It seems like Ostara was just the other day and now Beltane is coming up in just over a week! Ostara was a lot of fun for me. I use the holiday to usher in Spring at my house including decorating with a lot of eggs and some bunnies and sheep. I like to use the purple and green with a bit of brown mixed in because to me these colors symbolize the earth just again coming to life. I save the bold colors for later in Spring and in the summer. That said, I had to decorate my Ostara altar with red this year to represent the energy of Aries and Mars. It went quite well with the purple flowers my hubby sent me that day.
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| Ostara Altar |
The eggs that we colored turned out bright which happened to go along beautifully with the rest of the altar. I took advantage of the weather and the fact that my husband was home, to enjoy an Ostara breakfast out on the back porch. I baked an orange bread to go along with my morning eggs. I decided to bake the bread in my Spring theme silicone baking pan so the bread came out in shapes of a dragonfly, butterfly and ladybug. I even had enough dough left over to make a mini loaf to freeze and use at a later time. For the breakfast table, I used the hand sewn napkins I had made in anticipation of some summer outdoor eating. Since they are rather larger and there were only two of us, I used some of them as place mats. I incorporated the purple and yellow together which was pleasing to my eye and a good Ostara morning color theme. Pagans understand how color is a symbol for different things such as green for prosperity, red for passion, purple for intuition; but sometimes color is simply a feeling and what is
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| My reversible napkins |
used to create an atmosphere. A note here about the wreaths: They are small artificial wreaths that I bought on sale at Joans in mid March. I can incorporate real flowers and such with them and be able to use them for various altar and holiday setups making them a very affordable decoration item. A few days after Ostara I hosted my monthly Scrabble group and chose to set the dinner table for Ostara. I went with my purple and green and added some eggs and my flowers to the decor. It also gave me an opportunity to explain to my non pagan friends what Ostara is. Did I really just summarize it as "all the fun stuff of Easter without the Jesus thing'? Perhaps...
Just a few days before Earth Day, a beautiful Earth Goddess statue caught my attention. Though I didn't do a ritual per se, I did set up a place for my statue so that I might enjoy her as I sat outside in my yard today. I had all of the cats outside with me, some meandering in and out at will. I took my hand stitching outside, along with a fresh brewed glass of Pineapple/Raspberry white Iced tea and worked on stitching some bookmarks and an herb bag that I hope to have up in the shop sometime in the next decade. I may not be the fastest crafter in the world, but I give myself an P for "patience with the process". My flowering crab apple tree is just now blossoming this week. I am still eagerly waiting for the lilac bushes to burst forth with their fragrant blossoms, but that won't be for a few more weeks. If you haven't already, go outside and hug a tree today or dance barefoot in the grass and love your mother earth.
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