Bummer April Part II: More Unfortunate Happenings in the Month of April

This is the latest preview of a work in progress tentatively titled Almanac of Bad Days. For the origin of the project, see this post. 

Last year's April post

April 14, 1865: U.S. president Abraham Lincoln is shot by John Wilkes Booth.

April 15, 1865: After being in a coma for eight hours, Abraham Lincoln dies from the bullet wound inflicted on him by John Wilkes Booth.

April 21, 2016: The musician who performs as Prince (Prince Rogers Nelson) is found dead in an elevator inside his home. He has apparently passed away from taking pills of the opioid medication hydrocodone, to which he was addicted, which were counterfeit and laced with fentanyl. He is 57 years old.

On the same day, true crime writer Michelle McNamara dies in her sleep of an accidental overdose of street drugs and prescription medication. McNamara’s husband, actor Patton Oswalt, has acknowledged that McNamara was addicted to opioids. Her health condition was caused, in part, by her harrowing research on her book I'll Be Gone in the Dark: One Woman's Obsessive Search for the Golden State Killer. The book tells the story of a serial rapist and murderer who was not caught until 2018, two years after McNamara’s death.

April 22, 1915: 27-year-old poet Rupert Brooks dies of sepsis due to wounds he received fighting for the British Royal Navy during the First World War.

April 22, 1987: 52-year-old Ruthie Mae McCoy, who lives in the Grace Abbott Homes public housing project in Chicago, called the police to report that, “...some people next door are totally tearing this down, you know–” When the dispatcher pressed her for clarification, McCoy said, “Yeah, they throwed the cabinet down...I’m in the projects, I’m on the other side. You can reach—can reach my bathroom, they want to come through the bathroom.” 

What the dispatcher didn’t know was that in the Grace Abbott Homes, the contractors who built the building had left the apartments’ back-to-back bathrooms connected by a narrow tunnel, which had made access easier for the plumbers. Neighborhood residents intent on burglary had discovered that by removing the bathroom mirror of one apartment, they could crawl through the narrow tunnel and reach the bathroom of the apartment on the opposite side.

This is what happened to McCoy: would-be burglars came through the space where her bathroom mirror had been and shot her to death. A second 911 call from a neighbor reported the sound of gunshots coming from McCoy’s apartment. Police knocked on McCoy’s door that night, but when they received no answer, they left without entering the apartment. Apparently they were unwilling to break down the door due to the prospect of being sued. 

McCoy’s lifeless body is found the next day; she has been shot four times. The tragic story of urban neglect and the intruders who entered the apartment through a bathroom mirror inspired the movie Candyman. 

April 22, 2000: Playing Judas in an Easter play in Rome, Renato Di Paolo dies by accidental hanging. His death is caught on film by a member of the audience.

April 22, 2012: Brazilian actor Tiago Klimeck is taken off life support and dies. He has been in a coma since accidentally hanging himself while performing as Judas Iscariot in an Easter passion play in Itarare, Brazil. Klimeck is 27 years old. He may have accidentally gotten some of his clothes tangled in the safety harness meant to give him the illusion of hanging by his neck.

April 22, 2021: 57-year-old Gregory Jacobs, the musician who rapped under the name Shock G and other aliases, dies of an apparently accidental overdose of fentanyl, alcohol, and methamphetamine. 

April 25, 2002: Rapper Lisa “Left Eye” Lopes is driving an SUV in La Cieba, Honduras, where she’s filming a documentary while on a spiritual retreat with her two siblings. She swerves to avoid an oncoming vehicle, only to swerve into the path of another vehicle, causing her to swerve sharply to the left. She strikes two trees, throwing her and three passengers from the SUV. Lopes, who is only 30 years old, dies instantly of severe head trauma. Her passengers are injured, but survive.

Easter Sexcerpt: From "Jesus and Mary Magdalene: Partners in the Hieros Gamos" (A Heretical Love Story)

In last year's Epic Easter Post, I brought up a certain book. That book was A Woman's Journey to God, written by Joan Borysenko, Ph.D. I love this book, and I recommend it for any female reader with spiritual leanings. (Atheistic women can safely skip this one, unless interested in reading it from a sociological/folklorical point of view.)

Part of what Borysenko does in this book is create for herself - and for anyone else who's willing to play along - a matriarchal women's mythology to complement the traditional patriarchal religious stories passed down through the Bible and other Judeo-Christian sources. Borysenko's inspirations include Margaret Starbird's The Woman With the Alabaster Jar, as well as non-canonical gospels, historical research and Holy Blood, Holy Grail by Lincoln, Leigh and Baigent. It's mostly Borysenko's storytelling from her own imagination, though.

"Jesus and Mary Magdalene: Partners in the Heiros Gamos" inside of A Woman's Journey to God isn't exactly a short story, but more of a long summary of the myth as Borysenko imagines it. I didn't own my own copy of the book last year when I wrote my Easter post, but I've acquired one since then, so I can share an excerpt:

"On the evening of the Sacred Marriage, Miriam was bathed in herbs from the ancient temple gardens, anointed with precious spikenard ointment, dressed in a simple shift of white silk, and left to her prayers. As the moon rose over the perfumed cloister, the Holy of Holies in the center of the temple, she knelt to pray. 'May this ancient act of Sacred Marriage, the holiest sacrament, repair the rift between God and Goddess. May the universe be made whole, and love restored to every human heart in our joining.'

"Yehoshuah, also dressed in a simple white shift, entered the walled garden and knelt before Miriam. Both were nearly breathless, shaking with anticipation of a ritual they had only dreamed of. Yehoshuah reached out, palms up, and took Miriam's small hands in his. A bolt of electricity ran through them as, looking into one another's eyes, they prayed.

"Together the Bride and Bridegroom poured seven crucibles of perfumed oil into an alabaster bowl. Each crucible represented a note of the scale that, when the notes came together, sings the universe into being. As Miriam and Yehoshuah sang each note, their voices rose through the still desert air, answered by a chorus of wild creatures...

Seven various vegetable oils - photo by Rasbak. Creative Commons license. 

"...Dipping their fingers into the bowl of perfumed oil they had consecrated together, each anointed the other in all their secret, holy places until the boundaries separating them disappeared, and flesh, once again, vibrated as primal energy.

"Miriam's lips whispered praises of God as she ran them over Yehoshuah's face, his neck, and his lithe brown body, hardened by physical labor in the desert sun. Yehoshuah's lips whispered praises of the Goddess as he kissed her delicate ears, the rose-petal tips of her breasts, the lips of her womanhood that are the portals of life. In the total joining of their hearts, minds, intentions, and bodies, the stars seemed to dip closer to earth...

"...Miriam brought her small hand up to the face of her beloved, brushing the wet strands of hair from his eyes. 'Tomorrow you must leave the temple,' she whispered. 'The time of your mission is upon us. For a moment the world was made whole through our love. Now you will teach people how to find their way back to that moment...The years of your ministry will be trying and short, my beloved, but I will always be there with you, by your side. Every pain is made bearable through love and understanding.'

"The two lovers were quiet, resting in both the joy and the sorrow of Yehoshuah's mission. The trees above them swayed gently in the warm breeze, breaking the moonlight into tender shafts that played over their naked, oiled bodies. Yehoshuah gathered Miriam's small form into his arms and loved her once again, the music of their joining spread throughout creation. Still inside her, he nuzzled her hair and sang to her from the Song of Songs, the ancient Scripture of the Sacred Marriage. 'Behold, you are beautiful, my love; behold you are beautiful, my beloved, truly lovely. Our couch is green; the beams of our house are cedar, our rafters are pine.'"

The Song of Songs in the Bible (traditionally read in its entirety on the Passover Sabbath in some Jewish communities) is one place that this ritual poetry of the sacred marriage is recorded; other Near Eastern examples also exist. Pasted into one of my scrapbooks, I have a clipping from a magazine called Common Boundary dated March/April 1994. (Common Boundary, a magazine of the intersection of psychology and spirituality, doesn't appear to be published anymore, but the library catalog website OCLC WorldCat shows some libraries have it in their collections.)

The clipping reprints an English translation of the text of a hymn written by or at least sung by a priestess of the goddess Inanna to her reigning (Sumerian) king, whose name was Shu-Sin. The priestess's name may have been Kubatum. The hymn reads, in part:

"You have won my soul,
I stand now trembling before you,
Lion, carry me now to the bed...
In the bed that is filled with honey,
Let us enjoy our love.
Lion, let me give you my caresses,
My sweet one, wash me with honey...
The place sweet as honey, put in your sweetness--
Like flour into the measure, squeeze in your sweetness--
Like pounding dry flour into the cup to be measured,
Pound in, pound in your sweetness--
These words I sing for Inanna."

The clay tablet on which this poem, sometimes considered the world's oldest known love poetry, is written in cuneiform resides in the Istanbul Museum of Archaeology. Shu-Sin is a historical king of Sumeria and Akkadia who was known to have reigned from about 2037-2029 BCE, during the third dynasty of Ur. Since the Sumerians celebrated the sacred marriage of their king to the goddess Inanna at the spring equinox, that would make the sacred marriage - and its poetry - at least a 4,000-year-old Easter/Passover/Ostara tradition.

The baking metaphor, the pounding of flour and honey into a vessel - why does that sound so familiar? Ah, yes...

My Own Personal Jesus ~ The EPIC Easter Post

"I'm no missionary; I don't even believe in Jebus." "Save me, Jebus!"

~Homer Simpson, "Missionary: Impossible" (Simpsons, season 11)


"There's only three men I'm'a serve my whole life
It's my daddy and Nebraska and Jesus Christ"

~Lady Gaga, "You & I"

Happy Easter! It's also Pesach (Passover); tonight will be the second seder night.

Some may think that because my blog is called Pagan Spirits, I must not celebrate Easter or believe in Jesus, but this is not the case. I was raised Catholic, you know. Now when I want to go to church, I go to Episcopalian services, because I kind of fell in love with the Church of England's American sister. Just 'cause I'm a witch doesn't mean I don't love Jesus.

No, really, you can do that - ask Joan Borysenko. She wrote a fabulous, amazing book called A Woman's Journey to God.



On pages 218-226 of this book, Borysenko writes the passage that gave me a new appreciation of Yeshua bar Yahosef (Jesus, son of Joseph, in Hebrew) as the mythological archetype of the Annually Dying and Returning Vegetation God, like Tammuz, Osiris or Dionysus. Based on the work of Margaret Starbird, the book Holy Blood, Holy Grail (the same book on which The Da Vinci Code is partially based) and her own imagination, Borysenko created "Jesus and Mary: Partners in the Hieros Gamos."



Heiros gamos, as readers of The Da Vinci Code know, is Greek for "sacred marriage," a sexual rite in which the woman represents the Goddess and the man represents a male God. Borysenko envisions Mary of Magdala (Magdala being Hebrew for "watchtower") as a zonah, a word that means both prophetess and "prostitute." Not "prostitute" literally in the sense that they took money, but they had sex with the various worshipers who came to the temple. In modern Hebrew usage, "zonah" also means Jewish woman who has sex with non-Jewish men.

Mary Magdalene was a priestess of the Mother Goddess. In Borysenko's telling, Jesus comes to the temple of the Goddess, called Esther. Esther is a form of the goddess-name Asherah, or Ishtar. When the young priestess Mary reached a mature age, she and Jesus made the sacred marriage. It's a beautiful story.

Jesus is the archetypal solstice-born male god who becomes the consort of the Goddess, delights her with lovemaking, dies and goes to the Underworld and then is reborn to start the whole process anew.

In The Woman's Encyclopedia of Myths and Secrets, Barbara G. Walker links Esther/Asherah/Ishtar with other Near Eastern goddesses, including Egyptian Isis (called Star of the Sea, a title also applied to Mary the mother of Jesus - Key West has a Catholic church called Mary Star of the Sea), Indian Kali and Astarte. Astarte was called Queen of Heaven, where she kept the souls of the dead in the form of the stars. She is recalled in the Bible in Jeremiah 44:19:

"And," said the women, "when we were burning sacrifices to the queen of heaven and were pouring out drink offerings to her, was it without our husbands that we made for her sacrificial cakes in her image and poured out drink offerings to her?"

A beautiful image of Astarte by the artist Amanda Clark can be found here at Love of the Goddess blog.

"Esther" is the Hebrew word for "star," and Walker contends the Biblical Esther celebrated at Purim is a version of Ishtar; Mordecai is Ishtar's consort Marduk. In this version of the myth, rather than Marduk/Mordecai being personally sacrified, a proxy is accepted in his place - Haman.

The virgin form of the mother goddess is Mari, and it is no coincidence that the mother of Jesus and the bride of Jesus have the same name. In the ancient Near Eastern legend, the Goddess is both mother and lover, the young God both son and lover in a never-ending yearly cycle of sacrifice and rebirth. It's an extended metaphor for the yearly cycle of the seasons and the crops, so try not to be too freaked out by the incestuous implications. The son is the grain-seed that has to be buried in the earth (his mother) and "die" so he can sprout/be reborn and we can eat.



For an alternate literary version of the son-lover's sacrifice, see "The Sacrifice" in The Virago Book of Erotic Myths and Legends by Shahrukh Husain.



I said in a previous Easter post that the name of Ostara, a Germanic goddess said to be the origin of the name "Easter," may not be historically accurate. This is still true, although I will point out that Walker traces "Ostara" to "Astarte."

In a movie by A Douchebag Who Shall Not Be Named During Passover, this is Jesus.

http://pinterest.com/pin/46936021088155415/

This gorgeous Italian-American is Jim Caviezel, and he's who I'm imagining when I'm envisioning the sacred marriage of Jesus and Mary. (We won't get into the whole issue of why Hollywood likes Jews to be played by Italians; that's a rant for another day.) Your image of Jesus may vary.

It could be Christian Bale in Mary, Mother of Jesus. But it could be.

It probably won't be this.



Related songs in a Jesus groove:

"Personal Jesus," the Depeche Mode original

"Rock Me Sexy Jesus" from Hamlet 2

"Like a Prayer" - Madonna

"Jesus Walks" - Kanye West

"Crucified" - Army of Lovers

"Crucified" - cover by German Goth-rock band Atargatis - appropriately, named for the Syrian mother-goddess, the mother/lover of Mithras according to Husain

"Judas" - Lady Gaga as an Italian-American Mary Magdalene - wouldn't she go great with Jim Caviezel as Jesus?

Preview of 'The Dark is Light Enough for Me' by John Claude Smith

Good Friday, all. I say that as in "Have a good Friday," but on some of the Christian calendars, today is Good Friday, the commemoration of the death of Jesus. Today represents the ancient tradition, largely observed by women, of mourning the death of the Annually Dying and Returning Vegetation God. 


This will make tomorrow Holy Saturday, or to people of Polish descent, Święconka. I've been pronouncing it "Swiss Sanka," but that may not be very authentic. The Sweiconka tradition is to make Easter baskets filled with the food that will be eaten on Easter Sunday, take them to the Catholic church and have them blessed by the priest. 


I am excited for my upcoming Epic Easter Post - can you tell? 

Now, please enjoy the work of John Claude Smith in these two excerpts from his The Dark is Light Enough for Me. 


John Claude says: The first sample is from, “Not Breathing,” a kind of Burroughsesque romp through the horror of addiction...with Horror being as much a part of what’s transpired as addiction. Hmmm... The second piece is from, “The Sunglasses Girl,” a hint of things to come as she, a woman who seems simply a prostitute, though we learn so much more about what she really is, shows the main character, Trane, a little of something he shouldn’t be prying into seeing, hehe...

Excerpt 1: 

“The sheets are devoid of anything but stale smells and my quaking body and the needle that still protrudes from my scarred arm.
 
I force myself from their tangled grasp, slouch into the bathroom. The mirror is broken but I can still see my reflection—our reflection—skin draped sickly over a hunched skeleton splashed in the middle like a shattered ripple across a restless lake; restless because I convulse in disgust, scratching scabs off of bruised arms. 

Off of dead arms, the bruises indicative of decay, of death.

I move closer, staring into the void that is my pupils, my eyes; eyes I used to know so well. 
The mirror disavows my presence. The fog of breath is absent. 

I hit the mirror with my bony fist; it is not the first time. My reflection splints even more, pieces raining to the sink, the floor. 

All the king’s horses and all the king’s men… 

Each piece holds a sliver of my soul, of what used to be my soul. Of what was abandoned, but has never found a home after…

What remains is the body, the rotting flesh and abysmal vestiges of what once was human. 
The silence of my scream, the bloodless stump that is my ragged hand, the soot collecting on my transfixed orbs, all is grim confirmation that the monkey riding my back is a weighty gorilla intent on breaking it.

Having opened my eyes to the possibilities, it is made excruciatingly clear that my reality has been shaped by the needle, ever since my death, the death of my soul, and the bewilderment that accompanies my being, my still being here, existing somehow, a zombie but not a zombie, a dream of being human again.”

Excerpt 2:

“... She smiled, all teeth, vicious, gleaming with disgust, and took off her sunglasses.

“Remember, you made this choice,” she seethed.

The moment was brief. Description was useless, but Trane’s mind flashed with unexpected images: vast gulfs of infinite, starless space; yawning abysses where the lost tumbled for eternity; black scars that oozed blindness. He felt an oppression begin to suffocate him. She had no eyes, per se, just the empty sockets where they should be, empty sockets that defined the word “empty” in new, disturbing ways: fathomless wells in which the echoed response of the dropped stone would never speak. They epitomized nothingness, a vast, turbulent nothingness that indicated there was no soul within her, no self, nothing of substance—nothing!—but something of unspecified definition that roiled like a cavern of agitated bats. The nothingness started to leak like viscous black rivers from a whirlpool of resentment and hatred and loathing and spite and so much more negativity—negativity, that was what he witnessed; the whirlpool writhed with an omniscient negativity—Trane’s head pulsated with the pummeling weight of her wrath. He gasped, his erection went south, and she put the sunglasses back on. 

It was only one moment.”

An Ostara Prayer and a Poetry Giveaway

First, the giveaway: I have four copies of the April 2012 Poetry magazine to give away to the first four readers who ask. All you have to do is let me know you want them. I'll send you an e-mail asking for a mailing address. I'll also include bookmarks from author Katie Salidas.

Today on some Christian calendars is Holy Thursday, known in the Church of England as Maundy Thursday. It commemorates Jesus' last seder meal, the Last Supper. Modern Christian celebrations of Maundy Thursday often involve foot-washing ceremonies. In the Catholic church, this is day for the yearly blessing of the holy oil used in baptisms and other sacraments.

Some Christians mark Maundy Thursday with a tenebrae (Latin for "shadows" or "darkness") service, a special service in which a series of readings are read aloud in church and a candle is extinguished after each reading, the last of which leaves the congregation in near darkness. (Some Christian denominations observe tenebrae services on Good Friday.) Tenebrae services are meant to recall the betrayal and anguish of Jesus.

Public domain image

The mood of anguish and betrayal lasts no more than four days, however. Easter, whether one observes the Christian traditions, the Pagan ones or both, is triumphant. The following Ostara/Easter prayer written by Diana Paxson comes from the publishers of Witches&Pagans, Crone and SageWoman magazines. It captures the change in mood that accompanies the spring holidays.

Ostara, public domain image

You can sign up to receive the publishers' e-mail updates at news@bbimedia.com. 

Hail Ostara, eastward arising,
Laughing goddess, Lady of Light —
To dawn, dominion over darkness
Thy glory has granted, gone is the night!
Winter’s wrath by winds of warmth
The maiden’s might has melted here
Everywhere green plants are growing,
Flowers flourish, she-beasts bear;
Let Thy light’s illumination
Banish sorrow, blessings bring,
Grant success, and a good season
To those who seek thee here this spring!
You are the sunlight on the leaves,
You are the music of the stream,
You are the scent upon the wind,
You are the dreamer and the dream.
You transform sorrow into joy,
You transform darkness into day,
You transform winter into warmth,
And death’s dominion fades away.You are consistency in change,
You are the patterning of chance.
You are never twice the same,
You are the dancer and the dance.

This article is an excerpt from “Ostara, Lady of Spring” first published in SageWoman 41, Spring 1998.

Diana Paxson is a leading loremistress, author, and seer in the Pagan and Heathen communities; her column “She of 10,000 Names” appears regularly in SageWoman. Find her at www.diana-paxson.com 

Paxson is the author of Taking Up the Runes: A Complete Guide to Using Runes in Spells, Rituals, Divination and Magic. When her mentor Marion Zimmer Bradley's health began to fail after she wrote Mists of Avalon, Paxton took up the series and wrote the sequels. 

A Post Blogged by an Idiot, Full of Sound and Fury, Signifying Nothing

Melange Books has released The Smell of Gas, an erotic, pulp-style crime thriller by your humble author and her husband Tit Elingtin. It's available now in print and e-book formats. I don't want to blog about it here, though. I already blogged about it today on Breaking In Before Breaking Down. I would rather blog about...breakfast.

It was a fine, sunny morning in my home town this morning, so Tit Elingtin walked over to our usual breakfast spot, then went on a 3-mile walk along the river. I had the pancake special, chocolate chip pancakes. Delicious. Along with the chunks of candy in my breakfast, I was also treated to a hunk of eye candy, a guy at a table across from us who looked just like Sam Worthington. (I wish I had a Hunk du Jour photo to link to, but somehow HdJ has managed to miss the Aussie stunner.) Well, almost just like - this guy's hair was a little redder.

Many of you will remember Sam Worthington from Avatar. I like to remember him from Terminator: Salvation, because, well, I just like to think about Christian Bale.

I also like to remember Sam Worthington's interpretation of MacBeth. Those who love Claire and Leo in the contemporary telling of Romeo + Juliet (may Pete Postlethwaite rest in peace - best Friar Laurence ever!) will enjoy the 2006 version of MacBeth starring Worthington. I like the sexy, redheaded Scottish witches. They're like a trio of soothsaying Shirley Mansons.



This weekend I have rented, but have not yet watched, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Undead. Should be a good one, though. It has Hamlet, vampires and a score by Sean Lennon. So far, the best film take I've seen on the Hamlet story remains Royal Deceit, with Gabriel Byrne, Kate Beckinsale and Christian Bale. Not just Christian Bale, but a NAKED TEENAGE Christian Bale. Best Shakespearean version? I like Ethan Hawke's attempt. Julia Stiles is a particularly charming Ophelia.

Do not get me started on the Mel Gibson version of Hamlet. I will no longer watch films with that anti-Semitic, misogynistic douchebag. Except maybe Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome; Mel is canceled out by Tina Turner, feminist icon supreme and possible reincarnation of ancient Egyptian woman-pharaoh Hatshepsut.

Sooooo anyway, Sam Worthington's redder-haired doppelganger sat in the restaurant, eating sausages off a fork in a way that would make an erotica writer with an active imagination think impure thoughts. In stepped a cute woman with a ponytail, approximately Sam 2's age, and I thought they would make a good couple. They would have adorable babies. Because, you know, babies are what you're supposed to be thinking about when it's a warm spring day, you're surrounded by egg and bunny decorations and everybody's getting ready to celebrate Ostara.

I would like to have some brilliant post connecting the Pagan celebration of Ostara with Jewish Passover and Christian Easter, since Passover was this week and it is Easter weekend. I don't. I have this, a post blogged by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. (I promise you a worthy Beltane post on May 1.) Buy a copy of The Smell of Gas!

https://amzn.to/49Sd9SB

Easter: Why the Egg?

Why is the egg the symbol of Easter?

Hens will only lay eggs when they've received at least 12 hours of light a day. Before electric lights, this meant hens only laid eggs in the six months of the year when the earth gets the most sunlight, from the spring equinox to the fall equinox. Fresh eggs were a natural sign of spring in the time when they were only available during the warm months of the year. Like seeds, the egg is also a symbol of the beginning of life.

According to some historians, the egg was adopted as the symbol of Easter because Christians traditionally abstained from eating eggs during Lent. On Easter, they could break their egg-fast and eat them again. Eggs, according to St. Augustine, are also a symbol of hope, because the egg, like hope, is something that has not yet come to fruition.

Another connection Christians make with the egg is the phoenix. This mythical bird builds a funeral pyre for itself and dies. From its ashes, an egg emerges, and the phoenix is reborn. Because of its death and resurrection, the phoenix became a symbol for Jesus.

Many cultures consider the egg a symbol of rebirth and reincarnation. In Asia, eggs dyed red are given at births and funerals. In some parts of Africa, and also in the Appalachian Mountains in the United States, eggs are buried near cemeteries to encourage the souls of the dead to be reborn.

The Easter egg hunt became popular in the United States only during the Civil War, when Abraham Lincoln brought the practice to the White House lawn. The practice of hunting hidden eggs in spring predates Lincoln by thousands of years, though. It originated in Asia, where the hunt for the icon of reincarnation symbolized the individual's personal responsibility for his or her own karma. It's emblematic of the hunt for new life for the soul.

In ancient Europe, the custom was to place eggs under the barn to increase the fertility of the animals...or under human beds to increase our own fertility. Planting eggs in a field or garden was also thought to make the plants more fruitful.

Eggs, in many ancient mythologies, played an important role in the creation of the world. In Hindu and Phoenician mythology, the world is formed from an egg which emerges from the primordial waters and splits in two. One half becomes the earth, and the other half becomes the sky. The Finnish creation story tells of the world forming from eggs laid in the lap of the water-mother. Hawaiians also have a legend about the big island of Hawaii forming from an egg laid on the water. It's unknown if there is any historical connection between these early creation stories and the Easter egg, though.

Eggs play a role in the Jewish Passover meal, the seder. They represent mourning for the destruction of the Temple. The Jewish celebration of the ancestors' escape from Egypt may have borrowed the symbol of the egg from Egyptian mythology.

Some European superstitions concern an egg laid by a hen on Good Friday (the Friday before Easter, commemorating the day Jesus died). It is said that such an egg is a powerful amulet against sudden death, or that it protects orchards from blight. The yolk of an egg laid on Good Friday, if kept for a hundred years, is said to turn into a diamond.

Other traditions say it's the Easter rabbit that lays the eggs. This custom supposedly arrived in the United States with Pennsylvania Dutch settlers. German children prepared a nest for the "Oschter Haws" (Easter hare) on Easter eve and found it filled with colored eggs the next morning. The association of Jesus with the Easter bunny may have come about because the rabbit emerges from its burrow in the ground like Jesus emerging from his tomb.

Some say the rabbit is also a form of the ancient Germanic goddess of the spring (sometimes called Eostre or Ostara, but this name may not be historically accurate), whose is a shape-shifter and can take on the form of any animals. Like the Greek goddess Artemis, the Roman Diana, or the Eastern European veela, she's the Lady of Wild Things, the huntress-goddess who serves as an intermediary between human beings and their game.

In Other News: Between now (April 3) and midnight, April 9, 2010, please help me out by stopping by http://www.coffeefuelederotica.blogspot.com/ [Link defunct - sorry.]. My entry is short story #3. Vote by leaving a comment. (You must leave a name; anonymous votes do not count.) Your help is appreciated!