The Editorial Team at The Wombat Post wishes all of our readers a happy, safe and enjoyable holiday weekend.
May your days be filled with Easter bunnies and Easter eggs – CHOCOLATE bunnies and CHOCOLATE eggs of course!
So where do the bunnies and the eggs and the chocolates come from anyway? After all, isn’t Easter the celebration in the western Christian tradition of the resurrection of Jesus Christ?
Some historians believe that the word “Easter” derives from the pagan goddess, Eostre, the goddess of fertility and spring when the earth awakens from its winter dormancy. (Well, at least that’s what happens in the Northern Hemisphere around this time of the year. Easter is an autumn celebration in Australia.) The Christian celebration of Easter was just dropped on top of the existing pagan fertility festival in an attempt to replace it. (We all know what probably happened during those pagan fertility festivals so the Church was bound to try to change things.)
The bunnies and the eggs are ancient symbols of fertility. Eggs represent the cycle of life and bunnies, well, they breed like rabbits! However hard the Church might have tried, the symbols of the pagan celebration survived the transition and became a part of Easter.
And chocolate? Well, scientists tell us that chocolate contains the chemicals phenylethylamine and serotonin, which are thought to be mood boosters and mild sexual stimulants. (But to actually get enough into your system to cause any physiological effects would require that you eat so much chocolate that you’d wind up feeling pretty unwell.)
Nevertheless, chocolate gives great pleasure – great sensuous pleasure. And a gift of chocolate is certain to score points with a loved one. Which brings us back to the celebration of spring and fertility…
So regardless of your religious persuasion, may your Easter be filled with lots of chocolate Easter bunnies and Easter eggs and everything that goes with it.
