Ostara is about Hope

Ostara is the goddess of hope for the future. She’s the goddess of the blooming flower, the sprouting seed, the hatching egg, and the newborn baby. She reminds us that it’s always darkest before the dawn, that every winter ends, and that for every death there is new life.

Sometimes it doesn’t always seem that way. Our ancestors knew that. Even when they abandoned the old gods for the new one, they kept the basic idea of Easter. Yesterday was Good Friday, a solemn commemoration of their god’s death, when things seemed hopeless for his followers. Tomorrow they celebrate his rebirth.

Easter or Ostara or whatever you want to call it, it’s about how we’ll get through this. We might be going through a rough time right now, but all things must pass. Just hang in there. The snow will melt, the flowers will bloom, the birds will return. We’ll never forget the hardships of winter, the setbacks we’ve had, the loved ones lost, but all is not lost, and life will continue.

What if Odin hadn’t listened to the seeress?

What if Odin told the seeress to stop being such an alarmist?

What if, when Fenris Wolf broke his chains, Odin ignored it?

What if, when the Wolf started ravaging Jotunheim, Odin said, “Well, that’s really far away. He won’t make it to Asgard.”

What if, when the Wolf made it to Vanaheim, and then to Alfheim, Odin told everyone in Asgard that it’s still not here, so we’ll be fine?

What if, when Heimdall blew his horn, Odin told Heimdall to cut it out, he’s going to cause people to panic?

What if, when the Wolf started devastating Midgard, Odin said there was no way anybody could have seen this coming?

What if, when the Wolf broke through the walls of Asgard, Odin said he’s always taken the threat of the Giant Wolf Monster seriously, and you can’t blame him for this, because he everything he could?

Allfather help us defeat this enemy

Well, that escalated quickly. But I guess that’s what viruses do. It went viral.

I’ve been a bad Heathen lately. Taking care of a baby requires a lot of time and energy and attention. I’ve been neglecting the gods and haven’t even done anything for Ostara yet, though I usually give myself a window of time between the Spring Equinox and Christian Easter (when I get a three day weekend off work) for that celebration, so I still have time. I was planning on inviting people over, and now those plans had to be cancelled for the sake of social distancing, but I’d still like to at least do a little something with my husband and daughter.

But since the pandemic really got bad, I starting giving Odin regular prayers and offerings again. Why Odin? Well, besides already having a strong relationship with him (he was my first god, after all), I think Odin has particular skills that would be very useful to us right now.

Usually when Heathens want healing they turn to Eir, and that’s a good choice. But Odin is a healer too. Second Merseburg Charm is the most well-known example in folklore of Odin’s expertise in the healing arts. And it fits with his personality. He’s a wise man and a magician and a scientist. Healing is a magical and scientific art that everyone needs at some point in their lives.

In addition, this particular disease is a respiratory infection. It kills people by literally taking their breath away, and Odin is the one who gave Ask and Embla the gift of breath. It would make sense then to call upon Odin to help fight this virus that deprives people of his gift.

This disease is also more severe in elderly people, and Odin is depicted as a wise old man. I’ve been very disturbed by some of the misleading rhetoric that suggested younger people don’t have anything to worry about. For one thing, some young, healthy people have died from it, but even if it did only kill older people, that’s still bad. My own Lieutenant Governor suggested that letting old people die might be worth it. Such rhetoric is disturbing because it suggested that elderly people are not worth protecting. I don’t thing that my pre-Christian ancestors would have agreed. I’m sure they would have seen something killing off all the elders of a tribe as being a pretty terrible thing.

Odin is also an expert at preparing for disasters. I’ve been a bit of a “prepper” since the Great Recession. I tend to buy most non-perishable food in bulk. I have a chest freezer in the utility room that I keep full of frozen meat. I have a garden and fruit trees and can and freeze any excess produce that I grow.

So far my squirrel-like tenancies to keep a hoard of food hasn’t been much more than a quirk that doesn’t really hurt, but hasn’t been really necessary either, expect for maybe this past summer when I was in my second trimester and completely filled my freezer with frozen stews and casseroles. I’ve often heard of the burst of energy women get in their second trimester that makes you start “nesting,” though most people talk about doing a thorough house-cleaning at that time. Instead, I cooked and froze and cooked and froze. And it came in VERY handy both when I had a newborn baby, and now during the pandemic we’re still eating some of that stuff (though we’re finally almost out).

What does this have to do with Odin? Well, Odin is always preparing for Ragnarok. He gathers as much intelligence as possible on when it could happen and how it could play out, and then he prepares for it. He knows it’s inevitable. He knows he can’t prevent it entirely, but he also knows that he can take actions now to at least mitigate the damage.

In early March, when I started hearing about this new virus, and how a few cases were starting to pop up in the United States, I thought it couldn’t hurt to start stocking up on supplies. What Would Odin Do? I went to Costco and got some big cases of toilet paper and canned goods and pasta and baby supplies and frozen foods. Despite President Trump insisting everything was fine, I figured it couldn’t hurt. Best case scenario, I’d end up with a lot of stuff that will take us a while to use up, but it was all stuff that we use in our household anyway. It’s not like it would go to waste.

I got all stocked up about a week before the Great Toilet Paper Panic. We’re still using toilet paper that I got back in The Before Times. Thanks Odin!

I also pray to Odin for good leadership. Odin is the chieftain of the Aesir. He knows how to lead in a crisis. I doubt he would keep insisting that everything is totally OK and you can just go about your business as normal, when it’s obvious that it’s not. Sugarcoating the problem seems like the exact opposite of what he would do. He would want us to prepare for the worse case scenario.

During this pandemic, the United States have been in a state of confusion, with leaders at different levels contradicting each other and contradicting scientists and experts. My county is under strict stay-at-home orders. The county right next to us isn’t. Is the virus worse here than it is there? Not as far as I can tell. Besides, people can and do drive between the two counties all the time and can spread the virus easily. Viruses don’t respect city limits, or county lines, or state or national borders.

That’s why we need leaders who know what they’re doing. Yes, some places might need stricter rules than other places, but I would prefer those decisions to be made by epidemiologists and not politicians. It seems like this has turned into a political debate about the role of government instead of anything having to do with science. My county is run by a Democrat, while the county next door is run by a Republican. Is that what makes the difference? My county contains a university that has been shut down and all the students sent home to do their classes online. The county next door has large numbers of elderly people. If anything, it seems to me like they would be in more danger.

I wonder if Easter is going to end up causing a big outbreak, like Marti Gras did in New Orleans. Easter is a big deal around here, especially for the Latino population. Will families stay isolated? Or will they say, “there aren’t really that many deaths here right now, so let’s get together for Easter anyway!”

We’re fighting an invisible enemy, whose effects don’t show up until a week or two after you could have done something to stop it. By the time you have people dying and being put on ventilators as the virus destroys their lungs and steals their breath, it’s too late. We need wisdom and self-discipline and foresight to fight such an enemy. These are the kinds of things that Odin can teach us, if we listen to him.