Spring Celebrations!!! =^^=

Spring! It's finally here! A beautiful and colorful season. A time for planting and celebrating the warm fresh air after the long, cold winter. Gorgeous flowers and vegetation begin to bloom and animals come out from their long sleeps to shake out their furs. It is a time for celebrating the rebirth of the world, and the new life and hope that it brings. It truly begins on the Spring Equinox (Ostara, The Vernal Equinox, Lady Day) when the days and nights become of equal length. Which just so happens to be today! However, there are many celebrations and a number of Goddess' and Gods connected to the coming of spring!

Asasa Ya  (Ashanti) is an Earth Mother Goddess who is celebrated along side Nayame, a Sky God, in celebration of new life and rain in a festival known as The Festival of Durbar.

Flora (Roman) this Goddess had her own festival known as Floralia, which took place from Late April to Early May. Offerings of Honey and Milk are generally given to this Goddess. The God Attis is also associated with spring, and his blood is said to be the source of the first Violets.

Osiris/ Asari (Egyptian) Through his association with new life after death, he was associated with the different cycles of nature, particularly with the annual flooding of the Nile and the vegetation through his connections with Orion and Sirius at the beginning of the year.

Freya/ Freyja (Norse) Goddess of Love, Beauty, Fertility and War, she is said to love music, spring, flowers and in particularly Faeries. She is known as the Patron Goddess of Crops and Birth. Freya is said to divide the slain warriors with Oden, half going to her Palace (Folkvang) and the other to Valhalla. Women also go to her Hall (Sessrumnir). She is said to abandon the Earth during the cold months, only to return in the spring to restore life and beauty to nature.

Eostre/ Eastre (Western Germanic) whose namesake is the root of our present day springtime celebration of Ostara. Her name derives from Proto-Germanic ' Austro ', meaning "to Shine". Which is closely related to the reconstructed name of Hausos, a Goddess of the Dawn. It has been suggested that Eostre's lights, as goddess of the Dawn, where delivered by rabbits/ or hares.