Within our modern, western, eclectic, information overloaded lifestyles we all still celebrate the spring holiday we call Easter, but how many of us understand and appreciate what it is all about and why we observe the traditions and customs that have been passed down by our parents and grandparents. The iconography and products generated by the vast Easter industries offers us mixed and contradictory messages.

For the Christian church, Easter is revered as one of the most important event in the calendar, after Christmas. The events and imagery of good Friday and Easter Sunday permeate every sphere of our lives and can be seen on the cross symbols that appears on every church in our communities, paintings from past centuries and films on TV. The symbolic tale of death and re birth told through the trials of Jesus are known to all in the west. But where do the rabbits, eggs and hot cross buns come from?

We have to look to pre-Christian, Pagan festivals for the answers. Easter falls on the Spring Equinox, that is why the date is not fixed, but is dictated by the phases of the moon, so the date of the holiday falls according to rather pagan reckonings, the Sunday following the first full moon after the vernal equinox. There are also many myths and legends from pre-Christian times that tell of death and re birth.

The Phrygians celebrated a spring festival honoring Cybele, a fertility goddess. Cybele had a lover named Attis, who was born of a virgin, and who died and was resurrected after three days, celebrated sometime around the vernal equinox. This spring festival began as a day of blood on Black Friday, and three days later, in rejoicing over the resurrection. Similar resurrected god myths can be found in the the Sumerian goddess Inanna or Ishtar, the Egyptian Horus, the Roman Mithras and the Greek Dionysus.

The word \’Easter\’ is probably derived from Eostre, the Saxon mother goddess, whose name was adapted from the ancient word for spring: Eastre. The Norse equivalent of Eostre was the goddess Ostara, whose symbols just happen to be an egg and a hare, festivals honoring these goddesses were celebrated on or around the vernal equinox. Rabbits are a potent symbol of fertility due to their copious amounts of young. Eggs have always been considered symbols of new life and fertility. Painted eggs, thought to imitate the sun and the brightly colored flowers of spring, have been used in rituals and exchanged since the days of the ancient Egyptians and Babylonians.

Hot cross buns normally associated with Lent are also very ancient, in the Old Testament the Israelites baked sweet buns as an offering to an idol. Greeks and Romans baked magic cakes with crosses scored on the top, two of these cakes were discovered in the ruins of Herculaneum. The early Christian church tried to put a stop to the practice of baking sacred cakes at Easter but in the face of the defiant pagan women, they gave up and gave the cakes blessings instead.

It seems that since early civilization, people have associated spring with rebirth and resurrection, with nature’s reawakening after the cold, hard, winter, Easter is essentially a pagan festival that was been replaced firstly by the Christian church, and latterly by the relentless output of the merchandise industry. So what better way to celebrate, and help mother nature at the same time, than by sending an Easter Ecards to everyone you know to wish them a very Happy Easter!

Author Bio: Katie Davies has created this range of artistic, animated E cards to send to family and friends. The collection includes a range of Christmas, Valentines Day, Mothers Day, St. Patricks Day, Halloween and Easter Ecards

Category: Religion
Keywords: Easter, Ecards, E-cards, Ecard