I Wanna Easter Egg!

Actually, I do - because then I could make egg salad. Those who know me well are quite conversant with my constant struggle with spirituality of all types. I'm convinced it was the four years of study in Marshall's Humanities program that literally flogged the religion out of me - well, that and common sense. I like to think now that as a pragmatic positivist that we offer the best of ourselves to the common good and it has a greater impact on the world. That which we call karma makes sense even if only as a balm for the soul to overcome internal guilt over sins past, present and future.

Without getting into a full-blown religious dialogue at this point, let's just chat a moment about our current holiday and how it came to be. Like nearly all major Christian holidays, Easter is the result of an absorption of several 'pagan' rites and rituals from many of the areas where the newfangled religion was being propagated. In order to co-opt the local populace, the early church mirrored the local customs and claimed a parallel vision of events - relational religion so to speak. With the patience of, well Job I suppose, they knew that over time the rites would merge and become one with the beliefs of the locals and they would eventually come into the church. Quite ingenious, really.

Easter's origins come from several streams of myth and faith - a'la Joseph Campbell - and all surrounding the Spring Equinox. As noted in the following excerpt, even the mythology surrounding the death and resurrection is a bit plagiarized:

"Many, perhaps most, Pagan religions in the Mediterranean area had a major seasonal day of religious celebration at or following the Spring Equinox. Cybele, the Phrygian fertility goddess, had a fictional consort who was believed to have been born via a virgin birth. He was Attis, who was believed to have died and been resurrected each year during the period MAR-22 to MAR-25. "About 200 B.C. mystery cults began to appear in Rome just as they had earlier in Greece. Most notable was the Cybele cult centered on Vatican hill ...Associated with the Cybele cult was that of her lover, Attis (the older Tammuz, Osiris, Dionysus, or Orpheus under a new name). He was a god of ever-reviving vegetation. Born of a virgin, he died and was reborn annually. The festival began as a day of blood on Black Friday and culminated after three days in a day of rejoicing over the resurrection."

Even the name of the holiday is derived from the goddesses associated with the coming fecundity, such as:

The name "Easter" originated with the names of an ancient Goddess and God. The Venerable Bede, (672-735 CE.) a Christian scholar, first asserted in his book De Ratione Temporum that Easter was named after Eostre (a.k.a. Eastre). She was the Great Mother Goddess of the Saxon people in Northern Europe. Similarly, the "Teutonic dawn goddess of fertility [was] known variously as Ostare, Ostara, Ostern, Eostra, Eostre, Eostur, Eastra, Eastur, Austron and Ausos."

Such was the life of the early Christian leader and scholar - how shall we rewrite history and myth to grow our market space? Like the current ability of marketing executives to emulate their popular rivals and make their name a mainstream term representing the general concept to 'steal its mythological power', i.e. xerox, kleenex, etc. the Christian leadership followed an incredible campaign of growth and vision.

Kudos to the world's first marketing gurus! Happy Estrus!