Ostara, a pagan spring revelry
Ostara is the ancient festival of life, far older than christianity and religion itself.
It was not long after the hunt had resumed after the long winter. Passion and blood flowed freely, boiling in the veins. The trees were still naked. Birds didn’t rest on the branches. The strong colors of the campfire cast its power across the gray landscape.
The skin turned towards the flames was hot. The skin turned away was cold. But hot bodies growing hotter turned in the dance, in the ancient celebration of renewal, of life surging through the Human Being. The blood of the Hunt fills the mouth, flow down the throat. The power of its flesh spread throughout the body. On the cave wall and on skin carvings incantations and images of the mind are given form. Dead animals live again.
Life, in all its forms is celebrated, without shame or guilt or restraint.
We feel those ancients tonight, as we move in rapid, exhaustive movements around the large fire, feel them in body and mind and in the deepest recesses of our being.
People are held in strict reins in present day society. At every turn as a child and as an adult, throughout their life they’re told to behave, to control themselves, to obey law and rule and to adhere to Order.
At Witchnight, any Witchnight they’re told, from the very start and throughout the night and/or weekend the complete opposite, told to let go, to listen to their inner selves, told anything is allowed. With words and acts and all possible ways this is conveyed to them. I’ve seen it so many times, seen a closed up flower open herself or himself and finally become a Human Being in its own right. It’s a sight to Behold, yet another beyond valued experience to those of us always encouraging such wild and unfettered celebration of Life.
There is thought, there is drinking, there are bold words and actions and opinions, as the celebration takes off in earnest.
When we undress it happens like the most natural of the world. Clothes slips off us like mercury. When the touching begins it hardly feels awkward at all. It’s just… life, in its natural state, unfettered by fake modern notions of morality and decency. We move, around the fires and each other, like planets and stars around each other, gracing the others’ outer limits, moving in on the warm, hot-blooded body closest to us.
Is this right? Someone will ask.
We don’t ask that. In fact we find the fact that anybody will ridiculous and offensive.
When the savage mating begins it feels effortless, so casual and natural that the very question slips from our heated minds.
The rest of the night is a blur, is clarity we have hardly previously experienced. It can’t be properly described, only Lived.
The Night is alive around us, Burning with a heat stronger than any star, and so are we.
Christianity stole, preempted Ostara, like it did with many of the ancient pagan celebrations, but tonight we retake it, retake life itself from those who would destroy it and enjoy it while doing so. Tomorrow, we think, tomorrow we will address that, all that, tomorrow…
If tomorrow comes.