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45 days from now, on the Vernal Equinox, Saturday March 20, 2021, Spring will begin in the Northern Hemisphere at 4:27 a.m. PST (Paganistani Standard Time).

Therefore, all witches, pagans, and heathens should now—if they have not already done so—begin to save their onion skins so that, by then, you will have sufficient dyestock amassed with which to dye the requisite number of eggs.

(Authorities agree that every egg dyed, and eaten, brings Spring just a little closer.)

Note that non-cooking households may apply to the Ministry of Pagan Affairs for their annual allotment of onion skins. Please apply early, as supplies may be limited.

       Though I've never had it or made it myself, I remember Goldenrod Eggs--a dish made with hard boiled eggs that my mother served at luncheon parties. The eggs were carefully hard cooked—never boiled as this turns the yolks green. The whites were chopped up and stirred into a white cream sauce. This was spread over toast with the crusts cut off and made into triangles. The yolks were then pressed through a sieve and sprinkled over the top of the creamed whites

          This was a pretty dish yet far too labor intensive for me. Besides, I prefer hard boiled eggs cut up and made into egg salad or stuffed—but not by me. I can't get the whites out of the shells easily. However in the days when I was little there was more time for cooking because life was simpler and less hectic. In addition, women like my mom had luncheons in their homes because her friends were home with their kids too and did not have to go out to work.

Ostara begins with a hunt.

On the Eve of the Equinox, we gather in the temple, but (O and woe!) the Goddess is gone; so we kindle lights and seek Her throughout the house. She Herself is nowhere to be found, but signs of Her presence are everywhere.

Well, it's a fortnight and odd days till we seek (and eventually, nether-faring to the Underworld, find) Her; meanwhile, the winter-scouring, the spring lustrations have begun. The sanctuary must be clean to welcome its Goddess's Return.

Only now I'm seeing ghost eggs everywhere, eggs that aren't there.

There's one, I'll think, reaching under the radiator, only to find that there isn't.

This is a public service announcement from the Paganistani Ministry of Magical Culture.

In a little more than a Moon from now, pagans everywhere will be dyeing eggs to celebrate the Spring Evenday/Equinox.

If you haven't started saving onionskins for that purpose yet, now is the time to start.

(If you need to learn how to dye eggs using onionskins, and other natural dyestocks, you can do so here.)

On behalf of the Paganistani Ministry of Magical Culture, we wish you and yours a very safe and happy Wolf Moon.  

Please remember to shovel your sidewalks.

...is that you get all the leftovers.

My festive First-Day-of-Spring breakfast:

• Steamed asparagus
• Toasted sesame egg bread
• Fresh farmer's cheese with garden chives
• Ostara eggs with hot sauce
• Fresh strawberries

Tomorrow's one of my favorite days of the year.

Egg-Dye Sunday.

This year will be our 38^th Annual. (Usually it would be the Sunday before the Evenday, but next weekend we've got Paganicon.)

The year was 1980. I'd just blown into town, and Ostara was coming up. I'd been reading about dyeing eggs with natural dyestocks in folklorist Venetia Newall's indispensible An Egg at Easter and wanted to give it a try.

So a small group of us—myself, Knight, Tanith, Volkhvy, and Grog—got together in Tanith's kitchen to give it a try.

We've been doing it every year since. It's the oldest ongoing tradition in the local community that I had a hand in helping to found.

This being the Midwest, of course, we start off with a potluck: in this case, brunch. Then we stoke up the dye-pots—natural dyes are mostly heat-applied—and the annual alchemy begins.

What with the Evenday being more than a month away—as I write this, the Imbolc thirtnight is barely over—there are some that might accuse me of pushing the season.

Guilty as charged.

But I'm going to plead extenuating circumstances: I want to give our choreographers time to do their work.

And it's never too early to start planning for Spring.

It's one of those old, old traditions of Spring.

The Egg Dance.