Ostara

It was also, usually, the first Royal visit of the year from my posh auntie, which meant the golden hostess trolley came out of retirement and, on it, the glass mould that turned out a rabbit made of delicious pink blancmange. I can still taste it.

We painted eggs too. Real ones, blown empty and coloured by hand, before the cheap chocolate invasion arrived and did the job for everyone. There were Easter bonnet parades, a whole procession of children in hats we had made ourselves. And out in the fields, where we used to take our bikes off-road, there were hares. Not rabbits. Hares were bigger, stranger, more robust, and to a child they seemed genuinely magical, the old animal of the season even if nobody told us why.

That is Ostara, though we called it Easter. The spring equinox, the moment the year tips from dark into light, day and night held in perfect balance for one turning before the light wins. The eggs, the hare, the spring cleaning, the new clothes, the celebration of fertility and fresh beginnings, all of it older than the Christian feast laid on top.

The festival even kept the goddess's name. Easter is Eostre, the spring goddess whose hare and eggs we painted without knowing whose they were.

What Ostara is

Ostara is the spring equinox, around 20 March in the Northern Hemisphere, when day and night are equal in length. From this point the light takes over. The days grow longer than the nights and stay that way until the autumn equinox six months later.

It is one of the four solar festivals, tied to an exact astronomical moment. It sits opposite Mabon, the autumn equinox, on the wheel, the two points of perfect balance in the year, one tipping toward light and one toward dark.

Ostara is the festival of fertility and new growth, of the earth fully waking. The seeds planted in hope at Imbolc are now visibly growing. The name comes from Eostre, a Germanic goddess of spring and dawn, recorded by the Venerable Bede in the 8th century as the namesake of the month and, eventually, of Easter. Her symbols, the egg and the hare, survive intact in the modern festival.

The history, in plain English

The spring equinox has been marked across the ancient world, but Ostara as we name it comes from the Germanic tradition. Bede, writing in the 8th century, recorded that the month corresponding to April was called Eosturmonath after a goddess named Eostre, celebrated with feasts in that season. The modern festival of Easter takes its English name directly from her, where most other European languages use a version of the Hebrew Pesach (Pascha).

The egg is the obvious symbol, the perfect emblem of dormant life ready to hatch, used in spring rites across countless cultures long before it was a chocolate shell. The hare, later softened into the Easter bunny, was the sacred animal of the season, associated with the moon, with fertility, and with Eostre herself. Hares were seen in the fields at this time, boxing and leaping, mad with spring.

The balance of the equinox gave the festival its deeper meaning. Light and dark held equal for a moment, then the light chosen. Ostara is the festival of choosing growth, of stepping out of winter and committing to the bright half of the year.

What I do at Ostara

Ostara is the festival of beginnings made real, and the work is to plant something, literally or otherwise.

I get my hands in the soil. After a childhood watching my mother tend her garden through every season, spring is when the year's growing actually begins, and there is no better Ostara observance than putting a seed in the ground. If you have no garden, a pot on a windowsill does the same work. The act is the point: committing to something that will grow.

As a child I was amazed when the new growth broke through, that my mother had the foresight to plant it all those months before, in the cold, when there was nothing to see. That was the first time I understood she was gardening by the moon, working to a calendar older than the one on the wall, planting in the dark of the year for a spring she trusted would come. It was my first real glimpse of the structure I would spend my life working with.

I notice the balance. The equinox is one of only two days in the year when light and dark are equal, and it is worth pausing on. What in your life needs rebalancing. What has been too dark through the winter that could take some light now.

If you want a simple practice: plant one seed on the equinox. Name what you want it to stand for. Tend it through the spring. By the time Beltane comes, six weeks later, you will have something growing, and the festival will have done its quiet work.

The Empress speaks

The card of Ostara is The Empress, Mother Earth herself, fertility and abundance and growth made flesh. Let her speak.

"After the solstice, slipping closer to the light. Mother Earth opens her arms, a moment to notice what is already growing. Ground your energy in what is real, living, and quietly miraculous. I do not rush you. Renewal happens naturally when you stop resisting it. Your deeper dreams are not distant. They are closer than you think, already taking root."

That is the gift of the Empress at the equinox: she does not hurry. The growth is already happening, under the soil and in you, whether or not you force it. Her affirmation is the festival in a line: I nurture what brings me joy and trust life to meet me with abundance. You can read the full meaning of The Empress card here.

Ostara in the tarot

The Empress is the festival's card, but the equinox carries others.

The Fool (0) belongs to Ostara, the card of fresh starts and stepping out into the new, exactly the energy of spring's beginning.

The Sun (XIX) stirs here too, the growing strength of the light, the joy of the year opening, though it belongs fully to the summer.

The Ace of Pentacles for the seed taking root, the Three of Wands for growth getting underway, the Page of Wands for the spark of new enthusiasm that spring brings.

How to mark Ostara

Plant something. A seed, a seedling, a pot on a sill. The single most fitting Ostara act.

Decorate eggs. The oldest spring symbol there is. Paint them, blow them, dye them with onion skins the old way. A craft thousands of years deep.

Notice the balance. Day and night equal. Pause on what in your life needs rebalancing as the light takes over.

Open the house to spring. The deeper clean that Imbolc only began. Let the light and air fully back in.

Choose growth. The equinox is the year committing to the light. Choose one thing to grow through the bright half of the year ahead.

Ostara 2026 dates

Ostara 2027 dates

Ostara in the Southern Hemisphere

South of the equator the spring equinox falls in September, so Ostara is a September festival there, with Mabon falling in March instead.

Around the wheel from Ostara

Ostara is one of the wheel's two balance points, the year choosing light over dark. To see how it fits with the other seven sabbats, return to The Wheel of the Year.

Frequently asked

We painted the eggs and wore the bonnets and watched for hares on the hill without ever being told whose hares they were. That is how these festivals survive, hidden in plain sight inside the ones that replaced them. Ostara is the year choosing the light, the seeds your mother planted in the cold now genuinely growing, the balance point you step through on your way into the bright half.

I will see you under the next moon. And on the equinox, plant something.

Yours, Paul O'Mara