trypticon
Apr 16, 2006, 12:06 AM
Greetings, citizens. I am Adam, some of you may have heard of me. For those of you who have, you might remember such great posted holiday topics such as the Christmas write up, the New Years write up, and the Valentines Day write up. As yet another holiday rolls around; it gives me one more chance to act like I’m smart and stuff. With Easter here, I am once again reminded of mass commercialism and flat out greed by the corporate America. But this must not blind me, for the holiday is celebrated around the world, and by more denominations than I should care to acknowledge. Let me go back now, all the way back to the Primeval world, land of the Dinosaurs! Ok, not that far back. Back to the early days of the A.D. syndrome, all the way to the second century!
Getting into my sheepish garb, and funky robes, I can step outside and notice that Easter has had its non-religious side. In fact, if my squinty eyes aren’t deceiving me, it appears the entire thing was originally a pagan festival.
Wandering through the world, the years passing me by with each step, I have talked to the people, and learned that the Saxons, as I call them, celebrate the return of spring with a massive decked out celebration commemorating their goddess of offspring and of the springtime. These people seem to be calling this goddess Eastre. Then again, I can’t be certain, since I don’t speak their language enough even to get a proper question out before they start yelling at me with, “EASTRE! EASTRE!”
But while I travel through the world during the second-century, there is a small change happening. I have already spotted some Christian missionaries going about their work. Shadowing them, I can see that they have encountered the tribes of the north with their pagan celebrations, and attempted to do what every Christian does with something they don’t agree with or understand these days - they have tried to convert them. My shadowing has paid off in one respect at least; I have seen that when these missionaries started in their endeavors, they followed through in what can only be considered a furtive manner.
Despite the fact that these Christian missionaries were working in an underhanded fashion, I can understand that it would have been religious, if not actual suicide, for the very early converts to celebrate their holy days with rituals that did not match up with celebrations that were already in place. To save lives, the missionaries cunningly decided to spread their religious views slowly throughout the populations by allowing them to continue to celebrate pagan feasts, but to do so in a Christian manner. This may sound strange upon reading it, and believe me when I say that it was really hard to swallow while observing it. What is really being suggested here is that the Christian missionaries were allowing the people to go about their usual ways, with the missionaries suddenly deciding it had been a Christian way the entire time. While this may sound like an ingenious way to claim as if you were doing something while instead doing nothing, there is more.
As it so happened (lucky for the missionaries here), the pagan festival of what I’m considering to be Eastre occurred at the same time of year as the Christian celebration of the resurrection of Christ. It became a plot, therefore, to alter the festival itself, to make it a Christian celebration as converts were slowly won over, or taken in without their full knowledge. Somehow, a few of these missionaries were given enough confidence by the people to take the early name, Eastre, and eventually change it to its modern spelling, Easter. Such a radical change of spelling, go missionaries...
As I make my way through the world over the years on my mighty time traveling stone stair-master, I have noticed something that doesn’t quite add up to the modern expectation of the Easter celebration. Prior to 325 A.D., I have noticed that Easter was celebrated on different days of the week, including Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. But when I stopped for a breath of air, as the stair-master was wearing me out (hey, it’s one step per year, remember), I have found that during that year of 325 A.D., emperor Constantine decided to convene the Council of Nicaea. Perhaps it was the emperor himself who was confused about the days of the week, but whatever the case, the council issued the Easter Rule, stating that the holiday would be celebrated on the first Sunday that occurs after the first full moon on or after the vernal equinox. But this was still confusing to me, because the "full moon" in the rule was the ecclesiastical full moon, which is defined as the fourteenth day of a tabular lunation, where day one corresponds to the ecclesiastical New Moon. So this New Moon does not always occur on the same date as the astronomical full moon. This makes perfect sense, right? Well, it gets a little easier because the ecclesiastical "vernal equinox" is always on March 21. Therefore, the modern Easter holiday must be celebrated on a Sunday between the dates of March 22 and April 25, respectively.
Perhaps some of you take part in that time that is known as Lent: the forty-six day period just prior to Easter Sunday. Then again, maybe some of you don’t. In any case, I seem to be smacking into a lot of people who do as I travel through the years, as they seem to think the stone stair-master is some sort of ride. For those of you who don’t know, but care about me mentioning this at all, and can’t grasp that it was only brought up to present a lame punch line, Lent starts on Ash Wednesday. Mardi Gras is most likely a celebration that a lot of you are more familiar with. Some people call this festival "Carnival," and it is practiced around the world, particularly by college students who are more than happy to get themselves hammered, on the Tuesday prior to Ash Wednesday. But Mardi Gras means a little more than simply getting drunk off your ass. It was originally designed as a way to "get it all out" before the sacrifices of Lent began.
Some of you may be wondering to yourself where that stupid bunny fits in with this holiday, and you may be surprised to find out that the Easter Bunny is not a commercial creation at all. You see, in the beginning, there was light, then a few billion years later, the Easter bunny symbol started with this pagan festival that I’m still thinking was called Eastre. By now in my travels, nobody remembers this festival at all, giving me a grim look at how quickly the roots of common practices are forgotten, as the religious brainwashing continues its effect. Some of you might remember me writing about that goddess Eastre. If you don’t, I suggest you take a look four paragraphs above this one. The Easter bunny derives from the beginning festival, and the reason for that festival itself; the goddess, Eastre. It turns out that the Anglo-Saxons worshiped this goddess through her earthly symbol, the rabbit. But while the rabbit was there from the start, it seems that it needed some extra help in getting its influence widespread. This is where I come in, taking the bunny by the ears, I flung it, or perhaps side armed it, trying to go for distance. Ok, so I didn’t. But I was able to meet some Germans who were quick to oblige that bunny’s need by bringing the symbol of the Easter rabbit to America. Before those Germans arrived, it was widely ignored by other Christians until shortly after the Civil War. As I skip down over the years of progress, it seems that Easter itself was not even widely celebrated in America until after that time.
But now that the Bunny has been explained, we are left with the explanation of that egg, appearing in a myriad of colors for your preferred choosing. The unusual pairing of the bunny with the egg delivery was always confusing to me. But when I first stepped out into the world back in the second century to witness the pagan festival at the beginning of this narration, I realized that I should have started much further back in time. For the Easter Bunny, the holiday, and the Easter egg itself all predate the recognized Christian holiday of Easter. It seemed that by the time I first started this time traveling, the exchange of eggs in the springtime was already a custom that was centuries old when Christians first celebrated Easter.
I can see it all now, from the depths of the early days, the egg was a symbol of rebirth in most cultures. Apparently, somebody had figured out that birds, insects, and a great deal of reptiles and amphibians were born from eggs, and then unwisely let that knowledge slip out. These eggs were often wrapped in gold leaf by the wealthy or, if you were a peasant, colored brightly by boiling them with the leaves or petals of certain flowers. Despite my reluctance to admit that it was a good idea that everybody know this birth knowledge, this did turn out to be a good symbol that could be applied to people over a wide spectrum of class determination, including farmers, who were now able to raise chickens and other forms of livestock.
Coming back to the modern day of 1965... wait a minute... ok 2006, much better, I can see that people still look for and appreciate colored eggs. Sometimes these eggs are placed into Easter baskets along with massive amounts of pointless plastic grass that seems to get everywhere, and melt when sucked up in a vacuum cleaner, sometimes igniting fires. Other people just remove them from the shell, flick off the dirt and grass while perhaps taking note that part of the egg white has been stained by the dye on the shell, and pop them into their mouth for a savage treat.
Through the confusion of time warp, and changing dress style, I slip back into my regular jeans and t-shirt, happily tossing away the now-nasty sheepskin robes, and sandals (they haven’t been washed in almost 1800 years by this time in my writing). I suppose what I’m trying to really say is, Happy Easter everybody, and to all a good night.
Getting into my sheepish garb, and funky robes, I can step outside and notice that Easter has had its non-religious side. In fact, if my squinty eyes aren’t deceiving me, it appears the entire thing was originally a pagan festival.
Wandering through the world, the years passing me by with each step, I have talked to the people, and learned that the Saxons, as I call them, celebrate the return of spring with a massive decked out celebration commemorating their goddess of offspring and of the springtime. These people seem to be calling this goddess Eastre. Then again, I can’t be certain, since I don’t speak their language enough even to get a proper question out before they start yelling at me with, “EASTRE! EASTRE!”
But while I travel through the world during the second-century, there is a small change happening. I have already spotted some Christian missionaries going about their work. Shadowing them, I can see that they have encountered the tribes of the north with their pagan celebrations, and attempted to do what every Christian does with something they don’t agree with or understand these days - they have tried to convert them. My shadowing has paid off in one respect at least; I have seen that when these missionaries started in their endeavors, they followed through in what can only be considered a furtive manner.
Despite the fact that these Christian missionaries were working in an underhanded fashion, I can understand that it would have been religious, if not actual suicide, for the very early converts to celebrate their holy days with rituals that did not match up with celebrations that were already in place. To save lives, the missionaries cunningly decided to spread their religious views slowly throughout the populations by allowing them to continue to celebrate pagan feasts, but to do so in a Christian manner. This may sound strange upon reading it, and believe me when I say that it was really hard to swallow while observing it. What is really being suggested here is that the Christian missionaries were allowing the people to go about their usual ways, with the missionaries suddenly deciding it had been a Christian way the entire time. While this may sound like an ingenious way to claim as if you were doing something while instead doing nothing, there is more.
As it so happened (lucky for the missionaries here), the pagan festival of what I’m considering to be Eastre occurred at the same time of year as the Christian celebration of the resurrection of Christ. It became a plot, therefore, to alter the festival itself, to make it a Christian celebration as converts were slowly won over, or taken in without their full knowledge. Somehow, a few of these missionaries were given enough confidence by the people to take the early name, Eastre, and eventually change it to its modern spelling, Easter. Such a radical change of spelling, go missionaries...
As I make my way through the world over the years on my mighty time traveling stone stair-master, I have noticed something that doesn’t quite add up to the modern expectation of the Easter celebration. Prior to 325 A.D., I have noticed that Easter was celebrated on different days of the week, including Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. But when I stopped for a breath of air, as the stair-master was wearing me out (hey, it’s one step per year, remember), I have found that during that year of 325 A.D., emperor Constantine decided to convene the Council of Nicaea. Perhaps it was the emperor himself who was confused about the days of the week, but whatever the case, the council issued the Easter Rule, stating that the holiday would be celebrated on the first Sunday that occurs after the first full moon on or after the vernal equinox. But this was still confusing to me, because the "full moon" in the rule was the ecclesiastical full moon, which is defined as the fourteenth day of a tabular lunation, where day one corresponds to the ecclesiastical New Moon. So this New Moon does not always occur on the same date as the astronomical full moon. This makes perfect sense, right? Well, it gets a little easier because the ecclesiastical "vernal equinox" is always on March 21. Therefore, the modern Easter holiday must be celebrated on a Sunday between the dates of March 22 and April 25, respectively.
Perhaps some of you take part in that time that is known as Lent: the forty-six day period just prior to Easter Sunday. Then again, maybe some of you don’t. In any case, I seem to be smacking into a lot of people who do as I travel through the years, as they seem to think the stone stair-master is some sort of ride. For those of you who don’t know, but care about me mentioning this at all, and can’t grasp that it was only brought up to present a lame punch line, Lent starts on Ash Wednesday. Mardi Gras is most likely a celebration that a lot of you are more familiar with. Some people call this festival "Carnival," and it is practiced around the world, particularly by college students who are more than happy to get themselves hammered, on the Tuesday prior to Ash Wednesday. But Mardi Gras means a little more than simply getting drunk off your ass. It was originally designed as a way to "get it all out" before the sacrifices of Lent began.
Some of you may be wondering to yourself where that stupid bunny fits in with this holiday, and you may be surprised to find out that the Easter Bunny is not a commercial creation at all. You see, in the beginning, there was light, then a few billion years later, the Easter bunny symbol started with this pagan festival that I’m still thinking was called Eastre. By now in my travels, nobody remembers this festival at all, giving me a grim look at how quickly the roots of common practices are forgotten, as the religious brainwashing continues its effect. Some of you might remember me writing about that goddess Eastre. If you don’t, I suggest you take a look four paragraphs above this one. The Easter bunny derives from the beginning festival, and the reason for that festival itself; the goddess, Eastre. It turns out that the Anglo-Saxons worshiped this goddess through her earthly symbol, the rabbit. But while the rabbit was there from the start, it seems that it needed some extra help in getting its influence widespread. This is where I come in, taking the bunny by the ears, I flung it, or perhaps side armed it, trying to go for distance. Ok, so I didn’t. But I was able to meet some Germans who were quick to oblige that bunny’s need by bringing the symbol of the Easter rabbit to America. Before those Germans arrived, it was widely ignored by other Christians until shortly after the Civil War. As I skip down over the years of progress, it seems that Easter itself was not even widely celebrated in America until after that time.
But now that the Bunny has been explained, we are left with the explanation of that egg, appearing in a myriad of colors for your preferred choosing. The unusual pairing of the bunny with the egg delivery was always confusing to me. But when I first stepped out into the world back in the second century to witness the pagan festival at the beginning of this narration, I realized that I should have started much further back in time. For the Easter Bunny, the holiday, and the Easter egg itself all predate the recognized Christian holiday of Easter. It seemed that by the time I first started this time traveling, the exchange of eggs in the springtime was already a custom that was centuries old when Christians first celebrated Easter.
I can see it all now, from the depths of the early days, the egg was a symbol of rebirth in most cultures. Apparently, somebody had figured out that birds, insects, and a great deal of reptiles and amphibians were born from eggs, and then unwisely let that knowledge slip out. These eggs were often wrapped in gold leaf by the wealthy or, if you were a peasant, colored brightly by boiling them with the leaves or petals of certain flowers. Despite my reluctance to admit that it was a good idea that everybody know this birth knowledge, this did turn out to be a good symbol that could be applied to people over a wide spectrum of class determination, including farmers, who were now able to raise chickens and other forms of livestock.
Coming back to the modern day of 1965... wait a minute... ok 2006, much better, I can see that people still look for and appreciate colored eggs. Sometimes these eggs are placed into Easter baskets along with massive amounts of pointless plastic grass that seems to get everywhere, and melt when sucked up in a vacuum cleaner, sometimes igniting fires. Other people just remove them from the shell, flick off the dirt and grass while perhaps taking note that part of the egg white has been stained by the dye on the shell, and pop them into their mouth for a savage treat.
Through the confusion of time warp, and changing dress style, I slip back into my regular jeans and t-shirt, happily tossing away the now-nasty sheepskin robes, and sandals (they haven’t been washed in almost 1800 years by this time in my writing). I suppose what I’m trying to really say is, Happy Easter everybody, and to all a good night.