shared with
Ostara. Although Jesus himself is not “reborn,” he was resurrected from his
tomb, and because he had died for the sins of those who believe in him, those
people have the chance to be “reborn” through him. Modern Easter, like Ostara,
is celebrated with springtime imagery of eggs, baby chicks, and bunnies,
emphasizing new life rather than the tomb of death. The Christian symbolism of
the lamb is due to the fact that Jesus’s death during Passover made him a
“Passover lamb.”
The Jewish holiday of Passover (the fifteenth day of Nisan, which begins on
the night of the full moon after the northern Vernal Equinox), is a very somber
holiday that celebrates the exodus of the Israelites out of Egypt. Before the
Pharaoh let the Israeli slaves go, God inflicted ten plagues upon the Egyptians,
the last one being the death of each first born into an Egyptian home. In order to
save their children, the Jews were instructed to paint their doorways with the
blood of a lamb so the spirit of God knew to pass over and leave the inhabitants
unharmed.