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The Green Shoots Month

March

The Romans called this month Martius after the god Mars, who was the god of war and agriculture alike since March opened the season for both farming and fighting. As a warrior god, Mars also protected the crops, so “it was to Mars that the Roman husbandman prayed for the prosperity of his grain and vines, his fruit trees and his copses.”61 From this we get our name “March.” In the oldest known Roman calendar, the year began in March, though this was later shifted to January with the reforms of Julius Caesar.

In the UK we still say that March comes in like a lion and goes out like a lamb, beginning with cold and blustery winds and ending with longer, brighter days. The winds of March perform an important function and were considered by the old farmers to dry out the fields and make the soil right for planting. March was even called Hlyda or Lide in Old English, which is a reference to the loud winds.

We can feel energy building in the natural world as it responds to the increasing light during this month. Vigorous life is returning to the land; everywhere shoots push up through the earth, trees bud, flowers blossom, and animals and birds begin to mate—the earth is waking up. It is a time of renewal, of promise, of hope when the Sun God gains strength, when the Vegetation God emerges from the earth, and the Maiden Goddess is wreathed in flowers.

In ancient Greece, the festival of the Anthestêria was celebrated in honour of the god Dionysus Anthios (Dionysus the Blossoming), as the first flowers heralded his return in spring.62 It fell when the fermentation of the wine made in the autumn was complete and it was ready to sample, reminding everyone that life and the seasons are cyclical, that what is born will die and be reborn again. All the temples of the gods were closed except the Limnaion (“in the marshes”), the temple of Dionysus that contained a sacred spring, a passageway to the underworld. The temple was only opened on this one day of the year, and its opening unlocked the way between the worlds of the living and the dead, enabling Dionysus, who had been dwelling in the underworld during the winter, to return, along with the shades of the dead attracted by the scent of the opening of the pithoi (large wine jars) left fermenting over winter, half buried in the earth, and now ready to taste. Swaying Dionysus masks were hung in the trees, sending good luck and fertility wherever they looked.

The Hieros Gamos, the ritual marriage of the Basilinna (“queen”) to the god Dionysus, was celebrated. In this ceremony she represented Ariadne, the Cretan princess and daughter of Minos who helped Theseus defeat the Minotaur and guided him out of the labyrinth. Theseus abandoned Ariadne on Naxos, where she was found by the god Dionysus, who married her. In one version of the myth, she later hanged herself from a tree and was rescued from the underworld realm of the dead by Dionysus. The themes here are all of emergence from the underworld, like the seed sprouting from the ground, like the Vegetation God in spring. On the last day of the festival, it was necessary to purge the city of the spirits of the dead ancestors, so a meal was prepared for the dead and for the god Hermes Chthonios, their guide, who would take them back to the underworld. With this banishing of the dead, the god Dionysus and the year could finally be resurrected.

In ancient Rome, a ten-day festival in honour of the vegetation god Attis, son and lover of the goddess Cybele, took place. A young pine tree representing Attis was carried into the city like a corpse, swathed in a linen shroud and decked with violets, then placed in a sepulchre in Cybele’s temple, which stood on what is now Vatican Hill, near where St. Peter’s stands.63 On the Day of Blood, also called Black Friday,64 the priests of the cult gashed themselves with knives as they danced ecstatically, sympathizing with Cybele in her grief and helping restore Attis to life. That night was spent holding a vigil over the tomb. The next morning, a priest opened the sepulchre at dawn, revealing that it was empty and announcing that the God was risen. This day was known as Hilaria, or the Day of Joy, a time of feasting and merriment.65 The worshippers cheered as the priest announced, “Be of good cheer, neophytes, seeing that the God is saved; for we also, after our toils, shall find salvation!”66 The longer, warmer days of spring had come, and vegetation was emerging from the earth.

In an echo of the rites of Attis, in Western Christian tradition, Easter often falls during this month. It marks the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, sacrificed on a cross, but when his tomb was opened after three days, it was found empty, and he was declared to have risen.

The sun, reborn at the winter solstice, has gradually been gaining strength, and at the vernal equinox (around March 21), the light finally overcomes the darkness and the days become longer than the nights. The Saxons called March Lentmonat, “lengthening,” referring to the lengthening of days, a word the Christians adopted as “Lent,” the days leading up to the festival of Easter.

It is not surprising that many places of the ancient world celebrated New Year at the spring equinox, when the sun entered Aries, the first sign of the zodiac, and the natural world renewed itself. The Babylonian New Year, for example, began after the vernal equinox with the twelve-day festival of Akitu. It commemorated the defeat of the dragon goddess of chaos, Tiamat, by the god Marduk, and the beginning of creation with the emergence of order out of chaos. To mark this, New Year was celebrated with a temporary subversion of order,67 reminiscent of the customs of misrule in later western Europe, when the king was stripped of his jewellery, sceptre, and crown before kneeling at the altar of Marduk and praying for forgiveness on behalf of himself and his subjects before all his emblems of authority were restored, symbolising the annual renewal of his authority and nature alike. Influenced by these ancient rites, Iranians, Zoroastrians, the Parsis in India, the Kurds, and members of the Bahá’í Faith still celebrate New Year at the spring equinox with the festival of Nowruz (“new day”), and this has taken place in Iran for at least 2,500 years. It proclaims the triumph of light over darkness, good over evil, order over chaos, and the rejuvenation of the world as the warmth of the spring conquers winter.

Out of the winter comes spring. Out of the darkness comes light. In the midst of despair is hope. The world is renewed with youth and vitality, freshness and vigour. The themes of this month are the emergence of the Vegetation God with the green shoots as the youthful Green Man, the Maiden Goddess as the Lady of Flowers, birds nesting, and animals mating, all promising us that life will be renewed and continue.

The folk customs of the season reflect these themes. New clothes were often bought for Easter, particularly gloves and new bonnets for women.68 With the increase in light, wild and domestic birds start laying, a symbol of renewal and fertility. Forbidden during the fasting of Lent, eggs could now be eaten for luck or given as gifts. In many districts, eggs were coloured or eaten for good fortune at Easter, and there was (and in some parts of England still are) egg-rolling competitions down the hillsides, perhaps to reflect the passage of the sun or perhaps just for fun, and the winner is the egg that rolls the farthest. The Pace Egg mumming troupes go out, performing mumming plays in return for eggs and beer.69 In Germany it is important to eat something green, and fire wheels are rolled down hills (straw stuffed into large wooden wheels, set on fire, and rolled down a hill at night—again, perhaps symbolising the passage of the sun). If all wheels released roll straight down the hill, it is said to bring a good harvest.70

The energies of this month are about warmth, hope, potential, planting, seeding, youth, growth, renewal, and promise.

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Early March

In the woods the stream is still swollen with the winter rain. On the woodland floor, primroses and dog’s mercury are flowering, and beneath the hazel trees, fallen catkins lie on the ground. The blackthorn is in full flower, great swathes of starry white blossoms in hedgerows otherwise bare. It flowers before its leaves appear and so is called “the mother of the woods” because it is the first tree to bloom. There is a common superstition that it is always cold when the blackthorn flowers, something country folk called a “blackthorn winter” and refrained from planting anything out until after the blackthorn winter was over.

My thoughts turn to starting work on the garden at the beginning of March. An old rhyme instructs:

Upon St. David’s Day

Put oats and barley in the clay and

Sow beans and peas on David and Chad

Be the weather good or bad.

Folk custom says that sowing sweet peas between the feasts of St. David (March 1) and St. Chad (March 2) will produce larger and more fragrant flowers, so I’ll be sure to plant my sweet peas.

March 1: The Mother of Light

In keeping with this month’s theme of life emerging from the darkness into the light, in ancient Rome the first day of March was the Matronalia, celebrating the goddess who watched over pregnancy, childbirth, and mothers, Juno Lucina or “Juno the light-bringer,” who brings children into the light. She was depicted veiled, with a flower in one hand and a child in the other. It was a day that celebrated motherhood and women in general, when men gave presents to their wives of sweets, flowers, and jewellery, as well as offering prayers for them, and children would give gifts to their mothers. Women provided feasts for their female slaves, who were given the day off and would go to the temple of Juno Lucina with their hair loose and with no knots or ties in their clothing to offer a cake out of very fine white flour (simila).71

As the church did with many Pagan feasts and customs, the Matronalia was adopted and evolved into Mothering Sunday in Europe, its day remembered by counting the Sundays of Lent—“Mothering Sunday, Care Away, Palm Sunday, Easter Day.” It was meant to honour “Mother Church,” and some Anglican churches still keep up the old custom of “clypping (greeting) the church” on Mothering Sunday, walking around the church in a big circle and singing a hymn.72 However, Mothering Sunday was also a permitted break from the Lenten fast, so servants were given the day off to visit their mothers, taking flowers and a basket of treats that often included a simnel cake, the name perhaps dating right back to the Roman simila cake. This is still Mother’s Day in Europe, when mothers are given flowers and chocolates, and simnel cake is traditional.73

In Bulgaria the first of March is Baba Marta’s Day (Grandmother March’s Day), when people tied martenitsas, protective charms made from red and white wool tassels, around wrists, trees, doors, and young animals. These were worn until the first stork returns from the south, signalling the beginning of spring.74

Goddess of Light Ritual

Honour the Goddess who brings life into the light—this can be all life, from the greenery of spring to young animals and human children—and ask her protection. Decorate your altar with spring flowers, such as daffodils, primroses, and violets, and as many candles as you wish, saying:

Come, our fairest Lady, I call you.

You gave me the light of life,

You created me, you gave me birth.

You nourish and support all life.

Your light blazes in the flames around me

Illuminating the darkness

Uncovering what is hidden

With the light of knowledge

Showing me the beauty of this world.

Come, Goddess,

Bless that which is newly born,

Bless the emerging shoots

As they strive towards the light.

I honour you, Mother of Light.

Come, Lady, and bless all mothers.

If you like, you can place an offering of a slice of simnel cake on the altar (put it out for the birds tomorrow). Honour all mothers today, and share simnel cake with them.

Simnel Cake

The twelve marzipan balls on the top represent the twelve months of the year.

350 grams mixed dried fruit

250 millilitres boiling water

150 grams unsalted butter, softened

150 grams soft brown sugar

3 large eggs, beaten

200 grams self-raising flour, sifted

2 teaspoons ground mixed spice (UK) or
pumpkin pie spice (US)

454 grams marzipan

2 tablespoons apricot jam

Put the dried fruit in a heatproof bowl and pour boiling water over the fruit. Soak for 15 minutes. Strain the fruit through a sieve, then spread it on a tea towel to cool. In a bowl, cream the butter and sugar together. Gradually add the eggs, a little bit at a time. If the mixture curdles, add a little flour. Fold in the remaining flour and mixed spice gently into the cake mixture. Add the fruits. Spoon half the cake mixture into a greased 20 centimetres/8-inch deep-sided round cake tin that has the base lined with parchment. Roll a third of the marzipan into a circle the same size as the tin and lay the marzipan disc on top. Cover with the rest of the cake mixture. Bake at 170°C/325°F/gas mark 3 for an hour, then turn the oven temperature down to 150°C/300°F/gas mark 2 and bake for a further 50 minutes. Remove from the oven. Leave the cake to cool slightly in the tin, then turn out onto a wire rack to cool. Warm the apricot jam and sieve to remove any lumps. Brush it over the top of the cake. Roll out half the remaining marzipan into a circle and cover the top of the cake. Make 12 balls out of the rest of the marzipan and place on top of the cake. Place the whole cake under a medium grill for about 2 minutes to make the marzipan turn golden.

March 5: The Green Man

This is the time when the God returns as the Green Man, the spirit of vegetation, unfurling in the leaves on the trees. Many Pagans have sculptures and masks that represent him as a face surrounded by leaves, and they were often a feature of architecture, including churches, in the mediaeval period here in England. Most mythologies have some kind of representation of the vegetation spirit, a god who represents new growth in spring.

Coming of the Green Man Ritual

In an echo of the masks of the God hung in the trees at the Anthestêria, I am putting out my Green Man masks in the garden, as I do every year. Some of these are resin, some concrete, and some ceramic. These foliate faces represent the spirit of vegetation we call back to the land at this time of year, asking for his blessing. (If you don’t have a garden, you can place a Green Man mask on your altar.) The invocation in this ritual is based on a poem written by a late friend of my hearth, Paul England, who loved to wear the Green Man mask in our springtime ceremonies.

Say:

Your mask, it is a magical world

Your name, it is constantly changing

You’re a breath of the wind, you’re the son of Pan

You’re the greenwood prince, you are the Green Man

You dance all day to your father’s tune

Then sleep by the light of the moon.

You never speak a word to the plants and trees

But your heart belongs to the growing

You live in the spring and all summer long

And sleep when the weather is snowing

Come breath of the wind that seeds all the flowers

In the bright summer sun that shines for hours

Dance all day to your father’s tune

Then sleep by the light of the moon.

March 9: Return of the Birds

In Slavic countries birds were thought to bring the spring with them when they returned on March 9, the holiday of Strinennia. Special cakes are made in the shape of birds, which are thought to ensure their return. They are carried around the village amidst the singing of Vesnyanki (invocations to spring). Children are given pastries shaped like birds to toss into the air while they say “The rooks have come!”

Here in England most of our summer bird visitors don’t arrive till next month, but the rooks have been with us all year, and in the garden I’ve seen signs that our native birds are preparing to nest and breed, gathering moss and twigs, singing in the trees and bushes for mates.

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Mid-March

I’ve seen hares running in the bottom field this week. They are usually nocturnal creatures that remain hidden during the hours of daylight, and it is only during the mating season they are abroad in daylight. It is a magical sight. The expression “mad as a March hare” refers to their wild behaviour during March when they may be observed boxing or leaping into the air as they prepare to mate. Hares are prolific breeders, producing two to four litters a year, and a female hare can even conceive while she is still pregnant. It is not surprising that hares are associated both with the season and with fertility. Even now we have the idea of the Easter Bunny delivering eggs, a tradition imported into Britain from America via Germanic immigrants, who had their own traditions of the Easter Hare who comes at night to lay eggs for the Easter egg hunt.75 So where did the idea come from that hares lay eggs at Easter? Unlike rabbits, hares do not burrow into the earth but live their entire lives above ground, creating a shallow depression, known as a “form,” as a nest. Ground-nesting birds, such as plovers and lapwings, also build their nests on open grassland or arable farmland at this time, and people coming across eggs in a nest that looked rather like a hare’s form may have jumped to that conclusion. Finding such eggs in spring was probably the origin of the Easter egg hunt.

Wild birds all around are mating and nest building, while my chickens are starting to lay regularly again, responding to the increased levels of daylight. Eggs are a welcome symbol of the spring and new life, an emblem of potential in the way that a seed is an emblem of the potential life of a plant. Decorating eggs and giving them as gifts in the spring, especially at Easter or the vernal equinox, was and is a custom in many countries.

Dyed Eggs

Hen’s eggs can be dyed using natural colourings; boil eggs with the following:

You can also paint your eggs, and if you do, consider the symbols and the energies of the season. Here are some suggestions:

Spring Branch

Cut a branch that is budding with green leaves. Using strands of sewing thread, suspend blown and coloured hen’s eggs from it or papier-mâché eggs painted and coloured in ways that symbolise the energies at this time of year to you.

March 17: The God and Goddess of Spring

On this day the ancient Romans honoured Liber and Libera as spring fertility deities. Liber was another name for Bacchus/Dionysus, while Libera was another name for the goddess Ariadne. The statues of the gods were garlanded with ivy, and it was a day of liberty and license, when slaves were permitted to speak freely. Old women called Sacerdotes Liberi (priestesses of Liber and Libera), crowned with ivy, tended portable altars along the streets and charged a small fee to sacrifice oily honey cakes called liba.76

In Russian myth the spring fertility god and goddess, Lado and Lada, were worshipped along with the springtime cult of the rusalki, nymphs who brought fertility to the land. They are spring fertility deities similar to the Norse Freyr and Freya and the Roman Liber and Libera.77

In the Christian calendar, March17 is St. Patrick’s Day. Patrick was born in Britain but was carried off by raiders to serve as a slave in Ireland. After escaping, he became a Christian priest, gaining the reputation of battling Paganism in all its forms, banishing the “snakes” from Ireland—since there were never any actual snakes in Ireland, this probably referred to Pagans. In the Highlands and islands of Scotland, his feast is considered the real first day of spring:

On the high day of Patrick

Every fold will have a cow-calf

And every pool a salmon.78

Curiously, St. Patrick also has a partner. The day after St. Patrick’s Day was called Sheela’s Day in rural Ireland, bringing the festivities of St. Patrick’s Day to an end with dropping the shamrock worn all day into the final glass of drink. No one knows who Sheela was. Some say she was a relative of St. Patrick, perhaps his mother or even his wife.79 Others make a connection with the sheela-na-gigs, the grinning images of naked old women with open vulvas carved on churches throughout Ireland, England, France, and Spain from the eleventh to the sixteenth century CE.80 The name “sheela” in connection with these figures is a mystery. It is generally thought to be the Irish form of the Anglo-Norman name Cecile or Cecilia, since most of the images in Ireland are found in areas where the Normans invaded. “Gig” is an old English slang term for a woman’s private parts.81 In Ireland, though, sheelah was a term applied to elderly women.82 It is not known what these figures represent. They may be grotesque representations of female wantonness to warn people against the sin of lust. Alternatively, since they generally appear above doorways, they may be protective figures. They could be fertility symbols since in some places brides were required to look at and perhaps touch the sheela before weddings.83 Modern Pagans often choose to see them as pre-Christian representations of an earth or hag goddess similar to the Scottish Cailleach, who rules the winter and changes place with the maiden Bride (Brighid) in spring. I have a little sheela-na-gig figurine made for me by a friend, which sits on one of my altars.

Lord and Lady of Spring Ritual

I will be dressing my altar with ivy and offering honey cakes to the God and Goddess of spring with these words:

Know that this is the time that the Goddess is renewed in all her glory. She is beauteous and young once more. Tall and graceful, she walks amongst us as a maiden and our beloved one. Come, our fairest Lady, grant blessing unto the seeds which become the flowers of tomorrow. Come, O gracious Lady, and protect that which is newly born, that children and animals grow strong beneath thy hands. Let the seeds be blessed in thy name, O Goddess.

Come, our gentle Lord, grant blessing unto the seeds which become the flowers of tomorrow. Come, O gracious Lord, and protect that which is newly born, that children and animals grow strong beneath thy hands. Let the seeds be blessed in thy name, O Lord.

Let this ritual end with love and blessings.

Roman Honey Cake

Honey was the only sweetener the ancient world had, and this ancient recipe might not be to modern tastes. I use them for offerings.

3 eggs

200 grams runny honey

60 grams plain flour (all-purpose flour)

Whisk the eggs and slowly add the honey. Fold in the flour, a little at a time. Pour into a 20-centimetre tin (8 inches) and bake at 180°C/350°F/gas mark 4 for 40 minutes.

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Late March

We enter the sign of Aries the ram, considered the first sign of the zodiac since it is nominally the time when the spring equinox occurs as the sun crosses the celestial equator from south to north in Aries.84 In ancient Egypt this led to Aries being called the “Indicator of the Reborn Sun,” connected with the ram-headed god of fertility, Amun Ra.85 In Mesopotamia it was called “the hired labourer” and associated with the god Dumuzi the shepherd and his ram.86 In Greece it was linked with the Golden Fleece of Greek legend, sought by Jason and the Argonauts, which was nailed to an oak tree in a grove in Colchis, guarded by a dragon. It must have been seen like a heavenly reflection of earthly matters at the very time when new lambs were in the fields and life renewed itself.

Life is certainly renewing itself in the garden and the land around me. There are butterflies on sunny days and early bees lazily looking for nectar in the early flowers. There are English daisies (Bellis perennis) in the lawn, cheerful little flowers rayed like the sun that flower roughly equinox to equinox and that I use to make salves for bruises. There are yellow primroses and cowslips all over the garden, golden celandines, violets, and wood anemones. The hedgerows are covered in a fresh green haze of new leaves on the elder, hawthorn, and dog roses. The daffodils are all out in the garden and along all the road verges, sunny flowers that tell me spring has arrived in full force. They are potent symbols of cheerfulness, rebirth, and new beginnings that are said to bloom from Ash Wednesday and die on Easter Sunday.

Some of my perennial herbs are pushing their way into the light: the frothy green sweet cicely and spears of chives. I’ve been picking coltsfoot (Tussilago farfara), one of the earliest flowers of the year, the sun-coloured flowers appearing before the leaves, hence its folk name Son-afore-the-Father. I use coltsfoot tea for coughs and bronchitis at this time of year. I’ve also found the fresh green shoots of cleavers (Galium aparine), which we called sticky buds when I was a child. It makes a great spring tonic, cleansing for the lymphatic system, in the form of a tea, eaten, or juiced.87 This is the time when I make nettle soup, full of vitamins and minerals, after the dearth of wild fresh greenery in the winter months.

Nettle Soup

2 onions

1 clove garlic

2 potatoes

leaves stripped from 10 nettle stems

1½ (3½ cups/850 ml) pints vegetable stock

salt and pepper to taste

½ pint (1 cup/284 ml) milk or soya milk

fresh parsley to garnish

Peel and chop the onion, garlic, and potatoes, then fry gently in some oil until soft. Add the nettle leaves and the stock. Boil for 20 minutes. Liquidise, then return to the pan, add the salt, pepper, and the milk, and reheat. Garnish with parsley to serve.

The Vernal Equinox

The vernal equinox occurs around March 21 but the dates can vary, so please check your almanac. It is a moment of balance, when night and day are of equal length, but the light is gaining, and with that increased light, the world revitalises itself. This is a time of great energy, with high tides and floods. As we feel the vitality of spring coursing through our veins, we can take the opportunity to renew ourselves, our dreams, and our aspirations. It time to sow the seeds of new projects and spiritual inspirations under the auspices of the youthful God and Goddess in the vernal equinox rite.

Nowadays, most modern Pagans call the spring equinox Ostara. It was given this name in the 1970s by the writer Aidan Kelly, who explained that

We have Gaelic names for the four Celtic holidays. It offended my aesthetic sensibilities that there seemed to be no Pagan names for the summer solstice or the fall equinox equivalent to Yule or Beltane—so I decided to supply them. The spring equinox was almost a nonissue. The Venerable Bede says that it was sacred to a Saxon Goddess, Ostara or Eostre, from whom we get the name “Easter.”88

We actually know nothing about the goddess Eostre. There is only one reference to her in early literature, and this by the seventh/eighth century English monk Bede in his De Temporum Ratione (“The Reckoning of Time”). He wrote that during Eosturmonaþ (the lunar month of March/April), Pagan Anglo-Saxons had once held feasts in Eostre’s honour, but the tradition had died out by his time. Based on this single source, folklorist and recorder of fairy tales Jacob Grimm attempted to reconstruct a possible Germanic equivalent goddess, calling her Ostara, arguing that since Germans called April ôstarmânoth while most countries retained the biblical pascha for Easter, the word must relate to áustrô, from the Old High German adverb ôstar, which “expresses movement towards the rising sun,” concluding that the putative deity would have been a goddess of dawn.89

Given the lack of any direct evidence for Ostara or Eostre, scholars have dismissed the goddess as a pure invention of Bede,90 concluding that the Old English word eastre is simply an approximation of the Latin albae (“white”), a word sometimes applied to Easter.91 It has to be said that this doesn’t mean the goddess Eostre/Ostara didn’t exist—it is unlikely that Bede made her up—but we have one very brief mention of her name, and Jacob Grimm made a connection between her name and the word for east, the direction of the rising sun. We certainly know nothing at all about her worship, and there is most definitely no mention of hares and eggs as cult symbols, as I sometimes read. Neither is there a linguistic connection with the Latin word oestrus (relating to ovulation and eggs), nor with the Middle Eastern goddesses Ishtar and Astarte. Nevertheless, the name resonates with modern Pagans, and as long as we don’t make up fake histories for it, we can happily call the vernal equinox “Ostara” if we wish.

Our ancestors certainly celebrated the spring equinox, whatever they called it. Like them, we take our cue from nature itself and celebrate the vernal equinox as the time when the light gains over the dark and the world rekindles in response, bursting forth from its winter sleep in a flurry of growth and new birth. The Green Man is young and vital, bringing the trees and plants to greening. The youthful Goddess is wreathed in flowers, and the two begin their courtship. The sun warms the earth, ready for planting. Like the earth, we too plant our own seeds at this time; seeds we literally plant in the garden, but also seeds of goals that we will make into reality.

Ostara Ritual

Decorate your altar with yellow flowers (I use daffodils, forsythia, tansy, and coltsfoot from the garden). A bowl of seeds and a bowl of decorated eggs are placed on the altar (you can use papier-mâché eggs if you don’t want to use real ones). A candle is placed in the cauldron; if you can work outside, have ready an unlit bonfire or brazier and some wine and bread.

Have ready a plant pot, a seed, and some compost. This will be used to plant a seed during the ritual, which will symbolise a hope or project for the coming year. This is a magical act and a practical lesson—care for the plant, water it regularly, and it will produce fruit. Neglect it, and it will shrivel and die.

Say:

I come to celebrate the festival of spring, Ostara,
when the Lord and the Lady meet as youth and maid,
when all about us life renews. The Sun strengthens,
moving towards summer and his time of glory…

I invoke and call upon thee, fair Goddess of spring,
Lady of Flowers; thee I invoke. I call to thee.

Mighty one, our green Lord, all honour to thee,
consort of the Goddess; come, I call thee.

Take up the seed and say:

Know that this is the time that the Goddess is renewed in all her glory.
Fairest Lady, gentle Lord, grant blessing unto the seed that becomes the flower of tomorrow. Let the seed be blessed in thy name. Let the seed be cast to the earth.

Plant a seed in the pot, thinking about what goal it symbolises for you.

Let the fire of joy be lit that is the light of the
growing sun and the light of the year.
The fire [or candle in the cauldron]
is lit in token of the equinox sun.

Pause and consider what this symbolises.

Take up the egg. Hold it in your hands and think about what it represents: potential, life, and rebirth. Place it in the quarter that most fits the goal you have for it: earth for health and practical matters, west for emotional matters, south for spiritual goals, or east for study and inspiration.

Take up the wine and say:

Let the wine be blessed, which is the wine of spring and the wine of the Lady.

Drink. Take up the bread and say:

Let the bread be blessed in the name of the God, our Lord;
It is the bread of life and the bread of the Lord.

Eat. When all is finished, say:

Let the candles be put out, but let me remember the lessons of this night.
The rite is over. Blessed be.

March 25: Lady Day

From the twelfth century to 1752, Lady Day (which was the official date of the spring equinox) was counted as the first day of the legal year in Britain. In Christian lore it marks the Annunciation, when an angel (“messenger”) visited the Virgin Mary and announced that she would bear the saviour of mankind. When the angel left, she found that she was pregnant. Her son, called Jesus Christ, sacrificed himself to redeem the world and was crucified wearing a crown of thorns. There was a superstition that if Easter should fall on Lady Day, then some disaster will shortly follow:

When my lord falls in my lady’s lap

England beware of some mishap.

Last Three Days of March: The Borrowed Days

Lore has it that if it’s not stormy and windy the first three days in March, the bad weather is saving itself for the three borrowed days at the month’s end. It was the Romans who gave these days a bad reputation. They believed they were dangerous days, fraught with taboos and the spectre of bad weather, and there are various weather sayings concerning them:

March borrowed from April

Three days and they were ill

The first was snow and sleet

The next was cold and wet

The third was such a freeze

The birds’ nests stuck to trees.

[contents]

61. Frazer, The Golden Bough.

62. Federica Doria and Marco Giuman, The Swinging Woman: Phaedra and Swing in Classical Greece, ojs.unica.it/index.php/medea/article/download/2444/2053, accessed 27.11.18.

63. Rufus, The World Holiday Book.

64. https://www.ancient.eu/Cybele/, accessed 15.3.19.

65. Frazer, The Golden Bough.

66. Bouyer, The Christian Mystery.

67. http://www.payvand.com/news/12/mar/1176.html, accessed 12.2.19.

68. Day, Chronicle of Celtic Folk Customs.

69. Ibid.

70. https://www.thelocal.de/20190415/how-to-celebrate-easter-just-like-a-german-list-traditions-customs, accessed 12.1.20.

71. Bogle, A Book of Feasts and Seasons, and Ovid, Fasti.

72. Bogle, A Book of Feasts and Seasons.

73. This day should not be confused with the peculiarly American Mother’s Day, which is held on the second Sunday in May and was initiated by Anna Jarvis in the nineteenth century to reunite families that had been divided during the Civil War.

74. www.b-info.com/places/Bulgaria/BabaMarta/, accessed 7.3.19.

75. Simpson & Roud, A Dictionary of English Folklore.

76. Carol Field, Celebrating Italy (William Morrow, 1990).

77. Joanna Hubbs, Mother Russia: The Feminine Myth in Russian Culture (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1988)

78. Kightly, The Perpetual Almanack of Folklore.

79. https://www.yourirish.com/traditions/sheelahs-day, accessed 27.2.19.

80. Rufus, The World Holiday Book.

81. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-45116614?ocid=socialflow_facebook&ns_campaign=bbcnews&ns_mchannel=social&ns_source=facebook&fbclid=IwAR2f4-wSXsY0laVege7ttX5mBTK5nBDiuh_s86C9TDAO9u7HMjN5OM0JgH0, accessed 26.2.19.

82. https://hyperallergic.com/396030/mapping-the-mysterious-ancient-carvings-of-naked-women-across-ireland/?utm_campaign=coschedule&utm_source=facebook_page&utm_medium=Hyperallergic&utm_content=Mapping+the+Mysterious+Ancient+Carvings+of+Naked+Women+Across+Ireland, accessed 27.2.19.

83. Georgia Rhoades, “Decoding the Sheela-na-gig,” Feminist Formations 22.2 (2010): 167–196.

84. Because of the precession of the equinoxes, the sun now appears in Aries from late April to mid-May.

85. Staal, The New Patterns in the Sky, and Olcott, Star Lore.

86. Krupp, Beyond the Blue Horizon.

87. Julie Brunton-Seal and Matthew Seal, Hedgerow Medicine (Ludlow: Merlin Unwin, 2008).

88. Aidan Kelly, blog, May 2017, https://www.patheos.com/blogs/aidankelly/2017/05/naming-ostara-litha-mabon/, accessed 20.2.2020.

89. Grimm, Teutonic Mythology.

90. Karl Weinhold, Die Deutschen Monatnamen 1869 (Whitefish: Kessinger Publishing, 2010).

91. Shaw, Pagan Goddesses in the Early Germanic World.