Happy Oestrus, Everyone!

[MineralMan]

Spring has sprung. It's mating season. Grab your partner and enjoy the Holiday of Fertility!

[cilla4progress]

1. Right

on!

[MineralMan]

2. Thanks for the reply.

I thought this had sunk out of sight forever.

[Act_of_Reparation]

3. Well, alright then.

[cilla4progress]

4. Big pagan holiday

fans here!

[2naSalit]

5. Back atchya!

Out here in the wildlife zone most of the animals and plants are goin' at it. We had a jackrabbit swarm the other day, pretty funny. The birds are all chattering about and all the burrowing varmints are tearing up the driveway and half the pasture. The deer and elk are getting ready to calve in a few weeks...

We had a snow squall this morning with flakes almost 3" in diameter, it was in the low 70s yesterday.

[MineralMan]

8. Same here. Randy sparrows and bunnies

on our lawn. Gives me hope.

[2naSalit]

19. Yup...

all the migratory birds are either settling in or passing through to get further north. I have been tilling the raised bed garden plots in the yard and I can hear the Sandhill Cranes with their prehistoric calls in the near distance, sometimes overhead, the Osprey are showing up along with the other river birds. What I really like is the raptors returning to hunt the fields for all those burrowing varmints out there, not that I want to watch them eat so much as the fact that I just love to have them around. We get almost all the raptors here, lots of eagles too, so it's a great place for an old bird watcher like me.

[MineralMan]

20. Our wild, mated pair of mallards just showed up this

week to graze under our bird feeder for the 13th year in a row. Same pair we see every year. They stop in just after sunrise and again just before sunset each day and spend about 10 minutes in our yard. They recognize us as friendly humans, and don't startle, even when children in the neighborhood stand 10 feet away from them and watch them.

Thirteen years. They came the first year we moved into this house, not long after we hung the first feeder, and have returned each Spring to eat daily, except when they're nesting. Then, they come one at a time and trade off egg-sitting. Delightful.

[2naSalit]

23. That's so cool.

They do remember and it's nice that they know they are pretty safe there, enough to nest nearby. I love to watch animals and would do it all day, every day, if I could. I have had the good fortune to have lived in many places where I have a lot of opportunity to see animals and birds... watch their interactions and life patterns. It's a kind of a spiritual thing. Doesn't matter what the species is, wild animals are fascinating.

[meow2u3]

6. Oestrus?!

That sounds to me like a Brit describing a cat in heat!

[2naSalit]

24. LOL...

It does too!

[longship]

7. Indeed!

BTW, love the Caddyshack reference in thread. There's always room for Rodney Dangerfield.

[NastyRiffraff]

9. I have to laugh at the "Easter" symbols

In case anyone doesn't get the point: Rabbits and eggs.

Personally, I want the fun without the fertility!

[MineralMan]

14. That remains a joke played on the Church.

They could shift the reason for the holiday, but the people retained their fertility symbols, despite that. Eggs and bunnies. Obvious signs of the original meaning of the celebration. The Church could never manage to completely take over that popular festive celebration.

[Retrograde]

16. Lambs were more common in the tradition I was raised in

Rabbits seem to be more of a Western European thing - in the Polish tradition I grew up with lambs (representing both Jesus as the Lamb of God, and referring to the fact that lambs are born around this time of year) as well as decorated eggs, which symbolize rebirth, i.e., resurrection. Rabbits were an American thing - which is not to say we'd turn our noses up at a good chocolate bunny, especially after a long no-candy Lent.

[Ilsa]

25. You forgot the chicks!

Don't forget the chicks.

[Warren DeMontague]

28. More rabbits

no more eggs, thanks

[Hekate]

10. Spring!

Keeping a couple of hens in my suburban yard taught me so much about these old symbolic holidays. Like -- they stop laying in the Fall and don't start again until mid February, or Imbolc. Count on it. Also, their eggs are such pretty colors! And until they got used to the nesting box, I used to have to hunt for their pretty eggs all over the back yard.

Now just wait for May Day and the > ahem < Maypole.

[MineralMan]

11. Well, there's a reason Easter comes when it does, and

it's not about the date of anything Biblical. The early church adopted pagan holidays and attached their religion to them. That was the only way they could get people to join up. Folks like their celebrations, and the one that coincides with Easter is a big one.

What is so interesting is that it retains its old pagan name. An ancient spring fertility celebration becomes the most important holiday of Christianity. Pretty smart, those old-time Christian leaders. They worked with what they found around them, apparently.

[Retrograde]

17. In most languages, the word for Easter is derived from Passover

English, Dutch, and German are exceptions, deriving the term from a Germanic goddess (I don't know enough of the other Germanic languages to check them). In Latin-derived languages the name is derived from Passover, as that's when the Crucifixion and Resurrection occurred according to the Gospels. One of the early controversies in the proto-Catholic church was a dispute about when Easter should be observed: one faction, the Quartodecimans, believed it should always be the 14th day of Nisan and others (who eventually won) came up with a complicated calculation based on the vernal equinox and phases of the moon, which kinda sorta had a vague relation to the lunar-based Jewish calendar, which is why the two feasts occasionally coincide.

[MineralMan]

18. Yes. I knew that, actually.

But thanks for the reminder. I do know the history of it, but I was born in an English-speaking country, so that connection is always there for me. Easter bunnies, eggs and the like have always been part of that holiday for as long as I have lived. It was in the Germanic countries, mainly, where those pagan celebrations were usurped by the expanding church, and that's my heritage, pretty much.

Of course, Passover is a crucial part of the story in the New Testament. The symbolism is clear, whether the story is true or not. I have no way of knowing whether someone with a name that got translated to Jesus was crucified around that time or not. Could be. My interest is in how Christianity successfully spread beyond that region. That has always interested me.

Christianity has been an appealing religion for a couple of millennia now. It's shortcut path to "eternal reward" was bound to appeal to many. It would be difficult to design a religion more compatible with how humans think. That's my conclusion regarding why it was so successful, globally, and in Europe in particular.

It's all fascinating, I think, whether you believe that supernatural entities like deities exist or not. I don't, but I find religion to be a very interesting thing to study.

[muriel_volestrangler]

30. And 'oestrus' seems to be just a coincidental pun, of course

since that comes via Latin for 'gadfly' and 'frenzy' from the Greek 'oistros'

https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/oestrus

while the sparse evidence for 'Eostre' is not generally pointed in that direction: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C4%92ostre

[MineralMan]

15. Absolutely. The Maypole and the May Dance

have almost disappeared from view in the United States. More's the pity. Its symbolism and the symbolism of the traditional weaving dance around it is understood by almost nobody these days.

The pagan rituals are far more interesting than the ones the Church overlaid on those holidays. Far more interesting!

[Coventina]

12. Blessed Be!

[MineralMan]

13. Indeed! And you as well.

[jpak]

21. Oestrus iz hawt

[MineralMan]

22. Indeed it is.

[Warren DeMontague]

27. are people still saying "hawt"?

So 2013!

[Warren DeMontague]

26. Yep. I know what the bunnies really represent.

[struggle4progress]

29. The holiday is "Pascha" in Latin and similarly in Greek

Most languages recognize the derivation from passover

"Easter" is used only in some (not all) Germanic regions: the Dutch is still "Pasen"