Ostara is about finding your balance and rebirth from the underworld. You can read here many stories in different mythologies related to the rebirth aspect of Ostara. In this article, I will give you three Ostara rebirth rituals.
Butterflies inspire the first one, the next is by the labyrinth, and the last is by eggs. All are amazing Ostara symbols.
After reading these two books, I have written a series of articles related to Ostara.
Celebrating the Seasons of Life: Samhain to Ostara: Lore, Rituals, Activities, and Symbols by Ashleen O’Gaea (check here for the UK and here for the US)
Ostara: Customs, Spells & Rituals for the Rites of Spring by Edain McCoy (check here for the UK and here for the US)
Many of the ideas in these articles are inspired by these two books, which I am grateful to the writers.
The four articles I wrote about the Ostara are:
Check them and connect to this magical time of the year.
Ostara rebirth ritual: butterfly guided meditation
The butterfly’s cocoon symbolizes the deep slumber in the underworld where the goddess of spring is trapped during the winter, far from her people and unreachable, while her land lies fallow and bears no fruit.
The earth longs for the touch of her feet as she walks across her face, and when she emerges from her winter prison on Ostara, the land and all its creatures celebrate the return of life.
On a mundane level, butterflies also speak to us of the playfulness of the mild days of early spring.
We all feel prompted to delight in and even pursue these colorful winged creatures that flutter and dance.
They seem to beckon us to another place and encourage us to follow them into a summer world that is the most beautiful of all sites on the astral or inner planes of reality.
They virtually ask us to piggyback on them and travel to other worlds.
This may be one of the reasons why popular belief teaches us that the spring fairies travel on the backs of friendly butterflies.
The butterfly-guided meditation
To begin the guided butterfly meditation, imagine yourself as a larva.
In the beginning, your consciousness is limited.
Your thoughts are limited.
Your freedom of movement is limited, leaving you at the mercy of birds and any other animals that desire you as a snack.
You live by survival instinct alone and can do little to protect yourself against predators and the rigors of the elements.
As the days grow shorter and colder, you feel driven to seek shelter in a hollow tree.
Once there, you cling to the inner tree trunk.
Soon a silken thread emerges from your body, and you wrap it around yourself like a blanket.
You find this soothing, and when the threads wrap tightly around you, you crawl into this cocoon and suddenly find that you can not fight the urge for a long, deep sleep.
Part of you is afraid of that deep sleep; the other part can not think of fighting the compulsion to let go of the world you just left.
Since you do not know what awaits you after you wake up, you fall into the sleep of the subconscious mind.
Now imagine that you are floating in boundless darkness, so deep in unconsciousness that you feel you have no one, no will, and hardly any thought processes.
You feel safe and loved and are one with the creative forces of the universe.
You are in a place of nothingness and all that is.
After brooding in this state for what feels like a long time -even though you have no real awareness of time – you begin to feel the tingling of consciousness in the corners of your mind.
Flashes of consciousness sparkle in your soul.
You feel much warmer than before you fell asleep, and you feel compelled to leave the cocoon in which you have been so comfortable.
As you begin to move your body again painstakingly, you are amazed at how lighter yet stronger it feels.
As the dry cocoon breaks apart, you can see through an opening in the tree trunk that you are awakening to a world of warm breezes and bright sunlight.
When you leave the cocoon, you find yourself in the air, and somehow that’s not a surprise.
Then you flutter off the tree on your new wings, you see a world around you that is ablaze with green and spring colors.
Flowers bloom, trees bud, and the sounds of animals laughing and playing fill your ears.
Most beautiful of all is the sense of freedom you feel as you dance from one gentle breeze to the next, on wings so colorful that it leaves you amazed as the Ostara sun shines through its fragile thinness and gives you strength.
Let the breezes carry you, travel wherever you want, and meet benevolent spring spirits and fairies along the way.
When you are ready to return to your ordinary waking consciousness, imagine your butterfly self flying toward your resting body, growing denser the closer it gets.
Feel your consciousness shift back into your physical self and open your eyes as the butterfly emerges with you.
Ostara rebirth ritual: the labyrinth
Another symbol of the return of the goddess from the underworld is the labyrinth.
A labyrinth has only one way to its center and only one back.
Often the two paths are identical.
The winding movement in and out of the labyrinth corresponds to the spiral representation used in many meditations to connect with the divine.
Walking the labyrinth is the ultimate spiral dance through which we can travel to the underworld and back again, mimicking the journey of the Goddess of Spring.
The labyrinth has been a profoundly spiritual symbol since ancient times.
They aid spiritual reawakening in Greece, Rome, Ireland, Scandinavia, Saxony, England, and different parts of Africa.
In some of these cultures, the standard pattern of the labyrinth has changed little for over 2,000 years.
When you enter the labyrinth, you enter ritual space.
It is a place that is not a place and is used in a time outside of time – something that exists between all known worlds and places where you are not in any particular realm of being.
In such an environment, all worlds are open to you, and you stand at the entrance to all of them. As a result, you can blend your energies, draw knowledge and bring about positive change for yourself and others.
The Celtic peoples of Western Europe saw great power in such in-between places because through them; you were both in your world and in the world of the deities and spirits you wished to connect with.
In magic, these in-between places facilitate energy flow – visualizing magical energy entering the invisible world and returning to you in the visible world seems easier because both worlds are more accessible.
Labyrinth rituals are often performed at the two equinoxes. One to welcome the awakening of the goddess, the other to honor her as she goes into her resting period in the underworld for the dark half of the year.
If you have a free space indoors or outdoors and want to create a labyrinth, mark the path with rows of rope, tape, candles, stones, or ribbons attached to garden stakes.
This way, you and others who join you in this ritual can walk the path as if you were using a classic stone or hedge maze.
If you keep trying and still do not have room for a physical labyrinth, it’s time to remember the power of your mind.
This is ultimately where all magic is born and eventually manifests.
All you need to do in advance is carefully study your chosen labyrinth pattern until you can recall every detail in a nanosecond.
Once you have the pattern clearly in mind, you can ritually walk it in deep meditation, and it is just as effective as walking the physical labyrinth.
It can be even more rewarding in some cases because you can create the perfect environment for your labyrinth in your mind and not have to worry about mentally blocking out the neighbor’s barking dog, streetlights, and other annoyances of modern life.
In addition, the mentally created labyrinth can have remarkable effects that are not available to you in the physical world.
If the mind moves you to do so, you can add magical creatures, guardians, starry skies, magical phenomena, etc.
Labyrinth ritual
Remember that you are trying to imitate the goddess’s journey to the underworld and back. You are mimicking on the microcosmic level a macrocosmic event that has been an essential part of human life for thousands of years.
Step up to the labyrinth entrance and announce that you are now entering a world beyond all worlds.
As you step into the opening of the first spiral, you should feel the ordinary world of everyday life slipping away.
As you slowly wind your way to the center, imagine that you are traveling to the deepest part of the wintry underworld.
If you perform the ritual correctly, you should be oblivious to the world outside the labyrinth by the time you reach the center.
You should have several candles and some matches ready in the labyrinth’s center.
When you arrive at the center of the labyrinth, please make yourself aware that it is now the deepest winter in your reality, and you are at the lowest and darkest point of the underworld.
Everything around you is cold and silent, and you feel the presence of death and a sense of calm.
You do not feel hopeless because you sense that life is waiting to be renewed somewhere in the cold and silence.
Spend a few moments thinking about all these things, and then apply your thoughts to the sunrise.
Imagine it is the morning after the winter solstice, the shortest day of the year, and the sun is now beginning to rise again almost imperceptibly, yet so true.
Light a single candle to symbolize the beginning of the return of light.
Meanwhile, say:
Deep in the darkness, the young woman sleeps, carrying the hope of her people;
Now she is awakened by a light that burns dim and distant, but she awakens from her dream world and begins her return.
Ostara: Customs, Spells & Rituals for the Rites of Spring by Edain McCoy
Ostara rebirth ritual: egg ritual
Chickens could be relied upon to begin producing fresh eggs at the spring equinox and cease doing so around the autumn equinox, a holiday associated with dying and death and whose symbolism was opposite to that of Ostara.
Since the world always blossomed and greened anew at Ostara, fresh eggs were a natural symbol of new life.
In Asia, red-colored eggs are occasionally offered at funerals and births to symbolize the natural cycles of life, death, and rebirth.
In Ukraine, eggs called krashanka – sometimes dyed bright yellow – are eaten to celebrate the sun’s rebirth.
More elaborate eggs, called pysanky, are decorated as talismans for fertility, prosperity, and protection.
In places as diverse as west-central Africa and southern Appalachia in the United States, eggs are buried near cemeteries to encourage reincarnation.
Ostara egg ritual
Carefully place an egg in a pot half-filled with boiling water.
As you watch the egg boil in the steaming pot, focus on something that you feel has disappeared from your life and that you wish would manifest in it again.
Imagine that this desire lives in the hours or the egg, a need brought into being with the help of the egg.
Visualize this with as much clarity and detail as possible.
Please do this for at least five minutes, then remove the pan from the heat and let it cool.
When you can touch the egg, take crayons or markers in a color that best matches your wish and draw a symbol or other representation of your wish on the egg.
Bury the egg near your front door, as deep as you can.
Each time you pass the spot where the egg is buried, remind yourself of its purpose by saying to yourself an affirmation of your wish.
In a short time, the egg will disintegrate, the shell will crack, and the yolk will decompose.
This symbolic life, death, and rebirth of your desire are connected to your life through the magic offered and will help your desire to be reborn soon.
Conclusion
The rebirth symbolization of Ostara is so potent that definitely, it is a great idea to spare some time for you to contemplate it.
Hopefully, these three awesome ritual ideas will help you for that reason.
Check our other articles related to Ostara to have a better understanding:
Below is a Pinterest friendly photo…. so you can pin it to your Rituals Board!
