An Upside-down Easter

I went out to the gardening center today, to buy a few things for my spring garden. It was much colder outside than I was expecting, and I forgot to take my gloves. By the time I got home with frozen fingers and chapped cheeks, I was no longer in the mood for gardening. Maybe it will be warmer tomorrow. Spring is like that. T. S. Eliot proclaimed that “April is the cruelest month”, and as far as the northern hemisphere goes, I think he was mostly right. It is just so changeable.

If you were born and bred here in the USA, or in the UK, or anywhere in the northern hemisphere, you have probably never thought about Easter being at any other time of the year than in the spring. You will associate Easter with tulips and blossoms and new grass, and butterflies, chicks and bunnies. You may have grown up getting a new Easter dress in a suitable pastel shade, all frilly and feminine, and an Easter basket, packed with candy nestling in fake grass.

But if you, like me, grew up in the southern hemisphere … none of that applies! The images of Easter from my childhood that are still embedded in my memory are of the spicy smell of chrysanthemums and the russet tones of autumn leaves. In April every year we made wreaths to place on the local cenotaph to honor the dead soldiers of Australia and New Zealand. And on Good Friday and Easter Sunday we went to church to remember the crucifixion and the resurrection of Jesus. We were celebrating the resurrection in a season where the earth, rather than echoing the themes of new life, was quietly getting ready to rest and wait through the death of autumn and winter. It was an upside-down easter, and we did not know it.

In Britain during the fifth century, Easter was much more closely linked with the pagan celebration of new life than it is today. The goddess Eostara or Ostara was a Germanic goddess associated with dawn, fertility, and the arrival of spring.  The Christian monk and writer Bede identified her as that one who gave her name to the season, but whether or not she was worshipped by the Druids is an unanswerable question. What is not up for discussion is that the spring equinox was an important time for the Celts, however they celebrated it.

So this year, as you celebrate the return of spring, and the resurrection of Jesus, spare a thought for those people at the bottom of the world who still have six months to go before they see a daffodil!