Gabrielle has enjoyed many moons of honoring the seasons in ceremony and celebration.  She brings her experience in practicing ritual to share with you, with the intention that when we joyfully celebrate the seasons we draw closer to the spirit of our Goddess Queen.

Greetings, fellow Goddess Queens!  Welcome to Spring!  Recently I had the pleasure of joining in magical celebration with sweet-souled women at the Goddess Queen Gathering on the Vernal Equinox.  We welcomed Ostara, the goddess of Spring, and her masculine counterpart, The Green Man, in honor of the changing season and the renewal of life.  The equinox brings a time of balance, of equal day and night, and with it the balance of feminine and masculine energies and their reunion.  Potent stuff!  Calling upon the solar energy of the return of spring, we meditated on where we sought to invoke new life and affirmed our intentions by merrily leaping over the traditional bonfire.

Many of the familiar symbols of spring have ancient roots in honoring fertility and renewal.  If you’d like to have your own celebration of spring, here are some considerations for arranging an altar.  Pastel colors, eggs, bunnies, lambs and springtime flowers are appropriate elements.

The perennially popular Easter bunny was originally associated with the goddess, pleasing her so greatly that she put the rabbit’s image on the face of the moon.  Look for the hare when the moon is full and you’ll see his twitchy nose pointing to the left, with his long ears upright and cottony tail behind.  The blessed bunny retains the childlike aspect of spring, with its hip-hoppity manner, while remaining a clear reminder of ample fertility.  Given its ability to leap from the earth and into the air with agility, the rabbit may be placed in the east to represent the element of air in ceremony.

The lamb has long been associated with significant holidays in many cultures, and remains today as the Easter lamb, the lamb of god and the sacrificial lamb.  It’s the entrance of the sun into the sign of Aries, ruled by the Ram, that has signaled the beginning of spring from ancient times to present day. The gentler aspect of the lusty Ram, the lamb was sacred to the goddess, signifying the ability of life to survive through the cold winter and revive at lambing time. To invoke the life-affirming aspect of the lamb-Ram, place it in the south to represent the element of fire and the Sun.

What we commonly call Easter eggs (I like to call them Ostara eggs, in honor of the ancient Teutonic goddess of Spring) predated the Christian era as offerings of the season. They are recognized by many cultures as a universal symbol representing the womb, the mother and new life itself.  Their particular association with spring is attributed to the effect that the lengthening daylight in ancient times had (pre- 24/7 electricity!) in triggering hens to begin laying eggs.  Eggs were given as gifts of the season, used as fertility amulets and, of course, eaten in celebration.  With their watery association with the womb, eggs can be used in ceremony to represent the element of water and the west.

The budding flowers of springtime delight us with their fragrant beauty.  Among the daffodils, tulips and other spring time blooms, the lily calls out to be recognized.  Originally a symbol of the celebration of the renewal of life and fertility, the lily came to be associated in the Christian era with sexual purity, innocence, death and mourning.  The lily appears at funerals, in images portraying young martyred female saints, and as the Easter lily. But during the time of the goddess, the lily represented the feminine, sexual attraction, and the goddess in her newly fertile, sexually aware maiden form. As such, the lily was sacred to Venues, Aphrodite, as well as Ostara and other springtime goddesses.  In pagan Greece and Rome, it adorned Ostara altars and temples as a symbol of life.  Young men, playing the role of the lusty young god, would present them to the young woman they were courting.  Accepting the lily meant much the same thing as accepting a diamond ring does now.  To restore this potent feminine symbol to a place of honor, grace the elements of north and earth with the goddess’ beloved lily.

For the center of your altar, place a candle to honor the increasing sunlight that brings the balance of day and night.  You might also choose to place images representing the reunion of the feminine and masculine, such as gentle Ostara or lovely Aphrodite and the Green Man, a symbol of the return of plant life who was clothed entirely in leafy green.

With your altar set for spring, may your celebration bring you many blessings and the joyous renewal of your Goddess Queen self!

Gabrielle has been involved in ceremony for over seven years, and combines a passion for Astrology, Tarot, and Feng Shui with a love of celebrating the seasonal cycles of nature, nurtured by the Goddess in nature and in community.