Rabbit

Three nights ago, a rabbit crossed my path.

View across the fields north of Moledet

I was visiting my cousin in Moledet and we were taking a back way home from dropping off her grandchildren. This back way consisted primarily of the machine tracks running through the fields between the Arab village and her son's Kibbutz. It was a moonless night, the new moon just two nights away, the stars were bright, we were both smiling, the air tasted like spring. And a rabbit hopped its way across the road.

***

Pink blossoms across from Mamilla Mall just outside of Jaffa
Gate. This is a Judas tree.

Another month has begun in the Heathen and Jewish calendars. For both, this is the marker that spring has begun. Here is Israel, the trees are in bloom. There are green almonds on the almond trees, and blossoms of all colors everywhere. I've never been to Paris in Springtime, but it's hard to believe that it beats Jerusalem. And the month of Nissan is the month of Spring.

Church of the Annunciation in Nazareth.
This is the location  in which Mary is said to
 have been told that she was pregnant.

At home, the snow is melting and the air is a little warmer every day (I hope). The garth is busy with buying and starting seeds, preparing for Eostreblot, and dying pysanki eggs. Eostremonath means spring is in the air.

In both traditions, this is the month of new beginnings. At the beginning of last month I talked about the meanings of the month of Adar as a time to find the joy in the darkness, now we transform that into a new start. Nissan in the beginning of the ecclesiastic year in Judaism, (the civic year begins in six months,) and in the Heathen tradition, Eostremonath is the start of the light half of the year. Eostre being the goddess of the dawn.

Cousin Gila buying lamb in the Nazerth
Shuk. 

I think of myself as having reached a new beginning this past weekend. As a part of my visit to my cousin, we spent a morning in the city or Nazereth, most famous for its bustling Arab population, the Elbabour spice shop, and fantastic shuk, oh yes, and Jesus grew up there. Our first stop was a small group of Muslim men who tried to convert us to Islam. We all left with our religious beliefs, or lack there of, in tact.

But the experience made me think about what it is that I really believe in. It made me question how my relationship with the god of my lineage interacts with the practices I follow in my life. I believe that these thoughts will become much more clear in the coming months.

A. Ernout and A. Meillet state in their Etymology Dictionary that 

"Little else [...] is known about [Ēostre], but it has been suggested that her lights, as goddess of the dawn, were carried by hares. And she certainly represented spring fecundity, and love and carnal pleasure that leads to fecundity."

Of course, even this is assumption based on modern uses of rabbits in the festivities of Easter. But there was something about that moment on the way home that told me the dawn was coming. I have spent the past three months in challenging darkness, and the light is now cresting the hills.

Gila's cat with the blooming tulips. Tulips here, then tulips
when I get home. My favorite spring flower.

I am thinking of home, of cold feet in cold, healing water, of eggs dyed in candle light, of kittens who are now cats, of fresh bread and hot chocolate, and I am thinking of the song I sung as the sun rose in the Frankfort Airport, the song we sing at home this time of year, the song of the dawn:

Hail Dawning Goddess

Returning from the East

Stirring the sleeping Earth

Welcome worthy Eostre!

The winter is ending, the dawn is rising, a new cycle has begun!

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