My goodness! I blinked! I just couldn’t control my errant eyelids! Honestly, I tried to harness them! Truly, I did!
Easter is already here...well, almost! It’s entirely my fault because I blinked! Vent your anger now! Rid yourself of the ire within! Go on! I can handle it! However, you’ll soon forgive me once you get stuck into your cache of chocolate! I won’t notice your tantrum, anyway! I’m too busy laying out a trail for the Easter Bunny to follow. Also, I’m constructing a few nests just in case the Easter Bird remembers me from days of old and decides to fly in for a swift visit! When we were kids it was the Easter Bird who laid the luscious eggs and deposited them to my brother and me. The Easter Bunny didn’t exist in our household.
By the way, I apologise (not really) to all you pedantic folk out there whom I may upset with my following words. I can’t quite wrap my head (or mouth) around an Easter Bilby. The bilby just doesn’t fit into my whole scheme of Easter feastings. I think it’s taking eco-political correctness a little too far over and beyond the rabbit-proof fence!
(I suppose it’s not in good taste to put rabbit on the menu for Easter Sunday lunch!}
The Easter Bunny isn’t a modern creation. He’s been hopping around since the pagan festival of Eostre (y’oster), the great Germanic/Teutonic Mother Goddess of Fertility. Perhaps that’s why bunnies breed like rabbits or vice versa! But, of course, way back in Eostre’s day it wasn’t the rabbit that was so highly revered – it was the lowly hare! So when Easter Sunday dawns, look out your back or front windows - side ones, too, for that matter. Steal a moment of reflective gratitude. Doff your garden hats at our most humble, regular visitor who has no idea when Easter is, least of all, the role he plays in it. Each day rolls into the other as far as he’s concerned. He needs no calendar. From now on, I’m going to conduct daily searches under the rhubarb and in my vegetable patch. Maybe I’ll find chocolate eggs there every day of the year. Wow! Just ponder that thought! Hares abound up here on the mountain!
As legend goes, my brother and I weren’t too far off the mark with the Easter Bird.
The tale is that Eostre was late in coming once. A child found a bird close to death. She went to Eostre for help. The Goddess turned the wounded bird into a snow hare, which then brought rainbow eggs.
Ancient cultures decorated eggs in celebration of spring as far away as 3000 years ago, or further. The word “Easter” was adopted by the Christian religion much later. The Goddess of Spring and Dawn or Our Mother God was in the form of a bird - ‘twas she who created the Great Egg!
No males (or rabbits, hares or bilbies) figured at that point in time!
What a peaceful, harmonious world it must have been! Oops! Sorry, you menfolk out there! I got a bit eggcited at the image! The myths and sutras from that time are all feminine! I could rave on forever about this one! The bra-burning ladies of the Seventies’ revolution were right - God is a woman, after all!
My fridge remains the safe sanctuary for my Lindt bunny from a couple of Easters past. There he sits; secure in the knowledge that he and I are lifelong friends. He has nought to fear from me!
Be like him - stay safe and enjoy your Easter!
Seeing that rabbit is off my Easter menu, I’m now even looking quizzically at the chicken!
Easter bilby . . . that's a new one on me. Had to check it out and now I learned something new. So not all Aussies are that fond of bunnies.
ReplyDeleteWonder if the movie Night of the Lepus has been shown over there at all.
Happy Easter!
Hahahaha! I imagine is has at some time or other, Big Dave...but I've never seen it and I reckon I won't be in a hurry to see it! It kind of sounds like it should be up there with the "The Attack of the Killer Tomatoes!" lol One actor I could never stand and that was Stuart Whitman and he's in it!!! Say no more! ;)
ReplyDeleteHappy Easter Dave...eat lots of chocolate and don't feel guilty at all!
I haven't heard of the bilby or the bird of Easter.
ReplyDeleteAwk, please don't mention Killer Tomatoes! My husband likes to sing that song to me when he's in the mood just to hear me scream!
Janice~
Sorry to remind you of horror, Janice! ;)
ReplyDeleteHappy Easter to you and yours!
Hi Lee ~~ The bilby doesn't do much for me either. It was always the Easter bunny and Easter Eggs.
ReplyDeleteThank you for your comments and thanks for your good wishes for my health. I am trying to put it out of my mind until I see Specialists
and we decide what to do.
Happy Easter Lee, Love, Merle.
And that's the way to go, Merle...be positive and deal with the moment at hand and enjoy it! Lovely seeing you, my girl! :)
ReplyDeleteHappy Easter to you too. LOL, why not have honey baked ham as we plan to do. Therefore sparing the fuzzy bunnies and feathery ladies. My grandfather raised rabbits and we ate the little darling quite often. He had a jack when he held him by his ears that his hind legs would touch the ground. I use to play with the baby bunnies when I was small (you had to make use of any thing on the farm to have fun)
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing your wit with us. Peace
That's right, Lady Di...we used to have chickens and even turkeys at one stage when we were kids and we lived in town! There's no way I could have chickens and kill them for eating nowadays...they'd all die of old age with me as their keeper! I'm a big softie! If I want to eat chicken comes from a store and an unknown source...an imaginary pen in the sky! ;)
ReplyDeleteHappy Easter, Lady Di! :)
When God created men, She was only joking...
ReplyDeleteEaster bunnies, birds, hares, bilbies...not fair, what about all the other animals? They must be feeling sooo left out!
Have a lovely Easter, Lee.
I spent yesterday getting over drinks on Thursday evening, Robyn...a little soiree that kind of got extended to five hours' duration!! So I think today, I'm going to have to start seriously considering some chocolate! ;)
ReplyDeleteHave a good one!
Eggsellent Lee, Happy Easter.
ReplyDeleteChocolate Rules!!!!!!!!
Thanks, Peter! You behave yourself up that way... or perhaps not! :)
ReplyDeleteHi Lee
ReplyDeleteAn interesting post and clever use of words.
I agree that many of our Christian celebrations adapted ancient roots of pagan festivals inherent in myths which evolved within later Christian traditions. The first Christian church ( AD) continued to practice the Jewish Passover festival about this time which was then renamed the “Resurrection festival’ before being changed to Easter under the considerable roman influence which brought with them the older pagan ceremonies to be included as Christendom spread. An easter egg could be seen as the emergence of rebirth and fertility under the old pagan ceremony, which, with the spread of Christianity in the first 300 years also popularity adopted the egg as symbolically representing the resurrection from the tomb.
All of our grandchdren came to our place today searching for Easter eggs and eating hot cross buns – that goes back a long way but I tend to think those origins or original meanings of Easter are often lost.
Best wishes
Sorry, I can't answer you Lindsay because I've got a mouthful of chocolate!!
ReplyDeleteI was lucky, really, because I gave myself my Easter treats, so I knew where to look!
*He is RISEN!*
ReplyDeleteMsLee as usual your wordsmithery is unequaled!
Thanks, Katfish. I hope you and your family had a nice Easter.
ReplyDelete