Curiosonari

Easter has both a Christian significance as well as a non-religious significance. Does one have anything to do with the other? Well, not really. I mean I could get on my soapbox and explain why the two are associated but I’ll refrain. Instead, I’ll explain how the non-secular ceremony came to be.

Easter is a beautiful time because it celebrates the spring just like Holi and other holidays around the world. Spring is a time for rebirth and joy. My sisters and I have grown up with Easter egg hunts and baskets full of chocolates and other candies…and while the goodies were awesome, it was always the excitement that the Easter bunny would hide the eggs we had colored 1 or 2 days previously that would fill us with great anticipation.

Now my nephews and niece are at an age where they can celebrate Easter the way we did and the questions naturally come up…Where did the Easter Bunny come from? (Actually, my brother-in-law was the one that asked, so this blog is for you Raju bhaiya!)

Easter comes from the pagan goddess Eostre who in turn was celebrated during a yearly pagan festival. She represented spring, new life and growth among other things. The rabbit was a symbol of Eostre and was most probably her companion just as many gods and goddesses in many walks of life have an animal companion. It might be easy to see why she would have chosen a rabbit to be her companion since rabbits multiply so quickly during the spring.

Eggs are also a good symbol of fertility and new life so perhaps that’s how the egg was associated with the rabbit. Evenutally, the Easter Bunny was said to hide the Easter eggs for kids to find.

What I find really interesting is that the Germans had this myth of an Easter rabbit for the last 1000 years and then introduced it to America . The Pennsylvania Dutch (German) people started handing out colored eggs to children about 300 years ago in America. However the full non-secular ceremony of Easter wasn’t really celebrated in the States till after the Civil War.

The ceremony continues at our house. Keshav and Anvita came to our house to color the eggs and then the Easter Bunny showed up early Sunday morning to hide them in our backyard and left Easter baskets for all the children. We had alot of fun.

Hope everyone had a Happy Easter!

- Shannon

This entry was posted on Tuesday, April 10th, 2007 at 7:24 am and is filed under Stuff. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.