This last full moon is the one that designates the date of Easter Sunday. The date of Easter is marked as the first Sunday after the first full moon that occurs after the vernal equinox.
The Western Church uses the Gregorian calendar to set the date, but the Orthodox Church uses the older Julian calendar. Therefore, they usually take place on different dates.
Death and Rebirth
Easter marks the awareness of death and rebirth, of spiritual renewal.However, this cycle of dying and resurrecting is a recurring feature in most world mythologies. Central to the Christian idea of Easter is the cross. But the cross predates Christianity; its symbol is ageless, and permeates all cultures.
The symbology of the cross
Scholar Cirlot, one of the world’s leading authorities on symbols, explains that the cross, as a symbol of the “Tree of Life”, functions as an emblem of the “axis of the world”. Located at the center of the mystical heart of the cosmos, the cross symbolically becomes the bridge or ladder through which the soul can reach God. The cross thus confirms the basic relationship between the heavenly and the earthly world. In other words, it is through the experience of the crucifixion (lived knowledge of opposites) that one comes to the center of oneself (enlightenment).
The sign of the cross triggers four factors, and is directly related to the four elements (fire, water, earth and air). He also refers to the Tetraktis or sacred Tetrad of the Pythagoreans; to the four cardinal points; and the Tetragrammaton, the four-letter name of the deity in the Judeo-Christian mystical tradition (IHVH).
The archetypal meaning of the symbol of the cross is always that of the integration of opposites: the vertical axis (male) with the horizontal axis (female); the superior with the inferior; time with space; the asset with the liability;
Spirit and matter. When placed within the circle it is the symbol of our own Earth.
Like a crossroads, a moment of choice and adjustment on personal, social and global levels of being.
As a symbol that conveys the understanding of the soul, it drives us to participate in something greater, that infuses meaning and allows the mystery of the sacred to manifest itself. However, the big cross literally throws away the old way of being, and it is up to us to choose how we participate.
a symbol that conveys the understanding of the soul, drives us to participate in something greater, that infuses meaning and allows the mystery of the sacred to manifest itself.
Easter offers us the metaphor that the cross is accomplished within a process and we can honor it as a rite of passage. It is a holiday, a holy day. This year, the cosmic and religious calendars are in sync, and so it seems that somehow we can all experience the energy of this symbol internally.
How will the manifestation of these energies come about?