Five Ways to Use Eggs for Ostara Spellwork

One of my favorite Sabbats to celebrate (after Imbolc) is Ostara or the Spring Equinox.  It it as this time that we mark the days getting longer, fertility of the earth, planting season, coming out of hibernating winter, and over all the birth of Spring.  The Spring Equinox falls in March (in the northern hemisphere) around the 19th through the 21st and marks when both light and dark are equal.  After the Spring Equinox, we'll start got longer days and shorter nights!  At Imbolc we've celebrated the midwinter mark and at the Spring Equinox we're celebrating bursting forth from winter just as plants are bursting from the earth.  Livestock are being born, eggs are being laid, and for our spiritual selves we can start to lay the foundations for things we'd like to grow and cultivate this year.  

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What better way to celebrate new beginnings and fertility than with the symbol of the egg.  There are a couple of symbols to work with around Ostara but I find that the egg is the easiest to use and the easiest to start with especially if you're new to celebrating.  The egg represents potential, it represents the womb, it represents the nurturing of mother earth, it represents the seed of life.  All of the things we can celebrate during this time.  The egg is a perfect representation of what we'd like to align our minds with during this season - to plant, to nurture, and to grow.  Here are a few ways to use eggs to celebrate Ostara:

Make Candles

Because we're now coming out of winter, the days are growing longer and the light is coming back. There is no better way to represent light returning than with a candle. You can either gently crack the eggs to create two halves or blow the contents of the egg out to create these small candles.  Blowing out the contents of the egg can add a bit of a personal touch - you're using your breath to make space for you intention to grow!  Simply poke a decent size hole in either end of the egg and blow.  Once the egg is empty, open the top hole up just a little more so that you'll have room for the wax and a wick.  Tape up the bottom of the egg so the wax wont escape and add your wick and a little wax.  You can color the eggs and/or color the wax to align with your intentions.  You can also write on the outside of your egg in wax or in marker the goal or intention you're making this candle for.  Have your family all make one (or two!) and put them in a ceramic egg holder to light at Ostara dinner.  Be sure to save those egg insides to cook with!

Write your Goals

Speaking of writing on your eggs, you can outline your goals, wishes, and dreams on the outside of eggs.  Writing in white or clear wax crayon and then dying the eggs will reveal your goals just as you'd like to manifest them into your life.  Or keep them secret by dying the eggs first then writing in wax.  Decorate your eggs with sigils you've created or spellwork you'd like to see to fruition.  You can even anoint them with essential oils corresponding to your goals or diffuse some that work perfect for the season.  Decorate your altar with these eggs and then bury them with a seed (either outside or in a pot!) that you can nurture as you move through your goals.

Seed Starters

The little shells of eggs are the perfect vessel to start seeds for your garden!  Carefully cracking eggs a little off center will create the perfect little cup to start your seed.  You can incorporate the activity above and label you seed starters with the goal you'd like to accomplish.  Consider growing an herb that corresponds to your goal or intention - like mint for prosperity, lavender for tranquility, rosemary for protection.  Once you're seeds are big enough to transplant either move them to your garden or into a pot on a windowsill.  This would be perfect for children to learn about growth and to give them a little responsibility to help their little plant grow.

Egg Hunt

This is an oldie but a goodie, everyone loves an good egg hunt!  This is a good, solid family activity to involve everyone.  You can fill the eggs with candy or even with different wishes for others.  Perhaps the eggs are filled with some wishes or hopes for others in your family - have everyone sit down and write these things and then stuff the eggs.  Then when they are all found have each person read off the wishes or hopes they'd like to cultivate this year.  Add this wish to the bottom of your seed starter and plant an herb corresponding to the wish. This is a great way to involve extended family in a tradition that could align with an Easter celebration as well.  It's not too out there if perhaps parents or grandparents don't celebrate the Wheel of the Year.

Bake or Cook with Eggs

This is my favorite.  I love to celebrate the Sabbats by cooking.  Saving the insides of your eggs means you can make a yummy breakfast, quiche, or cake.  My favorite way to use eggs is in Deviled Eggs.  This speaks to me because my mother makes the best Deviled Eggs ever so using eggs this way carries on the tradition.  Bake sweet cakes or breads.  Make egg salad sandwiches and head out for a picnic if it's nice out!  A picnic is a great activity to count the ways the earth is blooming and to listen for new little animals.

Ostara celebrates growth.  The Goddess is transitioning into her Maiden form.  We're celebrating fertility, protection, purification, and the nurturing nature of the earth.  Eggs are a great way to celebrate through the season and keep growth as your mindset as we move through Spring.  The easiest way for me to keep the reason for the season in my mind is to have a physical representation.  We keep eggs and hares/rabbits on our family altar and I keep a willow wreath decorated with eggs, lavender, and greenery on my personal altar.  (Check out that super easy and affordable DIY here)  Seeing these symbols everyday reminds me of what I'm working towards.  Having a physical representation of the things I'm looking to embody helps me to move through the seasons with purpose!

I also want to leave you with a last little tip: easy home made egg dye!  Of course you can use natural dyes but this works with quite a few things we've already got in all of our cabinets:

You can learn more about the Spring or Vernal Equinox in this post.  I share info about essential oils, how I align this Sabbat with the moon phases, and give you three oil blends to work with this season!

Blessed Ostara my friends!

What do you do to celebrate the turning of the wheel at the Spring Equinox?

xoxo, Moe

Essential Oils for the Spring Equinox

I'm a little bit late with this post as the Spring Equinox happened on March 20th of 2018.....but better late than never!   The Spring or Vernal Equinox is a time when the light of day and the darkness of night are in perfect balance.  Unlike the Autumn Equinox where the days get shorter and we slip into the darkness of winter, the Vernal Equinox pushes us into the longer days of summer.  Now is the time to freshen up our homes & tidy up our lives to make room for the newness of Spring.  So if you've been itching to get Spring Cleaning (and you're sure it's not the allergies kicking in) now is the time to get your butt in gear!

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Also known as Ostara, the Spring or Vernal Equinox is a celebration of fertility of the land, or newness, and of planting seeds.  This is a time to prepare & a time to plan.  I often find that I get the inspiration to set new goals or adjust the ones I set in January to better align myself with the path I find myself walking.  So if you've felt you're moving in slow motion perhaps you'll get some inspiration around this time to start planning and planting the seeds that will help you move forward!

In previous seasonal essential oil posts, I've related the seasonal changes to moon phases.  If the Autumn Equinox is the Full moon, the Winter Solstice is the Waning moon, then Spring is the New moon.  This means that it is time to discover what we'd like to work on as the moon waxes.  We're working with the energy of growth and development.....so that by the time we are at Mabon (the Autumn Equinox) or the Full moon we're able to harvest our hard work!

Essential Oils for the Season

Since this is the season of preparation, of planting, and of cleaning the scents that match these vibes are fresh & earthy.  These scents inspire openness of the heart & mind as well as happiness with self.  We're working with the Heart, Third Eye, and Solar Plexus chakras!

Light Citrus Oils

Oils like lemon, lime, and grapefruit offer a fresh light scent that inspire happiness in us.  Citrus oils work with the Solar Plexus Chakra where our center of joy and self acceptance is located.  After the long winter, these oils give us hope for the coming warmth!  When used in cleaning products, these oils purify & disinfect.  Lemon is the perfect multipurpose oil for cleaning.

Herbaceous Oils

These hearty, earthy oils will open up the Heart Chakra.  The best example I've heard on how to relate these herbaceous oils to the Heart Chakra is to think about the love you pour into cooking & preparing meals for your loved ones when you use seasoning like rosemary, basil, or oregano.  You're pouring your care and love into your creation & nurturing the ones you love!  Plus spring is all about new growth & greenery!  A lot of herbaceous oils - like Rosemary and Basil - can bring about feelings of renewal & transition.  So just as we move through to a brand new season and brand new growth, these oils can help ease emotional transitions as well.  

Florals & Firs

This set of oils connects the Heart & Third Eye Chakras.  Fir oils can still have a little bit of a chest opening (so heart-centric) and also help with movement through emotion.  For example Cypress is known as the oil of Motion and Flow and as we're going through this new growth season, we'll be breaking old habits, patterns, and beliefs!  Florals are oils I like to associate with the Third Eye Chakra.  Much like you'd want your third eye to bloom open to developing your intuition, you can imaging the flowers of these oils doing the same: opening to the sun, growing, and developing.  Since Spring is when we start to see the flowers poke through the ground reaching out to their full potential so too can we use floral oils in the Spring to open up ourselves.

Oil Blends for the Season

I find the best way to create custom blends is to group my oils by category - so a group of citrus oils, a group of herbaceous oils, and a group of florals & firs - and then grab one from each group and inhale from the bottles.  Do the smell good together?  What else might be needed?  Rosemary & Lemon make a great fresh scent for the kitchen, but if you add it something like Basil the aroma gets just a little deeper.

Lavender, Lemon, and Peppermint are thought to aid in combating seasonal allergies but you may find you prefer to use Rosemary over Peppermint.  Lavender and Citrus Bliss can be an amazing, even tempering blend but add in something like Douglass Fir or Cypress and you'll find feelings of support as well.

Here are a few Spring inspired emotion blends to get you started, try diffusing 2 drops of each oil or creating a roller bottle for yourself!

Creative Inspiration

Citrus Bliss - the Oil of Creativity // Cypress - the Oil of Motion & Flow // Basil - the Oil of Renewal

Perfect for getting the inspiration flowing & moving through the creative process.  Inspires newness & growth as well as working through old patterns.

Spring Forward

Lime - the Oil of Zest for Life // Douglas Fir - the Oil of Generational Wisdom // Rosemary - the oil of Knowledge & Transition
Perfect for feeling uplifted while trying to break old habits to allow for new ones to develop.  Give you the inspiration to move forward with a zest for life.  Great for the inspiration to spring clean!

If these essential oil blends are inspiring you, consider grabbing the free ebook about getting started with essential oils.  Personally, I use essential oils to balance emotion but there are a ton of everyday uses as well.  Check it out below!

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You can also follow along on Instagram to learn more about essential oils.  If you're wanting to learn more, make sure you like the Facebook page so that you'll be able to see when I host FREE essential oil classes!

Free & Floral

Grapefruit - the Oil of Honoring the Body // Lavender - the Oil of Communication & Calm // Ylang Ylang - the Oil of the Inner Child

Helps expand belief in yourself & get back to your natural state of happiness.  Great for a relaxing bath as you focus on self love.

Citrus Bloom

Bergamot - the Oil of Self Acceptance // Clary Sage - the Oil of Clarity & Vision // Tangerine - the Oil of Cheer & Creativity

This oil blend can help to reveal to you a creative pursuit and give you the confidence to pursue it.  Perfect for an early morning diffuser to get started for a creative spring day.

Using essential oils seasonally can really get you connected to the emotions of the changing seasons.  You may notice in each of these guides some oils overlap - herbaceous oils were also mentioned in the Fall Essential Oil guide.  But what to pay attention to here are the prevailing feelings of the seasons.  Herbaceous oils help us in the fall as we transition into colder weather where we may be spending more time indoors & with family.  These oils support our heart as we work with others.  In the Spring, we're transitioning away from this and moving into our own personal growth.  So we can use the emotional properties of herbaceous oils to support our relationships with ourselves.

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xoxo, Moe

Make it Monday // DIY Dollar Tree Ostara Altar Decor

Spring is almost here!  I am so excited for warmer weather and longer days.  At the beginning of February we celebrated Imbolc which is about the first inklings of spring shinging through - more active animals, longer days, maybe a hint of green here & there.  

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Today's DIY is focused on creating budget friendly Ostara decor from supplies found at the Dollar Tree!  There are a ton of pretty spring things out right now.  My favorite find was the springs of lavender which is perfect for this project.  Purple is such a spring color.  And I found these amazing speckled eggs that look like they came from a high end decor shop.  Dollar Tree for the win - 6 pastel speckled eggs in a little egg container for only $1!  I couldn't link these for you below, but I've linked what I can.  Even the bunnies came from the Dollar Tree.  Assorted Spring decor for $1 each!

supplies : mini wreath, lavender sprigs, speckled eggs, moss, hot glue gun & glue sticks, wire cutters/snippers

Start by snipping buds from the flower bunches.  Don't snip too close to the base of the flower, you want to make sure there is enough stem left to push into the wreath.  Organize the flower sprigs on the wreath form the way you'd like.  Using the glue gun place a line of hot glue on the stem & push it into the wreath.

Pull some of the leaves from the stems & add those in to your floral mix.  This creates a little bit of depth to the arrangement.  The arrangement is going to be on the side of the wreathe, so press these leaves into the arrangement upright.

Next it is time to add the speckled eggs.  We're mainly working with a lot of visual balance in this project.  The floral arrangement is on the right side of the wreathe and the egg & moss grouping is going to ground back down the overall design.

Attach the moss to the wreathe by putting glue on the wreathe first then pressing on the moss.  The moss sticks together, but small pieces will fall off.  It was a mess.  Pressing the moss on to the glue allows you more control over it.

Keep it balanced by creating a cluster of three eggs in the moss.  I chose pink, yellow, and blue for the eggs to compliment the purple lavender sprigs.  Adding two egg in the front & one egg in the back makes a lovely little scene.

Now for some facts:

What is Ostara?

The Vernal or Spring Equinox falls on March 20th.  Also known as Ostara, the Spring Equinox celebrates the balance of light and dark with light beginning to increase until we get to the longest day of the year the Summer Solstice.  It is one of the eight holidays or sabbats on the pagan Wheel of the Year.

This Pagan holiday celebrates the maiden goddess that overseas the budding of plants and the idea of fertility as she begins to interact with the horned sun god.  The maiden goddess transforms over the year from maiden, to mother, to crone.  She is fertile now, just as the earth is, ready to conceive.  So now is the time to celebrate planting & new life to harvest later in the year (at celebrations like Litha & Mabon).  We can also celebrate a goddess like Persephone who has emerged from her stay in the underworld.  I personally think Ostara celebrates newness & new life.

Easter, the Christian holiday celebrating Christ's resurrection, is most closely related to Ostara as it celebrates rebirth & shares similar symbols.  However, Ostara & Easter don't really have any close linguistic relations (from what I've read when trying to find a definitive answer on this).  These two holidays seem to just fall closely & share symbolism.

Symbols of Ostara

Around this time we start to see a lot of bunnies & eggs pop up in our stores seasonal aisles.  Eggs have always been a symbol of 'seed'.  Eggs are a symbol of opportunity & growth as the hold the entirety of potential inside of them.  Think of an bird's egg - a self contained unit that nourishes & protects the bird while it grows.  Decorated eggs are fun & a great way to spend time with a symbol you'd like to work with - so coloring eggs with your family using a PAHS dye set isn't necessarily a pagan (or Christian) thing but it is still an important part of spending time with family & carefully prepping for the coming holiday.

When it comes to hares or bunnies, this animal has been associated with fertility for a long while.  Apparently a rabbit can conceive another litter, while she is still pregnant!  And we all know how rabbits seem to multiply exponentially.  So that symbol comes with a little bit of science.  We're also seeing animals stirring during the spring time and that can lead to an association between the bunny & Easter/Ostara/the Spring Equinox.

I can't wait to sit with these symbols at my altar while I celebrate the longer days and the development of ideas.  I've spoken before about how Mabon, or the Atumn Equinox, is like the Full Moon for me, well the Spring Equinox is like the New Moon.  It is a time to set & refine intentions for the year (even though you may have done this in January).  You can also work with the New Moon in Aries energy that falls in April this year to set goals & intentions.  Spring is a great time to see new growth & new opportunity in your life, especially after the reflection & release that was the Winter Solstice.

Use this time to celebrate the longer days, the warmth coming, and the seeds you can plant towards becoming your best self.  If you haven't started a new habit, try one out!  If you've got a new idea, refine it a little then offer it up to be nurtured by your hard work.

How do you celebrate spring?  What do you do to celebrate the spring time?

xoxo, Moe