Mary Magdalene, Apostle of Christ, holds the symbolic Gnostic Egg

To anyone who thinks twice about it, Easter presents us with a bizarre cacophony of images: crosses, rabbits carrying chocolate eggs and Lambs.  Baby chicks spring out of the eggs brought by the rabbits. This is the kind of thing that happens when we try to obliterate the Gnostic in Christianity, adopt any number of so-called Pagan festivals, while banishing the writings of Mary Magdalene, the only one said to be present at the Resurrection and a constant companion to Jesus during his last years.  If we understand the significance of the Gnostic Egg and only then try to put the other elements together, we stand a far better chance of establishing a coherent festival

You can eat lamb but not rabbit at Easter. The lamb is the traditional sacrificial animal in the Bible.  That’s how we get terms such as Lamb of God. It goes back at least as far as the Sacrifice of Issac

Also, the Spring is the time of new born lambs, an important moment in agricultural as well as nomadic herding cultures such as we find in the Bible.

Here are a few of the astrological observations on the season.

Easter is a movable Feast. It occurs on the first Sunday after the first Full Moon after the Spring Equinox. Unlike the Solar Based Christmas dating, Easter is more Lunar.

The first Full Moon when the Sun is in Aries is of course in Libra, governed by Venus. But the actual holiday has to occur on a Sun Day. For Christians this is the most important day of the year. It marks when Jesus Christ rose from the dead after the Crucifixion.

These two themes appear to clash and to clash badly. That’s because in spite of its best efforts, early Christianity failed to combine the elements of a Pagan holiday into a Christian one as successfully as they had with Christmas.

But then there really isn’t anything particularly Christian about Christmas with regard to the time of year.. It appears to be a symbolic gesture to the Winter Solstice. This time of year is of great significance in virtually all cultures in any case.

Sol Invictus – Roman Solar Deity

Early evangelists attempted to symbolically integrate the Religion of the Sun God or Sol Invictus with Christianity. If they had failed it might have remained a minor cult or gone extinct.

At that time Sol Invictus was the primary deity of Romans. It effectively made Caesar the God’s spokesman on Earth. This is of course very close to the idea of the Pope as the Vicar (as in vicarious) of Christ on Earth. Ironically, the Caesar Constantine who declared Christianity the state religion of Rome, left as the memorial to himself as Apollo the Sun God. It is now widely doubted that Constantine ever fully converted.

Concessions were made to previous religions by absorbing key archetypal ideas and symbology. In Persia and the Eastern Roman Empire there were many practicioners of Mithraism or Zoroastrianism which again is the Solar Deity. Among the chief reasons that Christianity eventually spread so fast is that local religions were given their place whenever possible,

It is becoming very difficult to find anyone who thinks that Christmas is the actual birthday of Jesus Christ, but it’s by far the most popular holy day. The early evangelist Justin Martyr famously gave solace to a potential Greek convert by assuring him Christ was just like Zeus. It is the semblance of Zeus that was used particularly in the Eastern Orthodox Church. The end justifies the means.

Easter eggs go back at least as far as Ancient Persia and painted eggs were part of the Spring Equinox Festival also known as Noruz. Eggs are an obvious choice to use if you want to symbolically celebrate fertility. But the reason for the eggs is Venusian. The egg is a high symbol of the ubiquitous Goddess known as Venus Ishtar, Innana, Oestra, and many more. In fact the word for Easter comes from the name Eostra. So we have eggs and other obvious symbols of the Goddess religion. Rabbits and Hares are a later European feature of Easter. We have expressions such as breed like rabbits because they are famously reproductive.

An Anglo-Saxon goddess named Eostre may have had hares as attendants. If so, the hares may have held her lights, since Eostre was the goddess of Dawn, like Eos (Greek) and Aurora (Latin). The month of April was, among the Anglo-Saxons, called Eostur-monath, and during Eostur-monath, a festival was held to Eostre (see  “The Hare in Myth and Reality: A Review Article,” by John Andrew 1973.)

It’s a stretch in my view to mix these symbols and hearkening to so called Pagan religions with the the Christian story of the death and resurrection of Jesus It doesn’t seem at home amidst all this estrogen, but so far it has worked.

I’m sure this is why it has to occur on a Sunday after a Full Moon in Venusian Libra. It’s an attempt to align the Solar Deity Mythology with that that of the Goddess.

The resurrection is suppose to mean (quite literally) new life – as in rising from the dead. From an astrological point of view we have the Spring Equinox and 0 Aries, followed by a Full Moon in Venusian Libra.

At this point we can say we have balance. We could easily say as many religions do, that the Vernal Equinox is a Fire Festival associated with the Sun God and the Waxing Force of Light.

It appears to be a case of turning the tables by switching to a Lunar Calendar but insisting on a Sun Day. Although *new life* and *fertility* can be linked, I don’t think it’s a successful attempt. One is really referring  to the resurrection of the Body. The other is all about perpetual generation on the earthly plane.