By Feline Charpentier, 6.2 Houseparent and Teacher of Outdoor Work

Ostara, or the spring equinox, falls this Saturday, and marks the first point of spring in the Northern Hemisphere. It marks the moment when the sun crosses the equator line, and heads north. It is also known as the vernal equinox, ver in latin meaning spring – think verdant, youthful, fresh. Day and night are of equal length, and from then on our days begin to lengthen. All around us nature is coming alive, and there are signs of this life everywhere we look, from the lambs in the fields to the buds on the trees. The daffodils on Emma’s walk are just beginning to show off their glorious egg yolk yellow. The sound of birdsong is hard to miss everywhere in school!

Ostara, from the Germanic goddess Oestre, and the root of the word Oestrogen, the hormone which stimulates ovulation, was how our ancestors marked the spring, and saw the end of winter. It is a time of perfect balance, of finding harmony, between the dark and the light, the inner and outer, between intuition and the rational.

It is a time where embracing male and female energies, regardless of gender, can be full of potential, and give life to new ideas and ways of seeing the world. It is often in the state of harmony, and balance, that true change can occur. It is a time when all those gentle hopes we had at Imbolc might be beginning to come to fruition. When we can truly look forward, not back.

Two of the symbols we still mark this time of year with, the hare and the egg, have their origins at least in part in the ancient festival of Ostara. The goddess Oestre was often depicted as having the head of a hare, a symbol of immortality and rebirth. There are many versions of the story where she changed a bird into a hare to have as her companion. Eggs were thus given and received as gifts, as potent symbols of life and the fertility of the earth. The yolk and the white representing the perfect harmony of life.

Ostara is a wonderful time to literally, and figuratively, plant seeds for the year ahead. Having more time in the day to do all those jobs we wait all winter to begin is so energising, and there is a spring in the step of those you meet on walks. On our sixth form course we have been planning our planting for the year ahead, choosing seeds and imagining the bounty in the autumn.

Spring clean your space, ridding it of the cloak of winter, and face the summer ahead with fresh eyes. Bring buds into your home to see life burst forth, paint eggs, spend the day outdoors enjoying the longer daylight and fresh air. Why not revisit the intentions made at Imbolc, and step forth boldly into the light. Now is the time we may see them bloom. Celebrate the different aspects of your being, the balance that exists, noticing how we all live harmoniously with one another most of the time, even through crisis and hardship. There is so much to look forward to.