Although Easter is currently celebrated as a Christian holiday commemorating the resurrection of Jesus Christ, it has its origins as a pagan festival held at the spring equinox (March 21) and named for the Saxon spring goddess Eostre. Many of the symbols associated with Easter reflect this origin: eggs, for instance, are a symbol of fertility and new life. (Passover, also celebrated at this time, uses eggs as part of its ceremonies as well.) The Easter Bunny is a transmutation of the "moon-hare" sacred to the Goddess in both eastern and western tradition. And the Resurrection itself can be seen as symbolic of the death and renewal of the earth's bounty each year; Jesus Christ on one level is a cognate of the Greek god of the vine, Dionysus, who dies and rises again each year as the grape-vine dies each winter and comes to life each spring.
Keeping this in mind, "Easter Theater" - like "Season Cycle," a rapturous celebration of the passing seasons - can be seen as a hymn of praise to Eostre, the presiding spirit of springtime. The "she" of the song is identified with the earth ("like the ground your breasts swell") and with the sky ("your rainbow mouth"); her touch brings bounty to the wakening earth. "Enter Easter and she's dressed in yellow yolk" brings in the fertility image of the Easter egg, and even the Goddess's hare enters the picture - "Hares will kick and leap." One line refers obliquely to the concept of Jesus as fertility god - "Now the son has died, the father can be born" - the god eternally dying and rising again, like the earth's own gift of vegetation. Finally, the sensual and sexual overtones of the song weave in the notion of human fertility as well, of bodies and hearts stirring to life after the long sleep of winter.
Source: The Woman's Encyclopedia of Myths and Secrets, Barbara G. Walker.
Contributed by Natalie Jacobs.
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