Ostara 2026

By Steve

A gentle, mild warmth beams through the trees to a land blanketed in bright green grass. Birds sing all throughout the forest amid the fragrance of new blooms. Indoors, the fire burns in the hearth, as it has for months, but nobody is huddled around it. They cannot remember the last time they feared the ice, the cold, the emptiness of the frozen land. The daydreams through Winter have now become the reality of this day...

It is a new Spring.

Ancient peoples who understood the geometry of the sun and a stick knew, in their minds, that the world would grow first cold, then warm again, cycling endlessly (barring the wrath of the literal Gods, that is). But it is one thing to know in the mind, and another to know in the blood, in the bone, that one is leaving the cold behind.

The creatures of the earth are plentiful and lively, adorning the forest with a spreading dance of building, gathering, chasing. Herb gardens produce their first fresh yields in months, gifting the taste of Spring to those at the dinner table. Flowers burst forth from trees and ground alike, as beautiful as they can possibly be, and are collected to adorn anything and everything. Creeks and little rivers flow louder with the freshest water, snowmelt from far upstream. Even the sky smiles on the land, bringing gentle rains to nourish tender greenery, and scent the earth with the story of new life emerging. Everything in the world rises together to joyfully greet the first days of the young warm season.

Whatever the weather at the Spring Equinox, this is what we celebrate when we celebrate Ostara: The time of year when life comes forth to stay. A time of hope, of joy, of innocence and possibility. A time to be grateful for surviving the winter.

And, looking ahead to the year, for me it is a time to fill my heart with all it will need to do the work of growth that is ahead of me on my path. It is a time to dance, to play, to never work too hard. A time to stop everything to listen to a favorite song, to drive too fast with the windows down at night. A time to simply enjoy existing, to drink the new warmth down to my soul, that it may be there when it is most needed.

The blessing I would call for you this Ostara is that your attention is called fully, even just once, to this great gift that is yours to receive - the wonderful time of life and possibility that is yours in which to be alive.