“Now the green blade rises
From the buried grain.
Love that in the darkness
Many days hath lain.
Love comes again,
That in the earth hath been
Love will come again
Like grass that springeth green.”
Medieval Easter carol.
This is the month of the Great Turning, as the earth one more time starts to lean its head into the sun. Once again we pass out of darkness (we of the northern hemisphere, that is).
The spring goddess Eostyr walks out again, and where her bare feet touch the snow snowdrops bloom, and where her hair brushes the trees as she dances green mists of buds begin.
It hurts, the spring. For many people spring, not winter, is the hardest time of the year. Dare we hope again? Can we stand the joy of the returning light when we know it’s not here for keeps? Easier maybe to stay furled in the seed-case and die in the earth than once again to reach up with all our fibres, all our hopes, into the light.
It’s also the time of year when the two great spiritual traditions that have formed our western culture hold hands (though they won’t always admit it). Easter and Passover are one and the same festival. Moses led the Jews out of darkness and slavery on the night of the Passover, when a lamb’s blood was used for protection. Jesus came to Jerusalem to celebrate the Passover, and died during the festival, and is often called the Lamb of God. These are one and the same thing, and their timing is calibrated by the Moon.
And behind them one can see the Great Dance. The Earth leans again towards the light, once again we come out of the dark, and the Moon tells us when to plant.
You might look for Eostyr in the Page of Pentacles, sometimes called the Rose of Isis. The Page of Pentacles is the endpoint of manifestation, the place where the cycle ends and earth ones again becomes fire. Just before it does, if you look with your magic eyes, you’ll see a rose, the Rose, growing in the garden of Persephone, half in the light, half in the dark.
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