Did you mean Easter ? Our annual Autumn 3 to 4 day holiday and a chance to show off our Easter bonnets ?
The chocolate egg hunt on Easter Sunday morning is a joy not to be missed by today’s western family. But have you ever wondered if there was more to celebrating Easter than your mother or grandparents arriving to excite children with their chocolate eggs and telling tall tales that a rabbit has hidden them for us all to find?
The marketing world and religious institutions have a lot to answer for. Children are now encouraged at schools with the Easter hat parade and the Easter bunny with no further explanation of why we indulge them in this annual activity.
I’m not going to get all religious on you now..! The Easter story and tradition is becoming the basis of religious beliefs that are passed down through generations with no credible proof. When these traditions are challenged, the inevitable response is to call upon our own faith… what ever that means.
The influences through marketing principles by both commerce and religion, now finds the twenty first century Easter family values and festivities, enjoying holiday status. Those values are now welded into Australian expectations. Although i very much doubt that our family elders knew enough about history to pass on its true derivation and evolution to what is now known as “Easter”.
As a child, i had no exposure to “the” sources of legends, folklore and traditions. The specific tradition of Easter has origins which track back over 4 thousand years to the first known documented story telling, by way of figure etchings on stone tablets and temple walls.
I was born to an Australian centred family in a foreign country. Growing up, there was none of this behaviour in my earlier years. This Easter thingi was only introduced to me on my arrival in Australia as a seven year old.
Credit to Nola Dudenhoeffer a former resident of Jindabyne NSW Australia, who pointed me to the connection of “ishtar” and Easter. Allow me to point at a 4000 year old story that may explain many standpoints that should have been handed down effectively through the ages. Politics and religion have interjected and influenced this story and turned it into a Chinese whisper for their own gains.
This documentation was on stone tablets, or caves and temple walls. Many are ruins now, but some still survive to tell the story of ishtar. Yes, “ishtar” sounds like Easter doesn’t it. The light switched on for me when i heard of the story.
If you follow the links at the highlighted underlined texts, especially this next one, you will uncover many parts to the story of Easter. There are many more links to find online, and they all point in the same direction.
So now, what will you pass on to the next generations ?
