Eostre

The flowers are beginning to bloom, the sun has returned, Sunday is Easter! You've probably noticed that the date of Easter, unlike most Christian holidays, changes from year to year. Did you know that this is because Easter date is set by the "solar pagan calendar". The yearly celebration of bunnies and zombies occurs on the Sunday after the first full moon after the Spring Equinox. Why would a Christian holiday be celebrated based on a pagan calendar? According to The Field, "In 595 CE, Pope Gregory sent a mission of 40 monks led by a Benedictine called Augustine, prior of St Andrew’s monastery in Rome (and later the first Archbishop of Canterbury), to England with instructions to convert the pagan inhabitants to Christianity. Augustine was advised to allow the outward forms of the old, heathen festivals and beliefs to remain intact, but wherever possible to superimpose Christian ceremonies and philosophy on them."

Imbolc became Candlemas. Lughnasadh became Lammas or St Peter in Fetters day. The great festival of Sam-hain on 31 October became All Souls’ Night, followed by All Saints’ Day. The 12-day festival of Yule at the end of December became the celebration of Christ’s birth. "However, one festival was so ancient and so deeply entrenched in the pagan psyche that, although it was to become the most important and defining event in the ecclesiastical calendar, the Church did not attempt to change its name – Easter."

The Venerable Bede, famed early historian, writes about the culture of Anglo Saxon Northumbria in 724 CE, "Eosturmonath has a name which is now translated "Paschal month", and which was once called after a goddess of theirs named Eostre, in whose honour feasts were celebrated in that month. Now they designate that Paschal season by her name, calling the joys of the new rite by the time-honoured name of the old observance." Source: Wikipedia

Eostre is one member of a family of Indo-European dawn goddesses. Not many writings about Eostre survive, but we also have her cousin dawn goddesses Ausrine, Ushas, Eos, Ausekelis, Aurora, and their grandmother, Hausos. Umm...is it just me, or does Hausos sound kind of exactly like Jesus, especially if you say Jesus in Spanish? Is Jesus a descendant of the Proto-Indo-European dawn goddess, Hausos, another cousin of Eostre? Shrug. This week, I paint dawn goddesses, beginning with the enigmatic Eostre.

My painting of Eostre is based on the Ascension of Christ from an Anglo Saxon medieval illuminated manuscript, the Benedictional of St Aethelwold. Source: British Library. Original, prints, and merch avaialble from the shop link about, or on Fine Art America or RedBubble.

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Sophia and the Apocryphon of John

In 1945, thirteen leather-bound papyrus codices buried in a sealed jar were found by an Egyptian farmer near the town of Nag Hammadi, Egypt. These early Christian texts date from the 3rd century CE, and include writings attributed to John the Baptist. The writings of John became known as the Secret Book of John, or the Apocryphon of John. A translation by Frederik Wisse can be read online . In the Apocryphon, there is a female counterpart to the Father - the holy Mother, Barbelo. "She is the forethought of the All - her light shines like his light - the perfect power... The first power, the glory of Barbelo, the perfect glory in the aeons, the glory of the revelation... she became the womb of everything, for it is she who is prior to them all, the Mother-Father." I became aware of the Apocryphon of John after reading a graphic novel by Marisa Acocella, The Big She-Bang, The Herstory of the Universe According to God the Mother (highly recommended, by ...

Asherah

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Ardipithecus ramidus, Eve of Bipedalism

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Feminist Protest Fist

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Chang e, Moon Goddess

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The Cycle of Venus

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Echoing Multiverse

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