The Almanac · Calendars & tools
Rituals · Liber XXXV · Witchcraft & Wicca
Ostara (Spring Equinox)
Gardnerian Book of Shadows (c. 1949–61); Gerald Gardner, Witchcraft Today (1954) and The Meaning of Witchcraft (1959); wider Wiccan practice
The Gardnerian Book of Shadows contained a spring equinox rite among its lesser sabbats, celebrating in the circle the renewed vigour of the Sun. The name Ostara was attached to the festival in the early 1970s, chiefly through Aidan Kelly's calendar, drawing on Bede's eighth-century note about an Anglo-Saxon goddess Eostre whose month gave Easter its name, and on Jacob Grimm's reconstruction of a German Ostara. Folk Easter customs, especially decorated eggs and hares, were absorbed as symbols of fertility. The theme of balance between light and dark is central, and many covens plant seeds or bless them in the circle for the coming season.
Purpose
The spring equinox marks the balance of day and night and the growing power of the Sun, celebrated in Wicca as the awakening of the land.
Timing
- Season / time
- The sabbat of Ostara
At the vernal equinox, around 20–21 March in the northern hemisphere. Wiccan festivals are commonly reckoned from sunset on the eve.
Materials
- candles
- salt and water
- incense
- cakes and wine (or ale)
- eggs (decorated)
- seeds
Tools
- athame (black-handled knife)
- white-handled knife
- wand
- pentacle
- censer
- cauldron
Fire safety with candles, censer and any bonfire or cauldron fire.