The Glory of Spring: The Story of Metamorphosis, Metaphors and Matters of Health

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The Glory of Spring: The Story of Metamorphosis, Metaphors and Matters of Health

It is spring and the pagan goddess, Eoster, the goddess of fertility and forerunner of Easter, manifests herself in various forms: naked trees wake from their winter sleep to make leaves and vines to cloth themselves, fields, green again, bloom with flowers the color of the rainbow, old pagan traditions compete with Christian’s Easter celebration of Christ’s resurrection after crucifixion. 

There will be hunts for Easter eggs after church services, and children will receive baskets filled with chocolate eggs, chicks and bunnies.  In the end we ask, what has chocolate, the food of the Gods, according to the Aztecs, has to do with it.

An article published in the Guardian on April 3, 2010 explains the story of this Easter metamorphosis and its symbols.

The pagan roots of Easter

From Ishtar to Eostre, the roots of the resurrection story go deep. We should embrace the pagan symbolism of Easter

Easter is a pagan festival. If Easter isn't really about Jesus, then what is it about? Today, we see a secular culture celebrating the spring equinox, whilst religious culture celebrates the resurrection. However, early Christianity made a pragmatic acceptance of ancient pagan practises, most of which we enjoy today at Easter. The general symbolic story of the death of the son (sun) on a cross (the constellation of the Southern Cross) and his rebirth, overcoming the powers of darkness, was a well, worn story in the ancient world. There were plenty of parallel, rival resurrected saviours too.

The Sumerian goddess Inanna, or Ishtar, was hung naked on a stake, and was subsequently resurrected and ascended from the underworld. One of the oldest resurrection myths is Egyptian Horus. Born on 25 December, Horus and his damaged eye became symbols of life and rebirth. Mithras was born on what we now call Christmas day, and his followers celebrated the spring equinox. Even as late as the 4th century AD, the sol invictus, associated with Mithras, was the last great pagan cult the church had to overcome. Dionysus was a divine child, resurrected by his grandmother. Dionysus also brought his mum, Semele, back to life.

In an ironic twist, the Cybele cult flourished on today's Vatican Hill. Cybele's lover Attis, was born of a virgin, died and was reborn annually. This spring festival began as a day of blood on Black Friday, rising to a crescendo after three days, in rejoicing over the resurrection. There was violent conflict on Vatican Hill in the early days of Christianity between the Jesus worshippers and pagans who quarreled over whose God was the true, and whose the imitation. What is interesting to note here is that in the ancient world, wherever you had popular resurrected god myths, Christianity found lots of converts. So, eventually Christianity came to an accommodation with the pagan Spring festival. Although we see no celebration of Easter in the New Testament, early church fathers celebrated it, and today many churches are offering "sunrise services" at Easter – an obvious pagan solar celebration. The date of Easter is not fixed, but instead is governed by the phases of the moon – how pagan is that?

All the fun things about Easter are pagan. Bunnies are a leftover from the pagan festival of Eostre, a great northern goddess whose symbol was a rabbit or hare. Exchange of eggs is an ancient custom, celebrated by many cultures. Hot cross buns are very ancient too. In the Old Testament we see the Israelites baking sweet buns for an idol, and religious leaders trying to put a stop to it. The early church clergy also tried to put a stop to sacred cakes being baked at Easter. In the end, in the face of defiant cake-baking pagan women, they gave up and blessed the cake instead.

Easter is essentially a pagan festival which is celebrated with cards, gifts and novelty Easter products, because it's fun and the ancient symbolism still works. It's always struck me that the power of nature and the longer days are often most felt in modern towns and cities, where we set off to work without putting on our car headlights and when our alarm clock goes off in the mornings, the streetlights outside are not still on because of the darkness.

What better way to celebrate, than to bite the head off the bunny goddess, go to a "sunrise service", get yourself a sticky-footed fluffy chick and stick it on your TV, whilst helping yourself to a hefty slice of pagan simnel cake?

     

Did the ancient gods conspire? Research has told us that the name Easter has its origin with a goddess of the Anglo-Saxons named Eostre (also Estre, Estara, Eastre, Ostara, and similar spellings in various sources). It is believed that she is the goddess of the dawn and was worshipped in the spring by pagans in Northern Europe and the British Isles (http://www.answersingenesis.org/articles/2011/04/19/name-easter-pagan)

But the story goes further back. According to (flyerfriday.com), in Europe and Asia, spring was dedicated to a goddess of fertility, believed to have been originally based on the Babylonian goddess Ishtar, and referred to in Saxon mythology as “Oestre” or “Eastre.” Many scholars consider this the origin of the name “Easter.” Eggs and rabbits symbolizing reproduction were thought to invoke the fertility of spring. Even the painted eggs and egg-hunts originated from Pagan ceremonies of various cultures, including the Babylonians.

Chocolate, the food of the gods

What does “the food of the gods,” cacahuatl or xoxocatl” as the Aztec called chocolate have to do with Easter? Ancient Mayan text refer to cacao as having divine origin-a gift from the gods.

We learn (from thestoryofchocolate.com) that chocolate has a history of medicinal uses and that Throughout history, chocolate has been used to treat a wide variety of ailments—most commonly to help thin patients gain weight, to stimulate the nervous systems of feeble people, to calm those who are hyperactive, or to improve digestion and kidney function. It remains an important tool for the healers of today.

In Oaxaca, Mexico, traditional healers called “curanderos” give chocolate drinks to cure bronchitis and plant cacao beans in the earth to pay off evil forces and heal those who have” espanto”, sickness from fright. Children drink chocolate for breakfast to ward off stings from scorpions or bees.

Immigrants who moved from the area to the San Joaquin Valley of California continue to use chocolate as medicine—mixing it with eggs to fight fatigue, drinking it with herbal tea to lessen pain or combining it with cinnamon and rue to soothe upset stomachs.

In the Dominican Republic, chocolate drinks still are used to treat many kinds of illness, from sore throats to anemia to gastrointestinal illnesses to overworked brains.

The Kuna Indians of Panama drink five or more cups of chocolate each day—and have been studied for their notably low incidence of heart disease and cancer. Their shamans burn cacao beans as incense and diagnose a patient’s illness by reading the smoke. The Kuna also use the smoke of cacao beans and chili pods to heal malaria and similar diseases

Cacao first brought to Europe in 1528 by Cortez when he returned to Spain soon became, in its form of chocolate, the guilty pleasure of nobility throughout Europe.  In 1785 in a letter to John Adams, Thomas Jefferson applauded “the superiority of chocolate both for health and nourishment.”

Today chocolate is a culinary delight and to the pleasure of its billionaire producers, it is consumed on traditional holidays such as Easter (chocolate bunnies, eggs, chicks) Halloween, St. Valentine’s Day (chocolate hearts and at Christmas (chocolate Santas).

Chocolate is promoted as having positive effects on the heart and the goddess of fertility, Eostre, will be happy to agree with the Aztecs, that this “food of the gods,” is said to be an aphrodisiac. It is stated that chocolate naturally contains high amounts of phenylethylamine, the chemical stimulant produced in the brain of a person in love.

Romance will bloom like a tree or a plant in spring.

© Althea Romeo-Mark18.04.2014

Photos, Althea Romeo-Mark