Spring

Pagan plagiarism and the season of sex

Spring is my favourite time of year.  This year the Christian festival of Easter, the Jewish festival of Passover and the Islamic festival of Ramadam are in unusually close proximity. But these are all upstart religions; at heart Spring is pagan and associated with the change in seasons in the Northern Hemisphere and the concept of rebirth and reconnection. 

There are many elements to Paganism. I particularly like the idea of Anthesteria which involves drinking competitions and talking with the spirits that have returned from the underworld. This paints the return of the dead in a much better light than Halloween which gives ghosts a bad name and possibly explains the origin of the phrase “dead drunk”. But the giveaway is Eostre who was a fertility goddess associated with bunny rabbits and coloured eggs and offerings of buns separated into four quarters. All these ideas were taken on by the early Christians who were brilliant at cultural appropriation. The Council of Nicaea in the fourth century was a branding exercise where the emperor Constantine got the rag-tag squabbling elements of the still new cult of Christ worship together to hammer out some proper marketing strategies. As there was no copyright or patent law in those days  it was pretty easy for them to take all the best bits of paganism and make them their own. 

And so Easter was born, although we had to wait over one thousand six hundred years before confectionary eggs came along and people decided that chocolate was better than sex but even better when the two were combined in the shape of the Ann Summers chocolate penis. This is a real thing if you are looking for an alternative Easter gift as is the Ann Summers chocolate clitoris, although unsurprisingly neither are vegan. But they are at least consistent with the idea of fertility goddesses and rebirth. 

Chocolate does not feature in the Passover celebrations but eggs do, although quite why is something of a mystery as the tradition only dates back about five hundred years or so when it got a passing mention from a rabbi who was writing about the festival and how different Jewish sects celebrated it. At the passover meal everyone gets a salty boiled egg to eat but there is also one burnt one which is symbolic of the human lifecycle and the inevitability of sacrifice. Some people also say that because the egg is a sealed unit it is also symbolic of silencing your enemies (i.e. the Egyptians) because it has a perfectly smooth unbroken surface with no mouth.  If you have seen and can recall Keanu Reeves in his first meeting with Agent Smith in The Matrix you will be able to picture the terror that goes with such a dramatic curtailing of free speech. Not that I would want to put such an idea into Benjamin Netanyahu’s head as the man is currently doing a very good job of undermining democracy as it is.

I have been doing Passover for nearly thirty years as my soul mate is Jewish so I am in tune with the ideas although what always amuses me is that there has never been a year when people haven’t argued about the meaning or interpretation of some aspect of the Haggadah (the service you read through before and after the Seder meal). I quite like this as it means you are never bored. Although some years I have got very hungry waiting for that moment when you are allowed to eat.

If the Christians and the Jews like to eat too much at this time of year, it is notable that Islam is centred on fasting and purification. I was in a shop recently where a young Muslim was explaining the concept to a middle aged white colleague, and reassuring him that if you were vulnerable in any way you were exempted. But it’s all about emptying yourself of earthly desires and leaving yourself open to connection with the spiritual. Which I get, as science tells us that if you don’t eat it’s easy to become light headed and start thinking very laterally indeed. In fact I read once that in mediaeval times most people were so hungry and vitamin deficient after a long winter that they frequently had visions and hallucinations. 

I don’t think I would find it easy to be a Muslim or fast for any other reason as I have a tendency to get hangry and the rest of the family would make me go and live in the garage until it was all over. I have had a colonoscopy on two occasions and you are not allowed to eat for twenty four hours beforehand. Worse still, you have to use very powerful laxatives. Believe me it’s not nice, but unlike Ramadam it is only for a day.

Buddhism doesn’t really worry too much about appropriating things from other religions as it doesn’t believe in possessing anything or desiring anything and none of the key concepts of Buddhism such as suffering, mindfulness and nirvana have any shape or form and so cannot be made from chocolate or turned into buns. However as the Buddha is always portrayed as a very big man he clearly liked to eat something, which suggests that he may be the answer to that deep and meaningful philosophical question “who ate all the pies?”

My sister has recently declared that she is a Unitarian Universalist which is very sneaky as it means you nick all the good bits from all the other religions, embark on a personal spiritual quest and just ditch the hate. They have eight guiding principles which are

1. The inherent worth and dignity of every person;
2. Justice, equity and compassion in human relations;
3. Acceptance of one another and encouragement to spiritual growth in our congregations;
4. A free and responsible search for truth and meaning;
5. The right of conscience and the use of the democratic process within our congregations and in society at large;
6. The goal of world community with peace, liberty, and justice for all;
7. Respect for the interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part.
8. Eating chocolate

Okay I admit the eight one was added by me. But I can’t see why anyone would object.

Personally I am quite taken with the festival of Vaisakhi (which I think is pronounced boy-shaky) which is a multi faith spring festival in northern India celebrated by various religions including Sikhism and Hinduism. This seems to involve wearing bright clothes, eating special biscuits and going swimming in sacred rivers.

Here in the small and traditional town of Woking we are “celebrating” Easter with a wooden cross in the town centre covered in red ribbons to symbolise the blood of Christ. Bit too gory for my liking. We don’t have a sacred river either but you could always bless the Basingstoke canal before jumping in. But given that around 40% of the people in the UK say that they have no religion, spring is mostly about gardening and sitting outside at the pub, or in a traffic jam on the way to Dover. Or if the weather is bad, watching Netflix and eating takeaways and chocolate. The old gods and the new would no doubt despair at this, but you can’t stand in the way of progress …