Sunday, March 27, 2005
We Are The Life Everlasting
Not one one negative thing will I post today.
Today I am sick of myself and my gloomy, fault-finding, "everything is so fucked up" tirades. Today embodies human acknowledgement of the eternal cycle of life, and I'm on that bus.
For Christians, it's Easter. For pagans, its Ostara. It's the Vernal Equinox, however you look at it, and it marks the rebirth of life and the resurrection of what was only temporarily dead.
Easter and the rites of spring are rife with fertility symbols:
eggs, rabbits, leavened risen breads. In the myths, Persephone is returned to her mother, Demeter, who celebrates by raising life from the very ground again. The celtic crone, the Calliach, having slept through the dead winter, awakens restored to maidenhood as the Bride.
The cycle of life and death eats its tail, like the cosmic Worm Ourobouros, and there is no end or beginning, only the infinite continuity in which death is merely a station platform where you wait for the next train.
Eostre, the goddess of Spring, is breathing new life into everything. The outrages of the past few weeks, with their emphasis on clinging to this little piece of the world at all costs, symbolize what we have forgotten about the universe: that nothing is ever lost. Life serves death, which then returns the favor.
Carl Sagan used to say "We are made of star stuff!" in that almost breathless voice of his.
And it's true. Our component physical elements will eventually come apart and dissolve into the greater cosmos, and re-meld into the world in preparation for being once more incorporated into the bodies of new people, animals, and stars. Even without going into the controversial issue of the human soul, we can safely say that we will live on through eternity, and even if we did no good in this life, maybe we will in another.
So Happy Easter, Happy Ostara, Happy Vernal Equinox to you all. Enjoy your rebirth, in this life and the next.
Today I am sick of myself and my gloomy, fault-finding, "everything is so fucked up" tirades. Today embodies human acknowledgement of the eternal cycle of life, and I'm on that bus.
For Christians, it's Easter. For pagans, its Ostara. It's the Vernal Equinox, however you look at it, and it marks the rebirth of life and the resurrection of what was only temporarily dead.Easter and the rites of spring are rife with fertility symbols:
eggs, rabbits, leavened risen breads. In the myths, Persephone is returned to her mother, Demeter, who celebrates by raising life from the very ground again. The celtic crone, the Calliach, having slept through the dead winter, awakens restored to maidenhood as the Bride. The cycle of life and death eats its tail, like the cosmic Worm Ourobouros, and there is no end or beginning, only the infinite continuity in which death is merely a station platform where you wait for the next train.Eostre, the goddess of Spring, is breathing new life into everything. The outrages of the past few weeks, with their emphasis on clinging to this little piece of the world at all costs, symbolize what we have forgotten about the universe: that nothing is ever lost. Life serves death, which then returns the favor.
Carl Sagan used to say "We are made of star stuff!" in that almost breathless voice of his.
And it's true. Our component physical elements will eventually come apart and dissolve into the greater cosmos, and re-meld into the world in preparation for being once more incorporated into the bodies of new people, animals, and stars. Even without going into the controversial issue of the human soul, we can safely say that we will live on through eternity, and even if we did no good in this life, maybe we will in another.So Happy Easter, Happy Ostara, Happy Vernal Equinox to you all. Enjoy your rebirth, in this life and the next.
