Sacred Play

Honoring Our Inner Child at the Spring Equinox

Sweet-faced youth
With bare feet and arms abreast,
The sun shines upon you.

Glorious maiden of hidden origins,
We wonder at your knowledge
As we recognize your truth. 

White-garbed one
Hare-consort,
You are purity and wisdom,
Sexuality and innocence,
Misty dawn and 
Shining sky
All in one. 

Your endless enthusiasm
Gives rise to eternal possibilities. 
May your sacred play
Open the way for all of humanity. 

Great goddess Eostre,
Goddess of spring and dawn,
Goddess of childhood and innocence,
Goddess of the east and rebirth,
You are the passageway,
Clear and free,
To our desires and dreams. 

May we always remember. 
May we never forget. 

Tomorrow Spring comes: the vernal equinox, the moment poised between light and darkness, suspended in liminal time. The snowdrops have bloomed and gone, the crocuses have just opened to the sun, and the daffodils will be joining them any day now. Each morning seems to bring a new pair of voices added to the bird chorus, and the Peepers sing up the moon every night. Onion grass is tall above the fresh tendrils of new grass, and the drooping star of Bethlehem has sprung up in thick patches, ready to unveil their bright faces. The worms are fat and busy, preparing the soil for the burgeoning growth to come. Buds are swelling on every tree, and the berry bushes are red with rising sap. We have achieved our first sunburns in the unseasonable heat of last week, and loved every minute of it. Winter is over at last.

Ostara, the old High German name for both the maiden goddess of Spring and the holiday honoring her, is a day of possibilities and new beginnings. Also called Eostre (pronounced: Ee-struh or Oo-struh), from which the Christian “Easter” is derived, she is the very definition of the Maiden phase of the Goddess. Of her, Michelle Skye, author of Goddess Alive!, writes:

She is the budding teenage exuding confidence, shining with untold possibilities and adventures. She is a risk taker, a shifter of energies, a mover of time and season. Yet her power is not derived just from her boundless energy but from her worldview. She accepts the world and all people and animals with the innocence of a child. Her wisdom stems from her simple naivety as she reminds us that life is meant to be enjoyed. The purity of living can be experienced in the most obvious activities, from walking in the woods to patting the family dog. Eostre teaches us to revel in the excitement of the present, of the here and now, and to honor the gentle joy of the child inside each of us.¹

Of her festival, Fiona Cook and Jessica Roux, authors of The Wheel of the Year: An Illustrated Guide to Nature’s Rhythms, say:

Ostara is the season of buds, not blossoms. It’s a yawn: a big, full-bodied stretch and a wiggling of the toes as the world warms up and gets ready to come alive. Ice is melting; the hard frozen ground begins to thaw. It’s a time of softening and loosening. We made it through the darkest days of Winter. Now, we crack a window to clear out the stale air and let in the fresh breeze.²

This, Cook and Roux maintain, is not a time for hurry. Take your time, they advise; look around you. Note each minuscule change, each tiny step “in the direction of light, life, and longer days.” If you are so fortunate as to have children close at hand, take them outside and try to see the world through their eyes. Spring is the children’s time, it is a time to nourish the child in all of us. Take a moment and ask yourself: what does my inner child enjoy? How can I nourish her this Springtide?