Swales 00:00:36 As the yew tree stands firm in the bud in Spring Forest, he notices the nesting birds warming their delicate eggs in the nest, resting on the arms of the neighbouring trees. They sing their little hearts out to the eggs that lay in wait tiny universes within their shells. Soon to be hatchlings becoming birds just as their parents did. Their branches of the fellow trunks are stretched out to the sun. Wisps of green sprouting from every notch. The fluffy buds of the pussy willow. Whispers. Joys of the coming warmth. The yew tree stands strong. And marvels at the springtime sounds. The calling birds. The rushing river. The daffodils that quietly chatter to one another with their trumpet faces. Spreading the joy of the earth waking up. Every flower has a language of its own. And they all understand each other. The wild life is stirring. The timid hedgehogs poke their noses out from the remains of the last autumn's shedding. Squirrels nuzzle their young and adolescent deer, snoozing in the thicket, and there's a mouse wandering through the dark maroon heather.

Swales 00:02:27 Hope for the future is abundant. Then a glimpse of a maiden passes between the trees. Golden hair flowing behind her. Whispering a sunlit prayer. Humming a hopeful tune to the surrounding trees. The maiden goddess Austra is as beautiful as a vibrant dawn. And as she walks, she acknowledges life waking up around her. The movement in the stillness. She sees every detail in the smallest bud, in the rising seedlings. And as she walks, she strokes her fingertips over the moss. Blessing it as she goes. She sits by the stream to place her bare feet in its rushing waters. She knows there is another like herself in these woods. A young man finding his way through the trees, following the sunlight to a place she is sure to meet him very soon. She smiles to herself and Splashes the water playfully, smiling to herself. But then Uster catches something to her right out of the corner of her eye. At the foot of a tree is a sorrowful, dying bird. Soft feathers, broken wings and a fading light in his eyes.

Swales 00:04:22 She hastily goes over to the poor creature and carefully scoops him up in her arms. Saddened by the scene, dear sweet friend, let me heal your pain, she whispers. The bird's breath is shallow, and a tiny sigh escapes his open beak. The maiden places her glowing palm on the bird in her hands, and a dazzling healing light fills the bird's broken body. The trees observe the wildlife quietness. There is a moment when time stops, fleeting, and the only essence of the pure universe is present. It is a moment beyond words. Then what was a bird is no more. And a magnificent brown hair stands upon his back legs where the broken bird once was. My word. Where are my wings? Asks the hare, looking bewildered at the maiden. My magic transformed you into a beautiful, strong land creature, my friend. You have lost your wings, but have gained the power of speed. Of underground, sanctuary and life. Once you flew through the sky. Now you will run through the land.

Swales 00:06:13 Outsmarting your predators. Free to roam however you please. And you will have a loving family. With many children that will be by your side throughout your lifetime. However, you are not entirely without your bird qualities, as you are still in possession of the gift of laying eggs. The hair reflecting on these new gifts took a moment and then bowed his head to Ostara. I am truly thankful for my life, dear Madan, said the hare. And on this day, every year from now, I will gift you an egg made of my magnificent magical body. As gratitude for your kindness. Sir, Mote it be, replied the maiden. And with that she placed the hair back on the ground and watched him sprint into the waking woods. His tail like a jewel in the fern. As she looks down, she sees that he is left a vibrant egg by her feet. The yew tree would tell the story of the spring goddess, transforming the bird to a hare for years to come on every Ostara Eve.

Swales 00:08:28 Now then, witches and beautiful souls. Welcome to another solitary witch episode with me. Swales the Friendly Green Witch a magical podcast help you to get witchy near the 21st century. This is an Ostara slash, the Spring Equinox episode looking at the folklore and mythology and history of the goddess that is Easter, that may or may not be an historical influence on the Sabbath because the MLK episode did rather well. And I think, I hope the listeners enjoyed my attempt at contemporary folklore storytelling. I went to a seed talk not so long ago with my friend Louise Blum, and I think, I don't know if I mentioned this before, but it was about folklore and women. The presenter was saying the definition of folklore is storytelling with variations, and it can be anything and everything. It's like lyrics, poetry, song writing, diary entries, spoken word stories. You read your kids. It's got to be varied and evolve with the fuck that is telling the story. The fuck that is speaking there. Lore through stories, folk lore.

Swales 00:09:57 Don't you think that's just so cool? Folklore has to evolve and change with people and the times it's been told. I used to be quite scared of telling folklore stories because I was very worried I was going to get it right. But knowing this little gem of knowledge makes me think, well, I can do this because I'm telling stories inspired from stuff that I've researched and imagine as I researched them. My Monty Python Busy bridge does create a narrative with all these things that are a research and think about, and it keeps me up at night. I call it the creative curse. The stories that begin on these episodes are written by me. I haven't used AI. Hashtag which is against AI. They are a joy to create and I hope that they thoroughly entertain you. Honestly. And I really enjoyed doing them. And so I thought, I'm gonna attempt to do them all throughout the year for every Shabbat leading back up to you all where it all began. So here we are. I hope you enjoy it.

Swales 00:11:05 It's funny, as I were recording this episode, I kept hearing something in the wall, like scratching or chewing. So I was a bit like, oh God. So I had to go investigate. Obviously, like 10:00 at night. I couldn't find what was making this scratching under the house. It's probably a rat, but I live in the countryside, so I've got to suck it up. But there was a gorgeous little hedgehog on the step as I opened the door, just looking at me, all cute with its little beady eyes and its little wet nose. And I thought, oh, that is such a lovely thing to find my doorstep whilst I'm doing an episode about the spring equinox. Lovely. Thank you for that gift. Dear universe, I really, really appreciate it. Right. What else? How about some witchy media? I do read a lot and I love novels, and recently I read a book called witchcraft for Wayward Girls. Oh my gosh, this book is just wild. So I'll read the blurb.

Swales 00:12:13 Witchcraft for Wayward Girls is a 2025 horror novel by American writer Grady Hendrix, and is a novel set in Florida in 1970 about a group of pregnant teenage girls living in a maternity home for unwed girls, and they discovered this book on witchcraft from, like, this twee little mobile library that comes in every month. How to be a Groovy Witch. Questionable, but I guess it was the 70s. And it's such a weird book because it starts pretty damning in terms of how young women and girls were treated. Then, in this hot summer of 1970. You know, the doll being raped and had one night stands and then they'd been blamed for it. So it gets you cross to begin with because it's quite realistic. And then you find this book and it's all a bit fluffy. And then I must admit, I started losing interest a little bit. But then when they started doing this magic to get revenge on, like the head matron, it was absolutely foul. Like, I know it's a horror and I kept forgetting it was a horror at times.

Swales 00:13:25 Some of the chapters of like birthing scenes and stuff. It will put any women off having children after they read this book, because even I was like, oh my God, I would never get pregnant after this. It's just so graphic and really powerful and can be quite gross. So be ready if you're going to read it, be ready. It is good. It is a bit weird in terms of witchcraft, how it portrays witchcraft, because it's almost like the author can't make up her mind. Sometimes it seems witchcraft is positive and realistic. And then of course, there couldn't help but turn the witchcraft into the evil wicked witch, which was annoying. But overall it was. It was very well done. And I do recommend the book and it is a big book, but it is good and an intense read. Do give it a whirl. I might start doing witchy weird media or witchy witchy mediums. A bit of a tongue twister. Welcome to my new paid subscriber Tony, who has joined this week to the Bell Witch podcast Patreon.

Swales 00:14:32 I hope you like it here and if you're interested in what's on there. There's about 180 posts now, which is a considerable amount. You've got ad free early access episodes, behind the scenes videos, a little bit of poetry, a little bit of journal type stuff that I enter randomly. And most impressively, I think is the exclusive subscriber episode called Cauldron of Woo. Right. I think that's it from me and the little intro. Do enjoy my solitary, rich offering of a delightful meandering through Ostara and The goddess that may have inspired it. On the 21st of March in the Northern Hemisphere and September in the southern one, the wheel of the year turns once again to celebrate the vernal equinox, aka Ostara, where the day and night are balanced in time and the optimism is mirroring the surrounding, sprouting daffodils and the daisies. Crops are sold, seeds are scattered, and the birds really are singing their little hearts out. When I think of this time, I think of that spring scene in the Bambi where the wise old owl talks about how everybody's losing their heads because they're getting Twitter pitied, and the rolling love seeds galore follow.

Swales 00:16:12 That to me, Disney is capturing Ostara vibes magnificently. Yes, a lot of people call this Sabbat Ostara. As witches, we tend to see the spring equinox, and it's kind of like an Easter celebration with eggs and hares and chicks and fluffy lambs and all the good, lovely, bright and breezy things. However, the title of Ostara and the Goddess Ostara, of which it is apparently named after, is relatively new in the history of the spring equinox and its rituals, which have been celebrated by keepers of the land for thousands of years, because land dwelling people that they used the spring equinox as a calendar, as a signpost signaling the turn of the seasons. And seriously, the jobs there had to do to survive the lesser Sabbaths of Ostara in the Wiccan wheel of the year is like a newly hatched chicken, and to know it as Ostara is a relatively new thing in History of Seasons and celebrating them. But how did all this come about? Let's have a little look. See? The goddess Ostara definitely pronounced like that because I've done loads of bloody googling on the old how to pronounce stuff, is said to be a maiden goddess of spring, with a crown of flowers in her hair, associated with hares and eggs, fertility and the dawning of a new day.

Swales 00:18:03 In terms of her history, it is in fact a little bit of a mystery. Hey, hey. See what I did there? In paganism history, there isn't much evidence of it all. It seems as though she came through the back door of the Christian church, sneaking in with a bunch of flowers, but the pagans were like, hey, up! Welcome in the proper Loveday. Maybe because she captures the imagination and she fits in so well with the themes, and she is like the star in the tarot card. It just fitted perfectly and really crept into people's imaginations and spirituality. But I was doing a bit of research and there isn't much out there, I'm honest. Research shows that the first literature evidence that mentioned Ostara was in the 18th century by a Northumberland monk named Bede, or BD. BD. So your guess is as good as mine. In his work in 725 CE, titled de temporal ratione, I think it is written or something, which translates to a reckoning of time. The Venerable Bede claimed that Ostara was a Saxon version of a Germanic Germanic, a Germanic political dynamic goddess called Ostara as a monk.

Swales 00:19:40 Where did this information even come from? It seems unlikely, like he would make this goddess up, as you know, being a monk and all. Like Christianity and God and all. Jesus and the devil and all that jazz. But this document that he wrote, which mentions Ostara is, I think, looking at what people do to celebrate the the coming month of March and April, by my understanding, which probably isn't correct, but it did seem like you were making connections about festivals and pagans, feasting and celebrating a goddess of the dawn and things like that. In his works, he says that the name is translated to a partial month, which I don't know what that means, but, you know, apparently this goddess was honored by feasting that was celebrated in the month of March and April as a celebration of the planting of the seed. It's all a bit unclear, but after that there's not lots of mentions about it. In fact, there's none until the Grimms brothers came along in the 1800s and said that they had found evidence of her existence in oral traditions in certain parts of Germany, but there is no written proof of this.

Swales 00:21:05 Like researchers and scholars just can't find anything, so it sounds like it was a bit of a fib. It is true that Easter doesn't appear anywhere in dynamic mythology, and despite assertions that she might have been in Norse deity, I read connections and Similarities to Freya, the Norse goddess. She doesn't show up in the poetic edges either. However, she could certainly have belonged to some tribal groups in the genomic areas, and her stories may have just been passed along through the age old tradition of oral storytelling and folklore. Like previously mentioned, it's unlikely that Bede, who was a scholar as well as a Christian academic, would have just made her up. It's equally possible that Bede simply misinterpreted a word at some point during his research, and that Ostara month was not named for a goddess at all, but for some other spring festival in the following month of April. Who knows? It does seem that research and scholars can't agree on where she came from, as if she was a genomic goddess of pagans, feasting and frolicking.

Swales 00:22:23 And if she was revered, surely there would be some written evidence. And there's just not much written down about that. So I don't know what I can tell you. But we like it. She captures our imagination, and she is so good at the job of bringing in hope for a story. And then there were this whole Easter thing where people throughout the world, always clearing the Easter, is named after her. Or perhaps she was named after Easter. And history is a folklore. Stories perpetuated the goddess through similar deities that influenced this deity's presence today as we know it. A good example of this, which I absolutely love, is the Ukrainian folklore story The Bird's Gift, which inspired the opening story on this episode. And this story explains the origins of Psychonauts, which is a beautiful tradition of decorating eggs with natural substances like onion and beetroot and flowers. All nature's gifts. Love that, I love it. This was a story told by Eric E Campbell and names Justina as the leading lady in the story, who finds a dying bird and saves its life by using her magic to transform the bird into a hare or a rabbit.

Swales 00:23:46 And the Hair rabbit was so chuffed to be saved. Turns out, it's kept the ability to layer magical eggs and so offers them to the goddess as a gift every year as thanks for saving his life. Isn't that nice? I had to write about it. I just really loved it. I haven't managed to read it, like direct because I couldn't find it anywhere without paying a lot of money. I also read that it got rewritten and published in children's magazines and stuff, so it really did have a huge ripple effect, Especially at this time of year when the stories did get retold around Easter time. Because eggs. So in my mind, anyway, this is where the association of the hair starts to cement. Hairs are important. This time of year, you can't really talk about the spring equinox without mentioning a hair or two, and the fact that rabbits and hares breed like mud in the spring. And this bloke called Adolf, not that one. Holtzman said probably the hair was a sacred animal in Ostara in 1874, and then a few other writers, authors and scholars copied him and said the same thing.

Swales 00:24:59 And then in 1976, Christina Hall says it's definitely the sacred beast of the goddess Ostara, who is a Saxon goddess of spring and the dawn with hairs all around her. I reckon she'd read a lot of Wiccan books by then. We can't forget that hair's already had a place in the supernatural realms, as they add an historic connection to witches of the past, being thought of as familiars to those who were accused of witchcraft in The Burning Times, so many stories of how women on the moors were turned into hares, and then Puritan men would try and shoot the hares. There's just so much of that. So it was already in our psyche, wasn't it? Like witches and hares, goddesses, hares. So hares and rabbits. Very special this time of year. Yes, they look similar, but they're actually really different for the start. Rabbits live in big families in warrens like on Watership Down. Don't watch that. You'll cry. Whereas hares are very solitary and tend to go around on their own not wanting to talk to other hares.

Swales 00:26:13 And that's why you see the famous boxing hares fighting for territory. And to witches, hares and rabbits have both been quite lucky. Rabbits is more about bringing fertility to the land and having a loving home. A rabbit's foot was considered good luck in the Middle Ages and then again in the Victorian times, because they love that stuff. Rabbits are deer animals, whereas hares tend to be dusk animals. To the Celts, the hare was a creature to be honoured and revered. To kill one meant that you would be stuck with a cowardice life ever after. To the Anglo-Saxons, the air was the embodiment of the corn spirit. The white hair is thought to be the spirit of winter, and is sacred to the White Goddess or the snow Queen, as she sometimes known. The hare is specifically linked to quite a few goddesses, such as Cupid, Venus, Aphrodite. Hecate, Ostara and Diana and is largely connected to the full moon, hence moon gazing Hare. You can work with them to help you strengthen your powers of divination, and in this month of March, hares can be seen to be losing the mind a little bit as the fighting for dominance over females as its mating season.

Swales 00:27:38 Hence the name mad as a march hare. And I got a lot of that delightful information from a book called Magical Beasts by Marie Bruce. Yes, I do quite like the hare in this time of year. To me it feels like the hare is a masculine energy, but it's got a, I don't know, like a feminine edge to it. It's like the masculine wants to assist the feminine, the hare and the goddess. Like, it's almost like it's embodied the young god. And whilst looking through many of my books, I found this gorgeous little poem titled The Fable Hare, found in the book called Sacred Animals by Gordon McClellan. Written by Maddy Prior. Taken from the album titled year. It doesn't say what year, which is annoying. I shall go until her hair. I shall go until her hair. With sorrow and sick medical care I shall go in the devil's name. And while I come home again ruled by the moon, I move under her mantle. I am the symbol of her moods of rebirth cycle.

Swales 00:28:57 I am a companion to the gods. I can conceive while I am pregnant. I call the dawn and the spring in I am the advent. I bring life from water. In a cup that must be broken, I whisper to the bursting egg I am ashes. Token. Scent of dog. Scent of man. Clothes to smell them. Come in. Hot breath. Hot breath. Closer, closer I heard them running. Tongues pant hearts thump. Closer, closer through the fields. Teeth snap. Bones crack closer. Close at my heels. Nearer yet and nearer I can feel the butcher's knife. He is running for his dinner. I am running for my life. Winter awakens. Winter awakens all my care. Now this lose wax of bear. The hair said man sprays no weeds. The seventh cuts the cord, bleeds the leather. Its trap in harvest blade tears the time of the man. The hair said he is the tractor. He is the plow. And where shall we go now? Will lie in farms as still as the dead.

Swales 00:30:32 In the open fields. The hair said no cover. But the camouflage from the winter's wild and bitter ridge. All our defense is in our legs. We run like the wind. The hair said I shall run and run. I've been cursed. While I've been despised as a witch with darkest powers. I shall go until a hair. I've been hunted, trapped and punished. In those my darkest hours with sorrow and such mickle care. I've been thrown into the fire, but I do not fear it. It purifies and resurrects, and I can bear it. I have outrun dogs and foxes, and I've dodged your tractor wheels. I have survived your persecution and your ever changing fields. I will run and run forever. Where the wild fields are mine. I am a symbol of endurance. Running through the mists of time. Isn't that nice? You know I love a poem. Now let's go back to Ostara and how it may have come about. Specifically, in the Wiccan wheel of the year, the grandfather of Wicca got to mention Gerald Gardner.

Swales 00:32:04 I'm just gonna signpost as well to demystify magic with Molly and Madison. They do a couple of episodes on important figures from Witchcraft and Wicca history, and they do an amazing episode on Gerald Gardner. And I think you should totally go listen to it after this, because it is beloved, fascinating, and very unhinged. Anyway, he rocks up in the early 20th century and likes to have a bit of this and a bit of that. And ooh, there's a goddess and there's a rabbit. Oh, there's a goddess of her hair. I'll have a little bit of Egyptian ritual, and I'll have a little bit of Saxon rituals. I shall take all of these sacred rituals from all over the globe and pack them into a sexy bike wheel of six week apart, naked parties doing magic in covens and all that jazz, and does indeed name this Sabbat Ostara, probably from this tiny little bit of research I've just found. Like a witch in a magical sweetshop. Brilliant. I love Wiccan history. It's amazing.

Swales 00:33:12 Wicca truly did cement Ostara and the goddess and the hair at this time of year on the equinox. And again, no shade of Wiccans. I began this witch life as a Wiccan. And isn't that our religion formed by people putting stuff together and making a few rules and a few ways of coming together and doing stuff at certain times? I just have a beef with the old white cis dude who were using his power dynamic to get women naked, to have sex with him in a ritual and call it a coven. Okay, just saying, just saying hashtag. Just saying. I find it quite wild out. Ostara is thought to be an ancient Sabbath with an ancient goddess at its core. Just shows the power of shared Spiritualities and belief systems and stuff. Anyway, if you are not sold on Ostara, there are plenty of other goddesses you can work with at this time of year, such as ISIS, Freya, Aphrodite and of course, Beautiful Gaia. Think maiden goddesses blossoming and meandering in the woods, a young, vibrant spirit, a very powerful goddess to work with at this moment is the Greek goddess Persephone, daughter of Zeus and Demeter.

Swales 00:34:39 This young goddess has returned to her mum after being trapped for six months underground with the lord of the underworld. Her mum was so depressed that she plunged the world into mourning, which becomes the darkness of the six months of the winter side of the seasons. Here it is. Eventually agrees to let her daughter return to the overworld, to her mother's delight. Hence spring springing. Have you ever heard of a puca? Another fabulous rabbit hole that I discovered whilst doing my ritual of research is that of a fey like spirit from Ireland named a pucca. Often portrayed as a talking animal in the form of a rabbit or a cat or a horse, and is known for playing tricks on humans. In some stories, the pucca is said to be a benign but mischievous presence, while in other stories it is portrayed as a more relevant, malevolent being, but with the ability to bring harm to those who cross its path. A puca is also associated with the Otherworld, a realm of magic and mystery in Irish mythology, where they have the power of human speech and like to embellish the truth.

Swales 00:36:12 In Ireland, the puca seems to be the most feared fear, possibly because it appears only at night and enjoys creating havoc and mischief when a pooka is in a horse form. He tends to have fun by inviting the rider to jump on his back. This usually happens when the rider has had a little too much to drink, and is making his way home from the pub. This starts the wildest trip the rider will ever know, for the Puca loves to terrify the rider with its great prowess, jumping over hedges and rocks and making death defying leaps. The rider is thrown off the horse's back and left trembling, but none the worse the wear from the night's events to find his own way home. So that's an us, not a rabbit and us. But it does a rabbit as well. So let's keep on theme. I was today's year old when I read that Donnie Darko was rabbit Frank, the dude dressed up as a bunny that plagues him throughout the film is actually a pooka who knew mine doubloon.

Swales 00:37:25 So the internet tells me that Puca is associated with Samhain, but a few of my books on Ostara say it is actually connected to the Sabbat of Ostara. And I shall read a page from the Luann Sabbat Essentials Ostara book. The Pooka is another magical creature associated with this time of year. A Pooka is a mysterious and mischievous shapeshifting Irish creature of the fair Before the puke had got a bad reputation, it was seen as a servant who helped bring the power of the vernal equinox to the land. Woods and fields. He may even have been a lover of the goddess herself due to his physical makeup, often seen as half man, half rabbit. Though he can be a combination of other creatures as well. He has a strong tie to rabbits, which is the symbol of fertility and potency. So there you go. It makes me laugh. Only I could mention a cult horror movie in on a Star Trek episode. It's getting a bit dark. Let's bring it back to the light, shall we? What are the correspondences of this beautiful, hopeful Sabat? Oh, what are the things you can do? Cheap, easy, accessible things that you can do to celebrate this time of year.

Swales 00:38:55 Easy rituals. Well, think new beginnings. The full card. Hope for the future. The star card in the tarot. New beginnings. Time of childlike wonder. A spontaneous essence. Playful and fun. Become a maiden. Wonder in awe. Look at stuff like you're a child. Seeing it for the first time. Notice the stuff around you that's growing as the earth is waking up around you on the school run. Today I walk past the trees and the pussy willow had started to sprout. And I love that. You know when you feel the pussy willow and it feels literally that little cat. Pause. It's so lovely. One of my favorite things to do around this time of year is touch all the pussy Willow road. Say hello to the bees as you are marveling at the beauty of the world waking up. Try and hone in on the tiny details of the daffodils. Trumpet. Talk to the flowers. Welcome them back. He said that March starts like a roaring lion and ends like a sleeping lamb, which I just love because nature has finally woken up with the bright blooms of yellows, purples, greens and whites.

Swales 00:40:10 Think all the pastel colors. It is a time to plant budding bulbs. So tomato and sunflower seeds, chives and cosmos and wild flowers to try and get a cottage garden going, which is my plan this year. Ten year garden and winter it. Sing outside of the birds. Feed the birds. Set up your altar with all the Ostara slash spring slash Easter related things like eggs, moon gazing hares, cute little chicks, lamb effigies, all the flowers, white and green and yellow candles are colors that simply bring you joy. Crystals that give you a sense of hope and peacefulness and positivity. They could be any crystals personal to you? Do a bit of spring cleaning in your house. Make room in a balloon, cheater floor. Absolutely anything and anything to do with eggs. Hate them? Cook them. Blow them out. Divine with the yolk of a cracked egg in water that literally is holding the egg in your hand. Asking a question. Cracking the egg into water or a pan if you're going to cook it and watch a bit like tea leaves if you can see anything.

Swales 00:41:37 Whatever pops into your head, that is what it is. That's how you divine, right? There's no eggs in bread, unfortunately, but there's plenty of eggs in cake, so bake a cake. Put yellow icing on it. Hunt eggs in the garden. Eat chocolate once you get the drift. I went to a sea of junior school when I was a kid, and I always remember asking the head teacher, who was called Mr. Randall, about why we have Easter eggs. Why is it a thing? And he said something like, you know, the tomb that soon to be zombie Jesus was put in the chocolate egg represents the balder that closed the tomb up where I didn't buy it then. And I don't buy it now. Other animals you can work with in this joyous time? Pretty much anything that's alive and celebrating right now. Hares. Obviously guts are great as it's the every season, but the horse is particularly good at this time of year because we've just entered the fire. Horse. Phoenix rising after a prolonged hibernation is also a good effigy or picture to have on the altar.

Swales 00:42:51 Bugs, ladybirds, snails and the hedgehogs that eat them have also returned. Helping you by getting rid of all those pesky slugs that eat your blooming vegetables. What can you use as offerings during Ostara, a.k.a. the Spring Equinox? Bread and butter make for good seasonal offerings. Honey is good again. Eggs ready to eat. Seeds and nuts are fabulous. The pomegranate, obviously, because of that goddess that lives under the ground that can never say a name. Herbs such as dill and asparagus and lamb for us carnivores. If you fancy making beautiful, colorful edible eggs, you can actually do this. And it is called Creating Shang-Chi. Shang-Chi. So this is different. One to the pants guy. Pants guys are not meant to be eaten, whereas Shang-Chi absolutely is. You can actually do this by Hasbro. The suit makes for like 12 to 15 minutes. Boil some water in a different pan. This is for making the dye. Take your eggs off the boil and let them cool down. You can speed this up by using a bowl of cold water, and begin to make your own dyes, using non-toxic ingredients from Mother Nature.

Swales 00:44:23 Some suggestions on how to make natural vegetable dye in colors are red cabbage for cups, sliced or shredded, which gives you the color of light blue. Beetroot four cups shredded, which gives you light purple. A yellow onion four cups of the skin only so you can eat the onion that gives your orange and spinach four cups of chopped spinach. Will give you a lovely pastel green color. Once you are prepared, the dyes soak the eggs in the color of your choice. Add in white wine vinegar, a couple of cups each to set the dye on the egg, making sure that liquid covers the eggs completely. The longer the eggs soak, the deeper the color will get. But there won't be as dark as the dye liquid itself. For the most intense color, allow the eggs to soak overnight in the refrigerator. You can use the egg cartons to dry them in. Oh, that's a handy tip, but be careful when handling freshly dyed eggs as some dye will rub off onto your hands, although it's non-toxic, so you're right.

Swales 00:45:34 They can be eaten, but it is bad luck to disregard the shells carelessly burning the shells or casting them into flowing water are acceptable methods of disposal. I'm going to add I think composting would also be okay. Putting them into the dirt of the land is a very good thing to do. I love this idea of dyeing eggs with natural dyes. I'm totally going to try this Ostara and they'll look so beautiful on the altar and you can still eat them. So bonus, there's no food waste either. It's going in your gob, so let me know how it goes. What you end up doing for the beautiful Sabbath Ostara. Or if you prefer, just to call it the Spring Equinox. It'll be a beautiful time of the year when we're all excited and we're all just desperate for for movement and sunshine and flowers. All the good stuff. I'm gonna put some spring noises here. Okay? Enjoy. Thank you for listening to the Bell Witch which podcast created with love and magic by Miss Wales. The Friendly Green, which you can support the podcast by joining at Patreon for bonus content or simply leaving ratings and reviews wherever you listen to your pods.

Swales 00:46:59 If you want to collab, trailer swap, or simply connect with me, you can reach me on the bell. Which podcast at Yahoo! Dot com. Follow me on Instagram at the Bell Witch podcast. Separated by underscores. And don't forget, you can tip your witch at PayPal or buy me a coffee. All my love and magic swirls. The friendly Green Witch of the Bell Witch podcast.