Ostara and Eggs

Egg Basket Blessing

Source: Ostara by Edain McCoy

The cycle of life again comes to pass,

I place in an egg all nestled in grass;

In a basket of straw, the Goddess’ womb

A place to meet God, who’s returned from the tomb

Life again is reborn this day,

In the womb of Eostre, in the basket of May;

Female and male in the Great Rite balance,

New life is born from their spring dalliance.

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The “How Does My Garden Grow” Egg Blessing

Source: Ostara by Edain McCoy

After you have prepared your garden for planting, take a hard-boiled egg and mark upon it symbols of the earth, growth, and fertility. Browns and greens work especially well here. With your bare hands, dig a small hole in the middle of the planting area while murmuring a prayer to the Goddess of the Earth. Speak from the heart to honor her ask for her blessings on the garden. Place the egg in the hole and cover it while still repeating your prayer. Walk clockwise three times around the entire perimeter of the garden and chant:

Egg of the Goddess, giver of all things,

Grow my garden abundant this spring.

Strong and sacred this place must be,

Springing forth its bounty, so blessed be.

Return to the center of the garden and cover the egg to bury its magickal energy at the heart of your garden.

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Today, we boil eggs, dye them in gay colors, and hide them for our

children/grandchildren :o)/ to hunt. We have chocolate eggs, marzipan eggs,

and new little yellow fluff-ball chicks. But...........the lovely, muted,

earthy look of naturally dyed Easter eggs can way outshine the Easter

Bunny's 'traditional candy-colored, gaudy offerings.

Add them to centerpieces....or...hand them on a bare branch.

Eggs do vary in the way that they take on color.......some become mottled.

If you use some brown eggs, as well as white, it gives you a wider range of

finished colors.

Many of the herbal dye plants, used traditionally to color wool or other

natural fibers, can be used for Easter eggs.

For shades of yellow, use dried marigolds, goldenrod and cosmos. A

teaspoonful of turmeric will yield a rich gold. Use woad for blue, madder

for pink, coltsfoot for green. I will profile woad, madder and coltsfoot on

the herb list after this post!

Other dye ingredients can be found in your kitchen. Yellow onion skins

yield a vivid rusty orange and carrot tops give a clear yellow. Red cabbage

leaves, beets, blueberries, blackberries, and grape juice produce pinks and

mauves. Try coffee and tea for rich warm browns, and pecan and walnut

shells for deeper shades of brown.

While you prepare the dyestuffs, let the eggs come to room temperature to

minimize cracking as they simmer. Then, fill the saucepan with enough water

to cover the number of eggs you're dyeing and add the dyestuff.

A handful of plant material to a pint of water in a small saucepan will

color two or three eggs. Simmer this for 15 to 30 minutes or until the

water is a little darker than the shade you want to dye the eggs.

Carefully add the eggs to the water along with a tablespoon of vinegar. Add

water if necessary to cover the eggs completely. Simmer the eggs for twenty

minutes or until they have taken on the right color and are hardboiled.

Turn off the heat and let the eggs cool in the dyebath. I have found that

this cooling off in the bath further deepens the color.\\

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Egg Magick

Source: Ostara by Edain McCoy

Use a broom to sweep hard-boiled eggs from outside your home to the inside to bring in abundance and fertility.

Use brown eggs in magick to assist in animal husbandry or to ease a pet through giving birth.

Brown eggshells can be added to protective or healing magick for pets or livestock

Bury rotten eggs near a crossroad to cause abundance to be taken away from an enemy.

Paint half of a hard-boiled egg in a traditional god color such as red or gold, and the other half in a goddess color such as silver or blue, to represent the whole of creation. Let your own feelings about colors guide your final choice.

To ensure that there will be no shortage of food at your home during winter, and to help keep those living there safe, bury one egg at each of the four cardinal points of your property: east, south, west and north.

Add well-washed eggshells to talismans for protection.

To assist a couple who is having trouble conceiving, decorate a plastic or wooden egg to give as a fertility talisman.

Decorate eggshells hanging from bushes and tress shed blessing of abundance on the land they surround.

Bury eggs in your garden before doing your spring planting.

The Eggshell Fertility Talisman

Source: Ostara by Edain McCoy

For this talisman you will need:

small green circle of cloth 

a needle and thread 

a piece of paper with a picture of your goal 

eggshells 

some fertility herbs such as bistort, carrot (root and tail), nuts of all kinds, wheat, myrtle, rice, rye, barley, pine cones, acorns, juniper, pine, cedar, lemongrass, honeysuckle and turnips 

fertility stones (optional) – holey stones and/or geodes.

Handle all of the ingredients, infusing them with your desire to have a baby. Then place them together in the green cloth and sew them shut. Holding the talisman between your hands and your belly, say:

Charm of egg and life to be,

Power of fertility, come to me,

Like the Goddess whose blood mingles with mine,

So shall I give birth in nine month’s time.

Wear the talisman over your belly area as much as possible, renewing your intent by chanting the above quatrain when you can to assist you in becoming pregnant.

****

Hunting The Wild Egg

Source: Ostara by Edain McCoy

Easter egg hunts were first popular in the United States in the spring of 1862, when America was in the middle of its hideous Civil War in which young men were dying daily of injuries and disease, and famine was starting to appear in many areas of the ravaged South. First Lady Dolly Madison was the first dignitary to host an “egg roll” on the lawn of the Capitol building in Washington D.C., during the War of 1812 in an attempt to garner public support for her unpopular husband. But it was President Abraham Lincoln who tapped into the archetypical importance of the egg as a symbol of hope and new life. He ordered decorated eggs and other popular treats to be hidden on the White House lawn. He then issued a public invitation to the children of Washington D.C. to come and search for them on Easter morning. With few exceptions, American presidents have kept up the practice and it has since become a cherished national Easter custom mimicked around the nation. 

Many people are unaware that the egg-hunting custom predates President Lincoln by at least two thousand years. In Asia and India, the practice of hunting hidden eggs in spring was symbolic of the belief that we are fully responsible for our actions and reactions, and that we must each find our own way to life renewed. Because this incorporated reincarnation themes, the egg hunt was a time to reflect on the balances of rights and wrongs and how to improve one’s position in the next life.

In German and Scandinavian lands, the tradition of offering eggs to the Goddess in exchange for blessing so r wishes was a common spring practice. With the rise of Christianity in Europe making Pagan practices a capital offense, those offerings had to be hidden where only the Goddess could find them. Thus the “egg hunt” by the authorities ensued, and was eventually made into a game for children.

The sear for eggs also has a deeper metaphysical meaning in many cultures, in particular in the East. The hunt represent the soul’s eternal quest for life renewed so that it may have the opportunity to perfect itself and reach a union with the deities.

The Teutons buried eggs under barns and animal dwellings to increase the fecundity of livestock, or placed eggs beneath beds to encourage human fertility. Eggs were also buried by the Teutons and Anglo-Saxons in spring to make gardens and fields fertile. They were believed to bless gardens and farmland with fertility and abundance. This is a practice still used by many modern Pagans who enjoy planting and tending magickal gardens.

Natural Ostara Eggs

Source: Unknown



Natural egg-dying is like recycling.  It takes a li'l bit longer to do. Cover your plant material (see list below) with about 3 inches of water, bring to a boil, and simmer until the color looks good. You'll probably have to let the eggs sit in the dye overnight, so if you're planning more than one color per egg, start this a few days before Oestara.  Experimenting is half the fun, but here are some hints to get you started:



Yellow - Carrots, Fenugreek, Turmeric, White grape juice
Yellow Orange - Vanilla extract
Orange - Dandelions, Yellow onion skins, Paprika, Orris root
Pink - Heather, Iris blossoms
Red - Cayenne, Madder root, Red onion skins
Reddish Purple - Purple grape juice, Red raspberries
Blueish Purple - Beet juice, Blackberries, Mulberries
Blue - Black raspberries, Blueberries, Red cabbage
Green - Bracken, Carrot tops
Yellow Green - Daffodils


Wanna get fancy?  Gather some small leaves, ferns, flowers and grasses.  Dip them in water (to help them stick) and press them onto your eggs.  Wrap each egg in a piece of cut up pantyhose and secure it with a twist tie before dyeing. When you remove the flower or leaf, it's design will appear (either in white or in your first dye-color).  Rub your finished eggs with a tiny bit of vegetable oil on a soft cloth to shine them.



Too hard?? No hosiery???  Okay, try using crayons to draw spirals and pentagrams on the eggs before dying them.



Now,  plan a fertility ritual for your garden.  Bury an Oestara egg in the east corner of your garden, or one egg for each direction, or dig an entire circle for them (depends on how much you hate egg-salad).



Hunting The Wild Egg

Source: Ostara by Edain McCoy



Easter egg hunts were first popular in the United States in the spring of 1862, when America was in the middle of its hideous Civil War in which young men were dying daily of injuries and disease, and famine was starting to appear in many areas of the ravaged South. First Lady Dolly Madison was the first dignitary to host an “egg roll” on the lawn of the Capitol building in Washington D.C., during the War of 1812 in an attempt to garner public support for her unpopular husband. But it was President Abraham Lincoln who tapped into the archetypical importance of the egg as a symbol of hope and new life. He ordered decorated eggs and other popular treats to be hidden on the White House lawn. He then issued a public invitation to the children of Washington D.C. to come and search for them on Easter morning. With few exceptions, American presidents have kept up the practice and it has since become a cherished national Easter custom mimicked around the nation.



Many people are unaware that the egg-hunting custom predates President Lincoln by at least two thousand years. In Asia and India, the practice of hunting hidden eggs in spring was symbolic of the belief that we are fully responsible for our actions and reactions, and that we must each find our own way to life renewed. Because this incorporated reincarnation themes, the egg hunt was a time to reflect on the balances of rights and wrongs and how to improve one’s position in the next life.



In German and Scandinavian lands, the tradition of offering eggs to the Goddess in exchange for blessing so r wishes was a common spring practice. With the rise of Christianity in Europe making Pagan practices a capital offense, those offerings had to be hidden where only the Goddess could find them. Thus the “egg hunt” by the authorities ensued, and was eventually made into a game for children.



The sear for eggs also has a deeper metaphysical meaning in many cultures, in particular in the East. The hunt represent the soul’s eternal quest for life renewed so that it may have the opportunity to perfect itself and reach a union with the deities.



The Teutons buried eggs under barns and animal dwellings to increase the fecundity of livestock, or placed eggs beneath beds to encourage human fertility. Eggs were also buried by the Teutons and Anglo-Saxons in spring to make gardens and fields fertile. They were believed to bless gardens and farmland with fertility and abundance. This is a practice still used by many modern Pagans who enjoy planting and tending magickal gardens.

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Ostara/Spring Equinox Eggs

In the world of Witches, eggs symbolize potential. When you color eggs, you infuse them with the magical, vibrational qualities of the color you have chosen. Take time today and contemplate which colors and energies you wish to promote in your life. Below are the colors you could use as well as their magical, spiritual properties.
Red: Energy, lust, passion, drive, ambition, action, movement, decision
Pink: Love, friendship, peace, harmony, togetherness, tenderness, sentimentality
Blue: Emotions, flow, psychic awareness, freedom, peace, calmness, tranquility
Lavender: Spiritual understanding, spiritual awakening, spiritual mastery
Yellow: Communication, knowledge, speech, learning, the arts, inspiration
Gold: Health, wealth, joy, prosperity, abundance
Brown: Solidity, groundedness, practicality, clarification, work
Green: financial gain, prosperity, health, growth, nurturing

Questions to think about:
• Which colors seem the best suited to your life right now?
• Which colors would you like to represent your life?
• Which colors do you not want? Why not?
• Which colors will you select to represent what you want?


Natural Dyes
• Red: Soak the eggs in beet juice for 30 mins; you can also use red cabbage juice for the same effect
• Pink: Soak your eggs in cranberry juice for 20-30 mins
• Blue: Infuse hot water with violet blossoms; soak your eggs in the violet water overnight; alternatively soak your eggs in blueberry juice
• Lavender: Soak you eggs in grape juice
• Yellow: To a cup of hot water, add 1 to 1 ½ teaspoons turmeric and ½ teaspoon vinegar; wait for the water to cool before soaking the eggs, or try the same method with saffron strands instead of turmeric
• Golden: save the skins from yellow onions; add them to the water when you hard-boil the eggs; draw your magical symbol with a felt tipped pen afterwards
• Brown: Soak the eggs in strong coffee or espresso
• Green: add ¼ teaspoon baking soda to a bowl of the water from the blue recipe before soaking your eggs; you can also try dipping the eggs in liquid chlorophyll, which you can find at pet stores and drugstores.