My First Time As An Ostara Priestess
by Ember Cooke
It had been less than a month since my teacher,
Lorrie, had helped me determine that Rabbit is my first and strongest animal spirit ally (well, more like "Leporid", because Rabbit sees no reason to split hares. So to speak.)
I was walking with Lorrie and her mentor Diana - our Gythia - towards the Unitarian hall in Berkeley for another lesson in ritual trance, when Diana looked at Lorrie and said, oh-so-casually, as though I wasn't listening...
"I think perhaps Ember should do Ostara tomorrow night."
"Oh?" says Lorrie, just as casually.
"Well, you know, rabbits are very similar to hares."
"True." Lorrie replied. "So, Ember, would you like to do the Ostara bit tomorrow?"
"Uhhh... Why don't you tell me more about it before I answer that?" I hedged.
"Oh, she's good. She asks she's jumping into before agreeing!"
"Well, I've got older siblings," I explained. "You learn to say 'maybe' to unspecified requests."
"Fair enough."
They assured me that all I needed to do was read the invocation Diana would give me, and carry the horn full of cider around to each person in the circle. A younger girl would follow me around with the basket of eggs. I'd celebrated Ostara before, with Hrafnar even, but never as the priestess for Ostara. Naturally I was still very nervous.
The day of the ritual, I got together with Lorrie in advance. I made frosting for the carrot cake, and cut up vegetables for the Rabbit stew. If you ever make carrot cake, be sure you have enough time to cool the frosting before trying to stack a two-layer cake. Warm cream cheese frosting is runny, and your cake will slide about until somebody secures it with a big skewer.
Then we made a mad dash for Greyhaven. My goodness, a lot of people showed up for Ostara! We set out the food. Lorrie dressed me for the evening, and Diana handed me a slip of paper with the prayer/invocation to Ostara that I was to read, and then we settled in to feast.
I took the lovely wooden plate Lorrie gave me and started with a nice big scoop or two of carrots - at which point Diana busted up laughing. "I guess rabbit really is your power animal!"
I was a bit indignant at that. I have always liked carrots. It wasn't just because of Rabbit... was it? Besides, I didn't take that many. Just because everybody else took even less...
Lorrie pointed out, when Diana related this to her a bit later, that I didn't just have carrots, I had a nice seed cracker with some greens, grain and olive bread, and potatoes. "Flayrah!"
*sigh*
But I couldn't bring myself to eat the rabbit stew.
Diana opened the ceremony, and the horn was passed for Heimdallr. Then it was my turn. A younger girl with long, flowing blonde hair stood up to carry the egg basket for me. Diana gave me a rabbit-fur headdress to wear - I didn't remember *that* in the description of my duties. It looked rather silly, I thought. Diana considered having the other girl wear it, but she had a wreath to wear already. I suppose it's just as well that I never saw my reflection.
Diana filled the horn for me with sparkling cider, and indicated that, as the main attraction, so to speak, I ought to go around with it.
I'd had a plan. I was going to fill myself and the horn with a rainbow of spring energy. I failed to follow my plan entirely, and instead nervously forgetful, I read my bit as expressively as I could manage without being melodramatic, and then made the rounds. Everyone sang:
"Crowned with primrose, crowned with silver,
Crescent moon rests on Her brow,
Lady of life, spring's greatest treasure,
Joyful She stands among us now."
In retrospect, Ostara was rather young. Old enough to bear children, certainly, but not a mother. As I went around, my urge was far more to dance around the room, spinning about, singing. *What were they all singing, anyway? I couldn't make out the words anymore...* I went around the room feeling very much as a young woman keeping my head down, as if to say, "Here, I'm being good, have some apple cider." I got many compliments, so I must have done okay.
We went through the rest of the Gods, and I kept the headdress, and the mood, singing loudly and brightly, and swaying back and forth when I could, since no dancing would be allowed of me. The song for Thor was the most fun, but the song for Frigga was the most moving, striking, though the tune was strange. Freya's song was a close second in both categories.
As the feast closed, I took off the headdress, and returned it to Diana, shaking off the impetuous mood, realizing only in retrospect that the mood hadn't been my own in the first place. We all chatted a while, and then Lorrie and I took a couple of friends home. They had offerred to pay for gas, since it was such a long way. Somehow this wound up involving everyone but me out of the car, and Lorrie dancing about singing a song I'd heard before at a Beltane ritual:
"For She will bring the buds in spring, and dance among the flowers,
In summer's heat Her kisses are sweet, She sings in leafy bowers.
She cuts the cane and gathers the grain when the fruits of fall surround Her,
Her bones grow old in wintery cold, She wraps Her cloak around Her."
As the being in the middle of this at the time, I objected slightly. I am not a may pole, thank you. ;)
We rode across the bridge singing campfire songs. Since we were out there anyway, we decided to all go to a beach! A late night adventure, exceedingly silly in mood. We giggled our way through the evening, out to the beach, in the cold, but none of us could get up the impetus to actually go out onto the sand with the car parked in a tow-away zone. By the time I got home, I was quite ready to fall down. I slept peacefully through the night, stirring only to silence my alarm. My first experience as an Ostara priestess was satisfyingly exhausting. After this, however, I became the designated Ostara priestess, we clicked so well!
Hail Ostara!