Celebrating Ostara With Kids

This is an article that originally appeared on my old About.com page and was eventually moved over to LearnReligions, but now it’s been deleted, so I’m going to share it with you here. Since Ostara comes to the Northern Hemisphere on the 20th, I thought it was a good time to talk about how you can celebrate the season if you’ve got small humans in your house.

Ostara is the season of the spring equinox, and falls around March 20 in the northern hemisphere (it’ll be somewhere near September 20 if you’re one of our readers below the equator). This the time when spring begins anew, and much like Mabon, the autumn equinox, it’s a season of balance, in which we see equal amounts of darkness and light. However, unlike the fall harvest celebrations, it’s the time when instead of dying, the earth is springing back to life. If you’re raising kids in a Pagan tradition, there are a ton of ways you can get them involved and make them more mindful of what it is your family believes and does. Here are five easy ways you can celebrate Ostara with your children this year!

Celebrate Spring Magic

Spring is a season of magic and rebirth, so why not take advantage of it? Use the themes of the Ostara sabbat as teaching moments, and talk to your kids about the magic of eggs, serpents, rabbits and hares, and even flowers. If you want to add a bit of prayer into your family Ostara celebration, let the kids do a simple Ostara chant celebrating the magic of the earth, the coming of spring, or the onset of new life returning to the land. Not sure what to say? Try this one out!

Welcome, welcome, warm fresh earth!
Today we celebrate rebirth!
Blowing wind, rising sun,
Bringing the spring to everyone!
Rabbits hopping, chicks in the nest,
Spring is the season we love the best!
Celebrate the green of the earth with me –
Happy Ostara, and blessed be!

Ostara Craft Projects

In many areas, Ostara falls when it’s still pretty chilly out, and that means we often have to find ways to amuse ourselves indoors. Why not take advantage of this and get a little bit crafty? Pillage the craft stores for Easter ideas – after all, it falls around the same time of year – and get into some hands-on creativity. You can take advantage of Easter bunnies, eggs, spring greenery, and more, and adapt it for your family’s spring equinox celebrations.

Family Rituals

There are a ton of rituals you can do for Ostara with your family. Try a simple meditation if your kids will sit still long enough, or if your family leans towards the silly and fun, grab all that extra Easter candy you’ve got stashed and do the Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Chocolate Rabbit. You can also try a spring rebirth celebration, a simple ritual welcoming the change of the seasons, or a meditation focused on using the pattern of a labyrinth.

Reconnect with the Earth

It might be too cold to play outside, and the dirt is probably still too frozen to do any digging, but that doesn’t mean you can’t reconnect with the earth. Use this time of year to plan your garden for the coming season. It’s a perfect opportunity to browse your favorite seed catalogs, make a list of what you’ll be planting, and even graph out a map of what goes where. Once you have seeds in hand, get them started early by having the kids help make a miniature greenhouse.

Spring Cleaning

In many families, spring is a perfect time to do a bit of cleaning. You’ve been cooped up all winter with your family and pets and the accumulated detritus of several months of winter. Get cracking on some cleaning, open the windows if you can, strip the bedding for a good wash, and put the kids to work:

• Small children can help put their belongings into the proper place. Give each kid a basket or box to use for potential donations, as well as a trash bag to get rid of things that are not worth passing along to others.
• Tweens can help clean up common areas like kitchens and bathrooms, and can do laundry with little supervision.
• Older children in their teens can be put in charge of pulling out items that can be donated or given away, as well as empty out the pantry and fridge to check for expired items that should be thrown out. If the weather is decent, assign your teenagers a bit of window cleaning or even cleaning up winter yard debris that may have piled up.