Easter is my favorite holiday, in part because springtime is my favorite season of the year (oh so beautiful!!). But, as with many of the other Western holidays, Easter is an encapsulation of many different traditions and ideas, along with a wide assortment of often-confusing iconography.
The great comedian James Gaffigan centered one of his earlier shows on American holidays (which had me rolling on the floor). He made tons of very funny observations about Halloween, then Christmas – inventing imaginary scenarios in the attempt to explain how each holiday came to be. When it came time to talk about Easter, he paused… then he suddenly said a little too loudly (as if spit-balling for ideas): “How ‘bout eggs?”
I’m sure this funny guy wasn’t the first person to voice his perplexity about the connection between Easter, eggs and bunnies. After all, the Christian tradition tells us that Easter is all about the resurrection of Jesus – so how do eggs and bunnies fit into a story about a martyr who came back to life?!? The answer – which is typical for American holidays – is that Easter is an amalgamation of long phases of history – mostly pagan and Christian, and with a healthy dose of esoteric tradition tied into the mix (as if to further confuse the already confounded public. But there is a method to the apparent madness, as we’ll soon discover…).
Let’s get to unpacking!
The Pagan Tradition
It makes sense to work chronologically, hence to try to start at the ‘beginning’ (as far back as our written history goes, that is – which isn’t all that far!). Before the Christian Era, paganism ruled the world. That ancient tradition centered on the appreciation and celebration of Nature; and because early society was largely agrarian (focused on agriculture), much of pagan tradition was focused on the seasons. More specifically, pagan ideology focused on the (apparent) movement of the Sun throughout the year, and how that movement affected the production of food. In my blog The Esoteric Meaning of Christmas I went into some detail about the Sun’s annual movement, as well as covering some other vital historical details which are very pertinent to the study of Easter. For those readers who would like to see as many of those connections as possible, please go back and read that Christmas post.
The important seasonal consideration in regard to Easter is the fact that Easter occurs in springtime, and springtime represents the rebirth of Nature. It’s like watching a slow-motion explosion of life, with the grass and other plants growing faster than ever before, and the trees blossoming with their myriad beautiful flowers. Vivid colors are everywhere, and everyone is pouring out of their houses to enjoy the first comfortable weather after the cold winter.
Alongside the explosion of plant-life, animal life is also proliferating at an unparallelled rate. And humans keep apace, proven by the fact that springtime is the season of weddings.
Fertility
With all this in mind, it could easily be observed that springtime is the season of fertility, with plants, animals and humans all busily expanding the local footprints of their own species. This idea provides one of the key meanings of Easter, evidenced further with the Easter bunny and all his multicolored eggs.
Everyone knows that rabbits are masters of procreation; and although they don’t lay eggs, the egg itself is one of the most potent symbols of reproduction (2nd only to those promiscuous rabbits!). And the word Easter comes from the same roots as the word estrogen, which is the female reproductive hormone. As an accent, the virtual rainbow of colors painted upon the myriad easter eggs represents the explosion of colors in all the flowers and blossoms of springtime.
The early Church fathers decided that, instead of Easter falling on a specific date each year, it would fall on the first Sunday after the first full moon after the Spring Equinox. Why this timing? Because Sunday is the day of Jesus (Sun/Son), and the full moon is the time of greatest fertility each month.
The pagans were very clever, and were well aware of the cycles of life. Central to these cycles are the cycle of growth and decay. Autumn and winter are the seasons of decay, within which growth is paused due to the reduction of the life force in nature – a powerful force which comes from our great and bountiful Sun. Spring and summer ‘bring back’ the Sun, with all its life force, making everything grow exponentially in response.
As we can see, those clever pagans clearly associated Easter with the concept of rebirth – a concept that was then taken up by the Christians of the ‘new’ era…
Resurrection
The Biblical story of Jesus is well-known, so suffice it to say that (in that story): Jesus was crucified (a symbol – in part – of the winter solstice, as shown in my Christmas blog), and was resurrected after 3 days. The Catholic fathers – who were also very clever – made use of their expansive knowledge of pagan tradition by adopting the ancient Easter tradition, and associating it with the resurrection of Jesus. After all, resurrection means rebirth, and in ancient times the association of the Sun with the Son (Son of God) was more well-known than today.
Astronomically speaking, our Sun can be seen as being ‘crucified’ during the winter solstice (December 22nd); this is because the Sun ‘stops moving southward’ on that day, and sits directly over the Southern Cross (a star constellation which resembles a cross). The Sun ‘sits still’ upon that cross for three days, after which it slowly begins its journey back northward. That third day is December 25th, which the Church fathers wisely chose as Christmas day (echoing the Yule celebration of the pagans, who were wisely celebrating the ‘rebirth’ of the Sun).
These easily verifiable facts provide very stark indications that both Christmas and Easter represent the rebirth of the Sun/Son (pagan/Christian traditions), just in different ways.
The Holy Lamb
Last week during our family night (my little family spends an hour together every night) we were watching a short Easter video with our daughter Kylee. When the normal Easter images were suddenly interrupted by a picture of a cute little lamb, my wife expressed her confusion. “What does a lamb have to do with Easter?” she asked me. After a moment of contemplation, I told her it represents the Lamb of God (Jesus) in Christianity, as well as the astrological symbol of Aries (the Ram) in paganism (the lamb being a baby ram).
Both of these concepts go back millennia to very ancient India, where the Agni was worshipped as the Hindu god of fire. This is extremely important in spiritual iconography because agni means lamb, and Aries (the ram/lamb) is a time that is governed by the Fire element (an important part of esoteric spirituality). In agrarian culture, springtime is lambing season (when most lambs are born); this occurs because the wild, expansive growth/proliferation of plants and animals during springtime is caused by the Fire element which is delivered to us by the Sun in greater proportion during March and April (Aries is from March 22nd through April 22nd).
Deeper Esoterica
The idea of the sacrificial lamb is a profoundly deep subject, contrary to the well-founded (and more modern) idea that killing an innocent animal as a sacrifice to God would expose a person to karmic jeopardy. Luckily mankind has (largely) evolved out of that barbaric stage of our mutual evolution. But animal sacrifice for the appeasement of the gods is not the only meaning of this ancient and twisted tradition.
A far deeper meaning is related to the Christian idea that Jesus was the great ‘sacrificial lamb’ (as the Lamb of God). As the story goes, Jesus suffered the crucifixion as the Redeemer of the world; a sacrifice of the One, so the many could be saved (my own opinion is that the Biblical story of Jesus was allegorical, based on the many legends of the perfecti, a purported group of perfected, immortal humans, alluded to by myriad cultures all around the world, over many millennia. That allegory speaks not only of the amazing powers of the perfecti, but of how mere mortals can become superhuman!).
In Christian mysticism, the Sun/Son suffers through life simply because – although it is a profoundly great soul – it is nonetheless ‘lesser than God’ (all beings yearn for permanent communion with God, even if only subconsciously. For this reason, we are all suffering until that point is reached).
Those great mystics who were not brought up as Christians appear to agree that each and every person can/will become perfected – its simply a matter of time (from months for some to several lifetimes for others, over many successive incarnations). And Easter is – most importantly – a symbol of that eventual perfection, via the energization brought about by first communing with the Sun (or the Son in Christianity). This is the ‘lesser communion’, eclipsed only by the great and final communion with the One God. Any good mystic knows that communion with the Sun brings with it healing powers; and healing is part-and-parcel of perfection (yet only one of the keys).
Conclusion
Although we can now see great foolishness in the leadership of the world today, this has not always been the case. The ancient world was instructed by some who possessed incredible wisdom, as evidenced by the many golden threads of truth that weave in and out of the myriad religions around the world. And our holidays bring further evidence of that great, ancient wisdom. And although our modern holidays are but shadowy reflections of those misty, bygone days, they still retain much of the wisdom and knowledge that the ancient wise men gifted to us over those intervening eons of time.
And the more we learn about the great gift of our combined heritage, the better off we are because of it – and the more we can work toward the ultimate goal of perfection…
Wonderful article!! Thank you!
Thanks Joe!