Apr 20

Apr 20 Happy Easter!

CELEBRATING THE SACRED BALANCE

Happy Easter! Today marks a celebration far older than any recorded story—honoring the perfect balance of forces that create and sustain life.

Victoria's video on Easter

This SUN-day celebration falls on the first Sunday after the first full moon following spring equinox—when day and night stand in perfect equality. This balance of light and dark, masculine and feminine energies, creates the ideal moment for new beginnings. The spring equinox was the original start of most ancient calendars.

Our ancestors recognized this cosmic harmony as the perfect time for conception, exactly 9 months before winter solstice when light triumphs over darkness.

Because the sun was compared to the divine art of creating children. Love creates life. Every child born is like that sun rising again, an epic start to life that shines on all equally.

The fertility symbols couldn't be clearer: rabbits with their famous reproductive abundance and eggs symbolizing potential life. Isn't it fascinating that Christianity couldn't eradicate the bunny—literally the symbol for prolific sex—from Easter? That rabbit hopped through history straight into the Playboy logo! The goddess is like a stubborn weed that keeps growing back despite centuries of attempts to uproot her.

The word "Easter" itself preserves this truth—from the Egyptian goddess Aset/Isis/Ishtar (pronounced "eest"), whose name gives us "east" and "star." The "-t" in Easter is an Egyptian feminine marker that survived millennia of language evolution. She wasn't secondary but the throne of power itself, the Queen of Heaven, later assimilated into Mary.

Even the name "Mary" comes from Egyptian "meri" (beloved), and early Christian art of Mary with child was indistinguishable from Isis with Horus for the first 200 years. The divine mother wasn't erased—just renamed.

Our ancestors understood the sexual power dynamics that modern religions inverted: women as fertility gatekeepers (fertile just days each month) and men as constant pursuers (producing sperm daily). Yet patriarchal religions rewrote women as dangerous temptresses needing control, when biology shows the reverse.

Today celebrates this ancient truth: life springs from balance and harmony. It honors the sacred dance of opposing yet complementary forces—masculine and feminine, light and darkness, earth and sky—whose union creates the miracle of existence. To participate in this cycle of creation is to touch the divine.

You are all so deeply loved.

#HappyEaster #DivineFeminine #SacredFeminine #AncientWisdom #SpringEquinox #MotherGoddess

Easter: Uncovering the Goddess Hidden in Our Spring Celebration

Spring is here, but have you ever wondered why we hunt for eggs delivered by rabbits to celebrate a religious holiday? Turns out, there's so much more to Easter than most of us learned in Sunday school. Let's dig into the fascinating story of how this celebration connects to ancient goddess worship, moon cycles, and women's wisdom – a history that's been hiding in plain sight all along.

What's in a Name? Following Easter's Breadcrumbs

Let's start with something simple – the word "Easter" itself. Ever notice how Spanish-speaking countries celebrate "Pascua" and French countries celebrate "Pâques"? Almost every language derived from Latin uses some version of "Pascha" (connected to Passover) – except English. We're the odd ones out with "Easter." Why?

The answer takes us back to the 8th century, when a monk named Bede casually mentioned that "Easter" came from "Eostre," a Germanic goddess celebrated for the whole month of April. The month was literally called “Easter month”. For years, some scholars dismissed this as Bede making things up, but archaeology has backed him up! Researchers have found numerous "Austriahenae" figurines – votive offerings to this goddess – scattered across Germanic lands dating to 150 AD, evidence of a goddess related to the word Easter that survived into Roman times.

But the rabbit hole goes even deeper. That "Est/Ist" sound (pronounced "eest") in Easter? It connects back to the Egyptian goddess Isis (written as Aset or Ist in Egyptian). She was the goddess of the rising sun – the east – and her name gives us words like "east" and "star." Talk about a linguistic treasure hunt!

One thing no modern scholar can debate: the -t in Easter preserves an Egyptian feminine marker. Etymology of many words go back to an “aus” root word meaning dawn, but the “t” marks it as feminine.

Love Creates Life

Ever wondered why Easter moves around the calendar? It's determined by a formula that sounds like something from an astrology book: the first Sunday after the first full moon following the spring equinox. Seems complicated, and not very Christian.

There's a method to this lunar-solar madness. It’s reverse engineering to help plan for a child to be born on the winter solstice/Christmas.

Because until 400 years ago, they were one and the same. 1582, the calendar switched to Gregorian. This is when they said year zero is Jesus’s birth year. They also split up the solstice and Christmas by 4 days. We have church records saying it’s perfectly logical Jesus was born on the birthday of the sun, in the Julian calendar. Let’s not forget, that same Julius Caesar was the baby daddy to Egypt’s Cleopatra. It’s not surprising some Egyptian concepts were integral to elements of society that’s been passed on to us today.

The spring equinox – when day and night are perfectly balanced – was seen by many ancient cultures as the ideal time for conception. And guess what happens nine months after the spring equinox? Winter solstice – when the sun is "reborn" and days start getting longer again. When light wins over darkness.

It was a big deal to have a child born in this day. It meant they could more easily gain followers to say they were the sun incarnate, a his made flesh. A representation of the divine Sun.

Our ancestors weren't just making this up – they were observing real connections between cosmic cycles and human biology. Women's monthly cycles roughly match the moon's phases (the word "menstruation" even shares roots with "moon" and "month"). When you think about it, we're walking, talking star dust! Energy cannot be created or destroyed. All matter that made the stars recirculated to also make us. You are made of star dust.

Modern Easter Symbols

Now let's talk about those Easter bunnies and eggs. In today's celebrations, they seem like cute, child-friendly additions, but they tell a much older story.

Rabbits and hares? They're famous for their, um, enthusiastic reproductive habits. A single female rabbit can produce up to 30 babies in a season. They weren't chosen randomly – they were perfect symbols of fertility and abundance.

Isn't it fascinating that modern Christianity couldn't eradicate the bunny from Easter? THE cute symbol for lots and lots of sex?

In fact, that bunny hopped right through history and into our modern consciousness – landing even in the Playboy bunny logo, a symbol of female sexuality completely disconnected from religious meaning. The bunny persists because it represents something fundamental: life's urge to reproduce, to continue, to flourish through sexual energy.

And eggs? The ultimate symbol of potential life. In many ancient traditions, they were painted red to represent the blood of birth and renewal. These symbols celebrated the very real, very physical aspects of creation – not as something shameful, but as something sacred and worth honoring.

Because love creates life. Sex was the life forming union of separate forces.

What's remarkable is how persistently these fertility symbols have survived despite centuries of attempts to rewrite their meaning. The goddess is like the stubborn weed that keeps growing back no matter how many times the gardener tries to pull it out. She's there in the name Easter, she's there in the symbols, she's there in our instinctive joy at spring's arrival.

When Mary Met Isis: The Divine Mothers Merge

Here's where things get really interesting. If you look at early Christian art – I'm talking the first couple hundred years after Christ – depictions of Mary with baby Jesus look practically identical to older images of Egyptian Aset/Isis nursing Horus (the root for our word HORIZon).

Same throne position (the hieroglyph for Isis was literally a throne), same star crown, same divine mother vibe.

Ishtar/Astarte give us the word star. And East.

Even the name "Mary" has Egyptian roots! It comes from "meri," meaning "beloved" – a term often used in royal Egyptian names and titles. When early Christians were spreading their faith, they didn't completely erase goddess worship – they transformed it. They adopted it. Then tried to erase our cultural memory of her.

The Queen of Heaven became Mary, Mother of God – still divine, still powerful, just with a new backstory.

And comfortably silent.

A Calendar That Makes Sense

Our ancestors weren't just making up random holidays – they were creating a calendar that reflected the world around them. The year told a story: winter solstice (Christmas) celebrated the birth of light in darkness, summer solstice marked peak power, and the equinoxes represented perfect balance.

This wasn't just poetic – it was practical! For farming communities, knowing when to plant and harvest meant survival. For new parents, timing births for optimal seasons could mean babies that could rule with cosmic alignment.

Having a winter solstice baby was considered lucky in many cultures – which means spring equinox was prime baby-making time!

Women: The Original Wisdom Keepers

Before books, before Google, women were often society's primary wisdom keepers. Think about it – their bodies naturally tracked time with monthly cycles. They brought new life into the world (talk about sacred knowledge!). They were the first teachers of each generation. Her heartbeat was every baby’s first drumbeat.

Archaeological evidence shows that in many early societies, women held major spiritual and social authority. Those "Venus figurines" archaeologists keep finding? They outnumber male representations by a ton across prehistoric sites.

They were much more than sex cult symbols- they were the age old conundrum of what it took to create life.

Because before there were paternity tests, all bloodlines traced the female line. Nobody knew what a man had to do with creating life: some cultures thought if a woman had sex with many men, that child would get the best of each man. Royalty followed the female line. But as dominator cultures swept through with Bronze Age weapons, they needed to literally wrestle away this idea of female power. And they had to rewrite her from the story. But they couldn’t do away with her completely.

The idea that women should be kept silent and submissive? That's actually relatively recent in human history – coinciding suspiciously with the rise of warfare, property inheritance, and centralized power. For most of human existence, feminine wisdom was essential, celebrated, and honored.

Now that land was owned individually, a man had to know who were his baby’s, so land and women were fenced off, and expected to be obedient.

Hidden in Plain Sight: The Name "Israel"

Even familiar religious names hold pieces of this forgotten history. Take "Israel" – a name for a place sacred to all 3 Abraham’s traditions: Judaism, Christianity and Islam. Sister traditions that share the same first stories and characters.

But look at its parts:

"Is" connects to Isis/Aset – the divine feminine, the rising sun: the mother.
"Ra" represents the midday noon sun/son often shown as the divine child. Egyptian sungod, giving us modern words SunRay/Reign of a king
"El" refers to the setting sun, the male creator aspect, Canonite father god

Together, Is, Ra and El create a complete cosmic family – mother, child, father – preserved in a single name central to monotheistic tradition.

Mind blown yet? Just wait.

Remember that popular Christian prayer, “Father, Son, and Holy Spirit”? That word spirit in both Arabic and Hebrew is feminine. The mother lives on in that prayer as the spirit. In one word, we have that prayer preserved in that word Israel. A whole prayer in one word: Is-Ra-El. Mother, holy sun child, and father.

Every life born seen as epic as the rising sun. It is all about making babies. It, therefore, is all about sex.

The trinity preserved in word is not just in Israel. There is another land in Africa named Tamunraset (Amun/Ra/Aset) that also holds this trinity in memory, and it too, is a culture that still has matrilinear roots, nomadic people that were hard to subjugate, near a beautiful oasis in the desert. These societies hold clues to understanding our own traditions, linguistic and cultural fossils of our own heritage.

The Great Sexual Power Reversal

The biology of reproduction tells a clear story that's been completely flipped in modern religious narratives.

Biologically speaking, men produce sperm constantly and are driven to "spread their seed" as widely as possible. Their hormones operate on a simple daily cycle. Cortisol in the morning that wanes through the day.

Women, have this daily cycle too: waking then waning energy before bed, but they also have the “moon cycle”: a fertility cycle that means they are only fertile for a few days each month. Her fertility shuts down entirely under stress. If she is pregnant, or in labor, her body will shut down fertility so she can get to safety first.

Their hormones follow a complex monthly (on top of that daily) rhythm that affects energy, mood, and sexual desire.

In nature, this creates a straightforward dynamic: men pursue, women choose. Men create music, art, and dance to attract women (just like male peacocks with their elaborate displays and jungle bird song). Women, as the gatekeepers of reproduction, hold the power of selection. She maintains her wits, while the men go after women constantly.

But religious stories write HER as the evil one, that makes men lust after her. SHE is demonized because men want her.

Flip through any modern religious text (60% of modern religion is either Islam or Christian, downstream from that <1% Jewish population), all later patriarchal traditions (downstream of originally matriarchal African societies), and suddenly women are portrayed as dangerous temptresses, the ones who need to be controlled, veiled, separated, and regulated. They may not even have souls according to these traditions. Why this complete inversion?

Because in matrilineal societies, women's sexual autonomy translated to genuine social and political power. In communities where lineage was traced through mothers (since paternity was uncertain before modern testing), women's reproductive choices directly shaped society's future.

Think about it: when a women became pregnant long, long ago, at first, we would have no idea men had anything to do with it at all. Such is the level of a man’s involvement in the creation of life. Yet, modern religions give credit to all creation of life to one man, alone.

Women's bodies were celebrated, not because men wanted to objectify them, but because their life-creating capacity was genuinely sacred.

The shift to controlling women's sexuality wasn't just about sexual jealousy—it was a deliberate power grab. By regulating who women could have sex with (i.e., only their husbands), men could control inheritance, property, and political succession. What was once women's greatest source of power became the very means of their subjugation.

Roman culture and the religions it promoted particularly excelled at this rewriting project, absorbing and transforming at least 23 distinct cultural traditions across Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East. Through this process, goddesses became subordinate consorts, priestesses became witches, and sexually empowered women became dangerous sinners in need of control.

Why Should We Care About All This?

You might wonder why any of this ancient history matters today. But understanding this profound reversal helps explain so many puzzling aspects of our modern world.

For starters, it reveals that the marginalization of women in spiritual contexts isn't "just how it's always been." It explains why no woman can ever be pope. There were entire civilizations where feminine wisdom was central, not sidelined.

This knowledge also helps us rethink our relationship with sexuality and bodies. What if we reclaimed the ancient understanding that creation is sacred rather than shameful? What if we acknowledged that controlling women's sexuality has always been about power, not morality?

In a world still struggling with gender equality, recognizing that patriarchal religious structures deliberately inverted natural power dynamics to control women provides important context for modern conversations about bodily autonomy, reproductive rights, and gender roles.

Celebrating Easter With Fresh Eyes

This Easter, we continue to honor those seasonal traditions, whether we know it or not. But you can appreciate, with eyes wide open, the age old message of resurrection of that divine sun child, while also connecting with older celebrations of equal forces of men and women coming together in this yin and yang energy balance: to thank the original mother and father of creation for all life in all its wondrous forms.

The Story Continues...

The story of Easter and the divine family can be found everywhere, All around us, people are reclaiming these forgotten aspects of our spiritual heritage. Historians, archaeologists, and everyday curious folks (like you, reading this!) continue to piece together the evidence that survived in the margins. Join in the linguistic treasure hunt with me, as I work to finish my book on this beautiful connection of life and cosmos.

Every time you hunt for eggs, welcome spring flowers, or celebrate renewal, you're participating in rituals whose meanings have evolved but whose essence remains: honoring the miraculous cycles that keep life going. The goddess of spring hasn't disappeared – she's just been hiding behind chocolate bunnies all along!

This Easter, as we enjoy that perfect balance of light and dark at equinox, maybe we can also seek better balance between masculine and feminine principles in our world and ourselves – honoring both the transcendent father god and the immanent mother goddess whose dance makes all creation possible.

The Trinity: Father, Son, and... Mother Spirit?

When Christians recite "In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit," they're unknowingly preserving a much older formula – one that originally acknowledged the divine feminine.

Let's look at this closely. The Father represents the masculine divine principle. The Son represents the product of divine union. But what about the Holy Spirit? In the original Greek and Hebrew texts, the words used for "spirit" (pneuma and ruach) are grammatically feminine. Early Syriac Christians explicitly referred to the Holy Spirit as feminine, and some early church fathers like Jerome acknowledged this feminine aspect.

What we're seeing is the divine mother in disguise. She couldn't be completely erased, so she was transformed into something abstract – but she's still there, the third essential part of creation.

This pattern repeats across cultures. The divine trio isn't about three male aspects – it's about the basic truth of how life is created: a mother, a father, and the child that results from their union. The sun/son represents new life regardless of whether it's a boy or girl. What matters is that new life requires both masculine and feminine principles.

Ancient Egypt understood this with Isis (mother), Osiris (father), and Horus (child). Hindu tradition has numerous trinities including Shakti (divine feminine), Shiva (divine masculine), and their child Ganesha. These fundamental patterns survive because they reflect biological reality – life comes from the union of masculine and feminine.# Easter: Uncovering the Goddess Hidden in Our Spring Celebration

Spring is here, and Easter's right around the corner! But have you ever wondered why we hunt for eggs delivered by rabbits to celebrate a religious holiday? Turns out, there's so much more to Easter than most of us learned in Sunday school. Let's dig into the fascinating story of how this celebration connects to ancient goddess worship, moon cycles, and women's wisdom – a history that's been hiding in plain sight all along.

What's in a Name? Following Easter's Breadcrumbs

The answer takes us back to the 8th century, when a monk named Bede casually mentioned that "Easter" came from "Eostre," a Germanic goddess celebrated throughout the month of April. For years, some scholars dismissed this as Bede making things up, but archaeology has backed him up! Researchers have found numerous "Austriahenae" figurines – votive offerings to this goddess – scattered across Germanic lands.

Summary:

Today is, without a shadow of a doubt, the day to celebrate the goddess. Spring. Color. Blooming. Light. An equilibrium of day and night- same number of daylight hours as night- a balance of male and female forces, but above all, a celebration of life.

Most ancient societies counted this as the start of the new year. Most perfectly, we celelbrate it on SUNday, the first SUNday after the first full moon of the spring equinox. The date chosen balances moon and sun alignments. It is a perfect alignment in name and meaning to what societies, since well before his-story started, celebrated.

Bunnies have lots of babies, representing the playboy bunnies of sexual freedom, and yes, lots and lots of sexual energy. This is the moment, 9 months before the birth of the sun (winter’s solstice and christmas, once the same date before the gregorian calendar shift of 1589).

Yes, this is the day people would try to conceive life to be born mid winter, when the sun wins over winter’s darkness, promising more lights in every day. If you had a child born on christmas/solstice, that child would be given a special name, would be thought of as special, and ready made for victory.

Because LOVE CREATES LIFE.

Nobody can miss spring. No matter how disconnected you are from the earth’s natural seasons, spring hits you with the blooming of trees, allergies going off like little alarms of the flowers sharing their seeds, and, ancient stories remaining in our own that tell us THIS is a special time of year.

And the science shows us Easter can be traced all the way back to Egypt. Easter is a germanic term that preserves an even more ancient goddess in Egypt, Aset/Isis/Ishtar. Her name was spelled ist, pronounced “eest”. She was the light of the rising sun, and gives us the word “east”. The “t” is a feminine term. Isis is her Greek name, but her Egyptian hieroglyph is written with a symbol of the thrown. She WAS the seat of power. She was the mother goddess and Queen of Heaven, later assimilated in story into our Modern Mary.

That name Mary? Also an Egyptian term meaning “beloved”. It is preserved in many pharoh’s names and epithets (titles).

The Germanic Easter was also a goddess, with surprising similiarities that was preserved in a totally unexpected route. Trade between Egypt, the Middle East (Astarte/Astorath/Esther of the Bible), and Germany are documented via blue glass beads found from before 2,000 BC. This means there was a cultural transmission of ideas before the start of Greek and Latin life, which started around 800 BC.

Our name for the modern Easter came to us in the Latin/Germanic struggles to create the modern English language. Every other Latin based culture uses the Jewish name for the spring holiday: a variation of Pascha/Passover. The christians, in an effort to distinguish themselves away from the Jews, rather than creating a new name, took the Germanic term for the month: Easter.

And the German immigrants entering America in the 1800’s filled the void of a holiday-less America, with both Christmas and Easter. Do you know the Germanic term for Christmas? Mother’s night. The celebration of all women becoming mothers. Fathers become fathers, children become beloved, but anyone seeing a natural birth cannot say all of creation can be credited to fathers alone. We need mothers and fathers, but let’s face it, mother’s have a much greater role in the creation and nurturing of life. Men are needed to support the mother, who does the real work.

To all the mothers, today is your day. Today is the day of the Goddess.

Even if you are not a mother, we all have mothers. Shout out to all the mothers. Shout out to all the fathers supporting mothers. Shout out to all the babies. You are SOO so loved.