You’re Probably Celebrating (More Than) One Pagan Holiday All About Sex

Image via Unsplash

March is the worst month of the year. Besides being black mailed into wearing green on one day of the month and facing the consequences of getting pinched (does anyone actually do that?), there are no real fun holidays in March.

Except Ostara.

Ostara is a pagan holiday celebrating the coming of Spring. Paganism is a difficult term to describe since it’s so general, but most pagans typically celebrate the following holidays: Yule (YOOL), Imbolc (IM-BAWLK), Beltane (BELL-TANE), Samhain (SAH-WEN), Lughnasadh (LOO-NAH-SAH), and Ostara (AH-STAR-UH). Keep in mind that some pagans may not celebrate any of these, because again, paganism is so, so broad.

While I would write about every single one of these holidays if I had the time, in this article I will be focusing on Ostara: the celebration of the Spring Equinox. 

This holiday is named after the Anglo-Saxon goddess Eostre (EE-AH-STRAY), or Ostara, who represents spring. This is the celebration of the Spring Equinox, which in 2023, is on Monday, March 20 in the Northern Hemisphere. In the Southern Hemisphere, it will be celebrated on September 21, 2023. Since pagan holidays are nature-based, the holidays are celebrated at different times in each hemisphere. 

The timeline of when Ostara began is long and complicated. An abridged version is as follows: this pagan holiday has a lot of Celtic and Indigenous influence, but the celebration of the Spring Equinox has been in practice since the Achaemenians. If you wish to read more of an in-depth history of Ostara and its implementation into the Wiccan sabbats, this is a great article for further research. 

Ostara is considered a time of balance, since it’s celebrating the Spring Equinox: when day and night are equal. This is also a time of fertility, as alluded to by the symbols of eggs. Ostara is associated with light green, lavender, yellow, baby blue, pastel pink, and white. Symbols for the holiday include flowers, bunnies, eggs, seeds, and baskets. 

Does that sound familiar?

Picture this: you’re sitting around the kitchen table with mounds of newspapers covering every inch of the wood to avoid stains, dipping white eggs in chemicals or painting little symbols on them to celebrate some bunny that shits eggs (we’ll circle back to that later). You know, for Easter.

Yeah, you’re celebrating Ostara…just a little late.

Ostara actually predates Easter. Easter comes from the word Eostre, the spring goddess as mentioned earlier. While the Christian faith turned to Emperor Constantine, he decided that Christian holidays should take precedence, and that they must slowly get rid of pagan festivals. To do this, he ordered that Easter be celebrated shortly after the vernal equinox, or Spring Solstice, in hopes to slowly convert pagans into Christians. 

Not only that, but the Easter Bunny also comes from this sexy pagan holiday. The legend goes that Ostara found a dying bird, and in order to save it, she turned it into a hare. Then, it’s unclear from one version to another whether this act was intentional or not, but the now-hare-once-dying-bird continued to lay eggs…hence, the Easter Bunny. In fact, in Germany there’s the “Osterhase,” which is a bunny that brings colorful eggs to good children!

Oh, and remember how I called this holiday “sexy”? Yeah, like I said, Ostara is all about fertility, so many of these festivals were…rowdy (psst, you know the saying, “fucking like bunnies/rabbits”?). Our ancient ancestors were much more comfortable with sex than we are today– but I’m perfectly happy without any public orgies. Honestly though, sexuality is kind of a common theme with pagan holidays. Just wait until I talk about Beltane.

While there are no Spring Equinox Orgy Festivals being openly offered in modern times, there are other socially acceptable ways to celebrate this holiday. One ritual that is very common is starting a garden. You know, like… “planting a seed.” If that’s too much commitment for you, don’t worry. You can simply journal or meditate–try to find how you can bring more balance to your life!

For practicing pagans, this is a great time to cleanse your home/apartment/dorm, and decorate with spring flowers and scents. Just be careful what you choose, as some of these flowers and scents may be toxic to pets.

This is also a good time to redecorate that altar that you haven’t decorated since you first arrived on campus (or never even set up). Add some Ostara flare with the associated colors, crystals, and scents.

Happy Ostara, you filthy animals, and blessed be!