Ostara Magick

The Witches' Cauldron

Stuart & Dean James-Foy

Welcome to the Witches’ Cauldron, a magickal guide for positive living. We are delighted to be able to share our enchanted lives with you. We are Stuart & Dean James-Foy, International Psychic Mediums, award-winning authors and Wiccans. We love Avebury, in fact we call it home from home, a place we visit as often as we can to charge our batteries much like we do with a mobile phone. Plugging ourselves into the energy of the place, linking with the ancestors and gaining insights and wisdom. www.stuartanddean.com

Spring is sprung

Spring is here, new beginnings, lighter nights andinfinite possibilities for us all. In our tradition wefollow the wheel of the year. A continual cyclecelebrating 8 sacred festivals throughout the calendaryear known as Sabbats. Ostara, is one of thosesabbats and falls on, or near, the Spring equinox .

It is a time when day and night are equal inlength. This is a time of balance and renewal.

‘Out with old and in with the new’, this isperhaps where ‘spring cleaning’ comes from.It’s time to ‘Spring clean’ ourselves and let go ofanything that doesn’t serve our highest good.

What changes would you like to make?

This a good time to use the energy of the season tolet go of anger, hate, resentment or jealousy. Thesethoughts play no part in a happy and healthy life.

As Ostara is also a time of renewal, why not start toreplace those thoughts with happiness, love, peace orcontentment. You’ll reap the rewards in the long run.

Ostara is a fertility festival. In thenorthern hemisphere we celebrate the birthof spring and the quickening of the earthand crops on or around the 21st March.

The Goddess, as maiden, embodies the spirit ofspring as we see the flowers starting to bloom and therebirth and renewal of the land. The God of natureand the animals is youthful, reborn at Yule or WinterSolstice and begins to notice the Goddess, ready fortheir marriage on May 1st, the sabbat of Beltane.Two popular symbols of the season are theegg and hare. We’ve all seen the chocolate eggsavailable, but this is no coincidence. The egg is anancient symbol of life, birth, rebirth and renewal.

Inside the egg is the perfect balanced symbol of the

Goddess and God. The yellow yolk represents theGod (Sun) and the white is the Goddess (Moon).

Another symbol of the season and connected to theGoddess and the Moon is the Hare. The nocturnalHare was seen as immortal, as it was believed boththe Moon and Hare would die every morning, onlyto be ‘resurrected’ again the following night.

Celebrating Ostara

Paint and decorate eggs or write your wishes on them so they may ‘give birth’

YY Host your own ‘Ostara’ egg hunt for everyone

YY Wear something green

Go into your garden or use a window box to plants seed. Care for them and watch them grow.

Decorate a table top with symbols of the season, eggs, hare ornaments and spring f lowers.

Take to learning about essential oils or aromatherapy with their connection to f lowers

HOT CROSS BUNS

Full of ancient symbols. The symbolof the Sun (solar) cross and thecircumference show this symbolperfectly. The four quarters of the crossrepresent the four seasons of the year,Spring, Summer, Autumn and Winter.

This in turn represents the Four sacreddirections of North, East, South andWest, and the five elements of Earth,Air, Fire and Water and Spirit beingthe centre. The cross also showsthe two equinoxes ‘crossing’ withthe two solstices. Who would haveknown so much ancient symbolismcould be found in a hot cross bun!