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Mar. 21st, 2020 10:04 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
darchildreI'm celebrating Ostara today.
I had some trouble thinking about it, as it got closer, and trying to figure out how to reconcile keeping a holy day that I generally think of as being about joy and new life. Y'know, flowers, birds, the sun, renewal, all of that good stuff. That's all still happening - the cycles of the year happen without us having to do anything - but it feels...weird to celebrate a joyful holiday, right now.
But...okay. I've talked occasionally on here about my thoughts about Yule - that Yule is a holiday about rejecting Ragnarok, about keeping hope alive in the dark, even if you're afraid. And Ostara is also about that hope - not yet Hope Fulfilled, maybe. I don't know if we ever get to Hope Fulfilled. But Ostara is Hope Justified. The sun did come back. The flowers that were buried in the dead winter earth did bloom. We were right to hold onto that candleflame of hope. We're right to hold onto it now.
For the last few years, I've honored Baldr at Ostara and that's never felt more appropriate because Baldr is very much a god of hope in dark places. He always makes me think of that bit in The Two Towers:
I bet there are flowers outside even now, friends. We should probably go and see.
I had some trouble thinking about it, as it got closer, and trying to figure out how to reconcile keeping a holy day that I generally think of as being about joy and new life. Y'know, flowers, birds, the sun, renewal, all of that good stuff. That's all still happening - the cycles of the year happen without us having to do anything - but it feels...weird to celebrate a joyful holiday, right now.
But...okay. I've talked occasionally on here about my thoughts about Yule - that Yule is a holiday about rejecting Ragnarok, about keeping hope alive in the dark, even if you're afraid. And Ostara is also about that hope - not yet Hope Fulfilled, maybe. I don't know if we ever get to Hope Fulfilled. But Ostara is Hope Justified. The sun did come back. The flowers that were buried in the dead winter earth did bloom. We were right to hold onto that candleflame of hope. We're right to hold onto it now.
For the last few years, I've honored Baldr at Ostara and that's never felt more appropriate because Baldr is very much a god of hope in dark places. He always makes me think of that bit in The Two Towers:
Suddenly, caught by the level beams, Frodo saw the old king's head: it was lying rolled away by the roadside. 'Look, Sam!' he cried, startled into speech. 'Look! The king has got a crown again!'
The eyes were hollow and the carven beard was broken, but about the high stern forehead there was a coronal of silver and gold. A trailing plant with flowers like small white stars had bound itself across the brows as if in reverence for the fallen king, and in the crevices of his stony hair yellow stonecrop gleamed.
'They cannot conquer for ever!' said Frodo.
I bet there are flowers outside even now, friends. We should probably go and see.
