Elizabeth Barrette (ysabetwordsmith) wrote,
Elizabeth Barrette
ysabetwordsmith
  • Mood: busy

Ostara Pictures

Our Ostara celebration was great fun today.  We decorated eggs, first using crayons to draw runes, and then dipping them into egg dye.  These were very pale "brown" eggs, so shades of ivory and light tan.  The teal and purple were brightest, orange became a nice peach, red became a brick red, and the denim blue didn't take very well.  We skipped the yellow.  Some eggs were also painted instead of dyed.  Here is a basket showing some of our eggs:




This is an egg that I decorated, and it's also the one that I chose during ritual.  Very tasty afterwards, too!  I saved the shell to bury in my garden.


This is another egg, with stickers as well as runes.


We thought this one was cool, because it was cracked and the dye got inside.  (That's okay.  Easter egg dye is a food color that is safe to eat if it gets a little on the white.)


Our feast included deviled eggs...


Spring salad, starting with purchased assorted leaves brought by friend, to which I added fresh chives and French sorrel.


Mushroom quiche...


... and roast goose (recipe to follow).


From that goose, I got 1 cup of raw fat globs, probably another 3 cups liquid fat, enough meat to feed 7 people with a lunch-sized portion left over, giblets and raw scraps enough for one batch of stock, and the carcass for another batch of stock.  Even on sale, goose is not a cheap meat, but boy howdy are we getting our money's worth out of this one!  I haven't tried cooking with the fat yet, so I don't know whether I'll agree that it's awesome, but I am pretty sure the stock will be.

Our ritual included some humorous moments.  (Greenhaven Tradition rituals never go quite perfectly; we've learned to go with the flow.)  With the wind frisking merrily through our cloaks and sweaters, the chalice tipped over -- fortunately not breaking, but did flood the plate of cakes.  Also, a tall drum held between one fellow's knees very nearly toppled into the (unlit) firepit, and a sword belted to another fellow's belt slowly tipped over and unsheathed itself, leading to some humorous remarks about spring having sprung and causing various body parts to frolic in symbol. 

The gist of the ritual involved charging a decorated egg with energy to help the goddess Ostara turn the seasons.  We also passed around the basket and each took an egg to symbolize the coming season's energy.  Some folks chose a particular egg, while others took one at random.  Let's say ... the Runes behave in their customary way even when drawn in crayon on colored eggs, with some enlightening positive and negative messages.  (Yes, we put 2 eggs out of almost two dozen with some of the darker Runes, for sake of authenticity.  That's really not a symbol set that is happy if you try to make it send only cheerful messages.)  We even included an unmarked egg for Wyrd, the hypothetical blank Rune.

On the whole, we had a lovely day.  Happy Ostara, folks!
Tags: holiday, paganism, personal, photography
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  • 11 comments
kestrels_nest

kestrels_nest

March 21 2010, 03:02:20 UTC 11 years ago

Happy Ostara, Ysabet
jolantru

jolantru

March 21 2010, 03:39:14 UTC 11 years ago

Happy Ostara!
the_vulture

the_vulture

March 21 2010, 04:32:50 UTC 11 years ago

Happy Ostara!
red_trillium

red_trillium

March 21 2010, 05:31:05 UTC 11 years ago

Sounds like a good ritual. Blessings.

I love the picts of the eggs and the food. It's a reminder that autumn is definitely at our doorstep. And it reminds me of colouring eggs with my mom and sis growing up.
ysabetwordsmith

Yay!

ysabetwordsmith

March 21 2010, 06:25:36 UTC 11 years ago

>>I love the picts of the eggs and the food. <<

I enjoy coloring eggs. In our coven, we do this every few years. One time when we had a lot of kids around, we did an egg hunt, some colored eggs and some plastic ones with treasures in them. That was fun.

>>It's a reminder that autumn is definitely at our doorstep.<<

I think it's cool that seasons are reversed across the hemispheres, that Northern spring is Southern autumn. There's been some discussion of this in the Pagan community, about whether to celebrate by the calendar or by local seasons. Same thing happens with other holidays -- some people will by God celebrate Christmas on Dec. 25 with snowflakes and all, even if it is 99 degrees in the middle of Australia that day. Others flip it around so they can have the winter holiday actually in winter. What do the folks you know do?

red_trillium

Re: Yay!

red_trillium

March 22 2010, 09:18:51 UTC 11 years ago

I haven't gotten into any pagan communities here. I can ask a friend at work later in the week when I'm back in my old team.

Yeah, we get the snowflakes at Christmas here and it's 75 or 80F, hot and humid. I feel sorry for all the Santas in their fake fur suits and fake beards!

They do have a thing that many people do here, a midwinter dinner. It's kind of a mid-year Christmas but no gifts and much much smaller.

Carol and I do Christmas on Christmas, it's easier with the time off. I put a tree up usually, we exchange gifts but we don't do the fake snow thing.
ysabetwordsmith

Re: Yay!

ysabetwordsmith

March 23 2010, 04:44:31 UTC 11 years ago

>>They do have a thing that many people do here, a midwinter dinner. It's kind of a mid-year Christmas but no gifts and much much smaller. <<

That's clever.
bellakara

bellakara

March 21 2010, 12:52:25 UTC 11 years ago

Lovely photo of the eggs in the basket. Happy Ostara, and speaking personally, I've never been so happy to see Spring. The winter just seemed to go on forever!
ysabetwordsmith

Thank you!

ysabetwordsmith

March 21 2010, 17:13:53 UTC 11 years ago

I am happy to see my flowers starting to bloom, yes. We had lots of fun decorating the eggs, too.
madshutterbug

madshutterbug

March 21 2010, 13:49:55 UTC 11 years ago

We've not coloured eggs for a bit, though we do save the shells always. Often we crunch them down and mix in with the chicken feed, returning the calcium to their diet. As for the goose... OM NOM NOM! *G*

And welcome over to my place. Just got around to looking at notifications to see you'd tagged on there.
ysabetwordsmith

Thoughts

ysabetwordsmith

March 21 2010, 17:15:03 UTC 11 years ago

We saved some of the shells to put in our gardens.

Thanks for adding me to your Friends list!