Happy Easter - A New Beginning

CJ and I are taking a bit of a Spring break starting tomorrow afternoon. We will be out of town for a while. We need to enjoy more of our families, our child, and each for a little while.
When we return I think there will be both a new look to The Diary, and hopefully my creativity will have been refreshed. I took several people's suggestions in regards to becoming friends with my muse again and I think I'm almost there.
Thanks to everyone who offered suggestions and kept stopping by our little place.

I'd like to finish off this post with an article about observing Oestara, the holiday I celebrate as a pagan. Enjoy and I hope everyone's creativity blooms with the Spring.

Behind the doors of a locked bedroom a young Witch lights the ribbon-bedecked pastel candles on her altar and murmurs a private welcome to the Goddess of the Sun.

An elderly, robed man--a Druid alone in the woods--stirs blood-red wine three times three before offering a toast to the spirits of spring.

Children in the daycare center of the local Greek Orthodox Church dye hard-boiled eggs a rich red to share as gifts and offerings to celebrate the miracles of life renewed.

An ecumenical study group wends its collective way through the twists and turns of the labyrinth they have created to reenact ancient resurrection rituals and to honor the rebirth of many religions' deities of spring.

A Wiccan coven in England walks out to a secluded meadow bursting with new greenery and taps three times on the back of Mother Earth to gently awaken her from her Winters nap.

The citizens of a small town in Scotland march through the hills and meadow outside their village banging on pots and pans, blowing whistles, ringing bells, and shooting off rifles to celebrate the arrival of spring.

A solitary student of Witchcraft gathers the first flowers of the season to decorate her personal ritual space, and is surprised at how in tune with the earth's energies this simple act makes her feel.

An Irish lad dons the leafy mask of the Green Man and dances on his nimble feet through the streets of his village, where its citizens are celebrating the greening of the earth.

A German woman who has no conscious knowledge that the hare was an animal sacred to the Spring goddess of her ancestors still feels compelled to make a rabbit stew for her family's equinox dinner, a tradition practiced by her grandmother.

Simple.
Timeless.

by Edain McCoy Signs of a Greening Earth on beliefnet.com