With heartfelt sympathy to my friends who are still buried in snow and ice, I just have to comment on the beauty of Spring here in the Pacific Northwest. Even though it's only the first week in March, flowers are beginning to bloom, birds are singing, and the air smells sweet and full of life.

For many years I've been conducting seasonal ceremonies to help people connect to the natural cycles of birth, death and rebirth. One the practices lost to the western world with the spread of Christianity was the sacred act of ritualizing these transitions. In spring, instead of celebrating the awakening of new life in the plant and animal kingdoms as our ancestors did, we now have the ressurection of Jesus superimposed on that natural event, in the same way the birth of Jesus was superimposed onto ancient Winter Solstice ceremonies.

These ceremonies -- and the symbols related to them, such as eggs and evergreen trees -- had been going on for thousands of years. The founders of the early church knew that in order to attract Pagans to the new religion, some of the Pagan practices  had to be incorporated.

I would like to invite you all to participate in a simple ritual on this year's Spring Equinox. There's a reason why bunnies and eggs became a symbol for Easter (reproduction), and eggs were used in ancient ceremonies to symbolize birth. A simple ceremony you can do at home is to decorate a hard-boiled egg with symbols or words that represent your intention for personal growth in the coming year, and then bury the egg in your garden to symbolically make it grow. 

For a wonderful article on this and other relevant rituals, please click HERE.