éostre-marzanna 🌾

i picked out the below track - lacrimosa (mozart) - as a good accompaniment to this page.

éostre (← proto-indo-european *h₂eus- “dawn”) and marzanna (← proto-indo-european *mer~mor- “die”) are two names for what emerges to me as the same natural pattern - the deity of cyclicity and intense transformation.

this idea of transformation is an important one to understand éostre’s role in our world.

she represents not only death and the end of natural life, but also the beginning of it. she is the embodiment of the constant turning of the wheel.

she is the growing cold of winter, and the subsequent rebirth into spring. this particular part of the season - winter into spring - is very closely associated with her, especially on the slavic side.

duality

marzanna exists in opposition to béowa-jaryło, the masculine emanation of strength and fertility and growth. there exists, between them, a cycle of transformation. marzanna and jaryło rely on and indeed become one another in a constant cycle of growth and then transformation.