The Sacred Sexual Roots of Easter
My Traditional Easter Missive, reissued for 2022.
Prayers for Peace go up on this Full Moon - Holy Season in many world religions.
Easter, the most holy festival of the Christian religion, has its roots in the eroticism and orgasmic alchemy of the ancient Mother Goddess rites of renewal. In the surreal quiet that surrounds Easter of 2020, listen for the pulse of life remembering those ancient roots. Your ancient roots. Celebrate with your whole body the eternal Christ Consciousness living in each of us.
The Sacredness of Sex
In pre-Christianized Europe, this spring festival time was dedicated to the Goddess of Renewal, Ostara. It is from her name that the word Easter derives, as well as the word East, the direction of the rising sun. She is the shining one, the goddess that brings renewal, rebirth, fertility and abundance. Many of her symbols--eggs, the rabbit, flowers, sweets--are incorporated into the Christian festival which co-opted her name.
Our ancient ancestors knew that life and fertility of the soil, the animals, the people was all about sex. Many of the festivals celebrated sex, often in a ritualized way, with a man and woman, or priest and priestess, representing the god and goddess energy in sacred union. All the people were invited to celebrate and ensure life's fertility with erotic joy, union, and freedom. It drove the first Christian missionaries crazy, and they put a stop to it. It was bloody and brutal, and the human race still suffers from the loss of our erotic connection to the earth and to Divine.
Galaxy Waiting by Carla Sanders An image of Gaia, fertile and ready to give birth..
In spite of fierce attempts to stamp it out, the erotic found its voice in devotional ecstasy. You can't stop orgasm. The Great Rite of the God and Goddess, which every loving couple--and solo self-lover--enacts with each orgasm, is a fire in our collective consciousness. We continually respond to the truth of Life that Divine's love for us is Erotic.
Today, in celebration of this divinely erotic festival of rebirth and renewal, do as Jesus would do, had he been born in Europe instead of Palestine:
Dance naked under Sun, or rain, or stars. Eat chocolate from your lover's body, not your hand. Make an offering to Earth's fertility in your private self-Love ritual, and if you have a loved one nearby, invite him or her to join you in a personal re-enactment of Holy Communion in its original energy.
If you are celebrating a traditional family Easter with an egg hunt for the kids and ham or lamb for the feast, know that these traditions are rooted in a spiritual way many thousands of years old. Feel the sensual pleasure of food, fun, springtime and good company. Take off your shoes and at least let your naked feet feel the earth for a while. Later, when the feast is over, and the kids are asleep, then you can share your private Holy Communion and give your prayer of sacred sex to the earth and cosmos.
Remember the Ecstasy
The Ecstasy of St. Teresa of Avila by Bernini
Beloved Ones, I would have you see yourself as God sees you, bright and shining and magnificent as the Dawn and Springtime. We are all Divine Incarnate. Look into the mirror and see Divine gazing lovingly from your own eyes.
Happy Feast Day of Rebirth and Renewal!