Ostara

I love summer. There is nothing else that I can say about it. This has probably been the longest, coldest winter that I can remember, which made our Ostara celebration even more special than ever before. We celebrated Ostara on Sunday evening, March 21. It was just Rick and I, a new friend and her 9 year old daughter and a neighbor’s daughter, who is 10. It was a very relaxing and wonderful evening. We celebrated ritual, of course. I had completely forgotten that we would be changing the clocks this early in the season, so it was still quite light out when we started the ritual. After ritual we had snacks and then we got out the Monopoly game! Our neighbor called for her daughter to come home around 9. We had completely lost track of time! Our friends stayed until around 10. Now as we all know, Monopoly can’t be played on a time schedule! We had a great evening!
Ostara is a celebration of the spring. Things are beginning to grow and bloom, the trees are beginning to bud and everything is fresh and new. We had dyed eggs on Saturday, and we were able to use them in our ritual too. The legend behind Ostara is something like this: In the Spring the bunnies come back to the woods to play. One bunny found a beautifully colored egg and he loved eggs. He really wanted to eat the egg, but he loved the Goddess so very much that he decided to give the egg to her instead. He made the Goddess very happy and she loved the bunny very much for his gift of selflessness. Now every year at Ostara we decorate eggs and share them with one another in honor of the gift of the bunny to the Goddess.
The full moon is this Monday. It’s time to make “Granny Clampett’s Spring Tonic”, which is also called Honegar. To make it use equal parts of apple cider vinegar and raw honey. Using a single cupful at a time, place equal parts of honey and apple cider vinegar in a sauce pan. Over medium heat, stir the mixture almost constantly in a clockwise motion with a wooden spoon. Do not allow it to boil. Keep stirring until you feel the heaviness of the mixture break up. Keep stirring until all of the heaviness is gone and the color is consistent, remove it from heat. Keep stirring occasionally while the Honegar cools. When it is cool enough, pour it into a clean, sterile jar and cap it tightly. Store the jars in the refrigerator. It is also traditional to take the jars outside and charge them under the light of the full moon. Hold them up to the light and ask the Mother Goddess to infuse the brew with strength and vitality, imparting the blessings of vigorous good health to all who drink. Dose the Honegar once or twice a day, using 4 to 6 tablespoons to an 8 oz glass of drinking water.
Now, assuming that warm weather is finally on it’s way, I’ll be outside this weekend planting lettuce, peas and carrots! I noticed today that in spite of all of the snow we had this year my pansies are blooming again! I planted them last fall. I walked the property last week and was able to cut back the pampas grass and the butterfly bush. There is plenty of trimming to be done, the apple tree and the peach trees need to be pruned. We bought a bunch of trees from the Arbor Day Foundation, that need to be planted somewhere. We planted them in a vacant garden bed temporarily and it’s time to find them a space of their own, The County came by last week and trimmed some of our trees that were getting to close to the power lines. We needed to have some of them trimmed any way, so they saved us a bunch of money. They’re even going to bring us back the mulch when they have a truck load! I’ve got so many plans for the gardens this year, I can’t wait to get started!