Estate Living Magazine Smart Moves - Issue 38 February 2019 | Page 60

G O O D
L I F E
HOT CROSS
BUNNIES
We’ve just got over the festive season shenanigans, and soon the ubiquitous Valentine’s hearts will be taken
down, but just when you think it’s safe to go back to the mall, the bunnies and Easter eggs take over. It’s time
to cut and run. Plan to go somewhere awesome for that Easter break.
A movable feast indeed
According to tradition, Christ was crucified at Passover, which is worked out on
the Hebrew calendar, and can fall any time between 27 March and 25 April. Using
a different calendar, but aiming for a time close to Passover, the early church
decided that the anniversary of Christ’s resurrection would be celebrated on the
Sunday following the first full moon after the boreal vernal equinox, so it can fall
any day between 22 March and 26 April. Because the Eastern Orthodox Church
uses the Julian calendar rather than the Gregorian calendar, for them Easter falls
any time between 4 April and 8 May. Early Christians found that their celebrations
sometimes coincided with the existing pagan spring celebration of Ostara, so they
co-opted many of the traditions, and even the name, which became Easter. So
that’s why Christ’s crucifixion is associated with eggs and bunnies, and also why
– just like snow at Christmas – we have all that spring symbolism for our autumn
Easter celebrations. That’s probably why the bunnies are hot – and cross – and, yes,
there are some wacky stories about why they lay eggs, but they are apocryphal.
This year, Pesach (19 to 27 April) coincides with both the Western (19 to 22 April)
and Eastern Orthodox (26 to 29 April) Easter weekend.
Wicked
Some years Easter and the equinox are
close together but this year they are not,
so, if you want to celebrate the equinox as
opposed to Pesach or Christ’s crucifixion,
you will have to do so in March.
Wiccans take the Ostara celebrations
very seriously, seeing it as a time of
renewal, and the end of winter. There
are festivals in many parts of Europe, the
best known being at Stonehenge and
Avebury, but Wiccans celebrate at holy
sites all over Britain and Europe. The
festivals tend to focus on the concept of
balance and renewal, and are associated
with – who would have guessed – rabbits
(or hares), eggs and other foods, like
sprouts and asparagus, that symbolise
renewal and spring.