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Nature Abhors a Monoculture

The chickens are coming home to roost, and most of them have bird flu.

With the Spring Evenday coming up, it looks as if we may well be paying a dollar apiece for our Ostara eggs this year. Don't blame the avian flu, though.

Blame battery farming.

I heard an interview this morning with an egg farmer who was anguishing over the emotional toll of having to cull three million birds.

While I empathize with his pain, I really have to ask: when we raise poultry in flocks of a million-plus birds, why in the world would we be surprised that, when systemic failure strikes, it should strike on any but a massive scale?

The vast majority of American eggs and chicken are industrially-raised on an industrial scale. Short-term cheap food, maybe, but sustainable?

Talk about a disaster just pleading to happen.

Some things that every pagan knows: generally speaking, Small is better than Large, Local is better than Global, Particular is better than General.

As recent experience all too readily demonstrates, nature abhors a monoculture.

45 days from now, on the Vernal Equinox, Saturday March 20, 2021, Spring will begin in the Northern Hemisphere at 4:27 a.m. PST (Paganistani Standard Time).

Therefore, all witches, pagans, and heathens should now—if they have not already done so—begin to save their onion skins so that, by then, you will have sufficient dyestock amassed with which to dye the requisite number of eggs.

(Authorities agree that every egg dyed, and eaten, brings Spring just a little closer.)

Note that non-cooking households may apply to the Ministry of Pagan Affairs for their annual allotment of onion skins. Please apply early, as supplies may be limited.

Normally, my Spring Equinox post would have a light and airy tone. I'd suggest fun and fanciful ways to welcome spring with friends or solo, and usually some recipes to try. These are certainly challenging times, and Aries the ram, the sun sign under which I was born, usually always rises to a good challenge. Here is mine currently: staying positive in these frightening and uncertain times. A reader that I follow on WaterBaby Tarot recently stated that we should hold on to faith and not give in to fear. She reasoned that when fear wins, we stress out and our immune systems are compromised. This could also lead to more people getting sick. It's a vicious cycle: fear/illness/more fear/more illness. Breaking out of this can be easier said than done. Although I do think it's important to stay informed, periodic breaks from the news and being online are imperative right now. Because once you have the pertinent information of the day, dwelling on things and speculating on where they could possibly go from here are not going to help matters a whole lot.

Fittingly, the Spring Equinox and Ostara is all about balance. As a planet, we need to balance out. We've been leaping forward at warp speed for too long now with industrialization, overpopulation, pollution, and technology that we can't even humanly keep up with anymore. I personally don't feel it's any accident that with the increase of climate change consequences: drought, floods, hurricanes, earthquakes, and fires– we're seeing an uptick in disease and outbreaks that we can't control. Mother Nature might just be mightily pissed off at us people, and honestly, can you blame her?

Angry egg spell

This isn’t a spell to make eggs angry, but to release the anger and frustration we sometimes find ourselves hanging onto.  Release the Kraken!  Seriously, you will feel much better afterwards.  Better to let it all go than allow it to fester ‘coz then things can get really messy.

Ostara begins with a hunt.

On the Eve of the Equinox, we gather in the temple, but (O and woe!) the Goddess is gone; so we kindle lights and seek Her throughout the house. She Herself is nowhere to be found, but signs of Her presence are everywhere.

Well, it's a fortnight and odd days till we seek (and eventually, nether-faring to the Underworld, find) Her; meanwhile, the winter-scouring, the spring lustrations have begun. The sanctuary must be clean to welcome its Goddess's Return.

Only now I'm seeing ghost eggs everywhere, eggs that aren't there.

There's one, I'll think, reaching under the radiator, only to find that there isn't.

This is a public service announcement from the Paganistani Ministry of Magical Culture.

In a little more than a Moon from now, pagans everywhere will be dyeing eggs to celebrate the Spring Evenday/Equinox.

If you haven't started saving onionskins for that purpose yet, now is the time to start.

(If you need to learn how to dye eggs using onionskins, and other natural dyestocks, you can do so here.)

On behalf of the Paganistani Ministry of Magical Culture, we wish you and yours a very safe and happy Wolf Moon.  

Please remember to shovel your sidewalks.

What with the Evenday being more than a month away—as I write this, the Imbolc thirtnight is barely over—there are some that might accuse me of pushing the season.

Guilty as charged.

But I'm going to plead extenuating circumstances: I want to give our choreographers time to do their work.

And it's never too early to start planning for Spring.

It's one of those old, old traditions of Spring.

The Egg Dance.