Mother Earth, Mother Nature, We the Children & Easter

Did you know the first Greek God was actually a Goddess?. he is Gaia, or Mother Earth, who created herself out of primordial chaos. From her fertile womb all life sprang, and unto Mother Earth all living things must return after their allotted span of life is over. Gaia, as Mother Nature, personifies the entire ecosystem of Planet Earth. 
Mother Nature is always working to achieve and maintain harmony, wholeness and balance within the environment. Mother Nature heals, nurtures and supports all life on this planet, and ultimately all life and health depend on Her. In time, Nature heals all ills.
The way of Mother Gaia is the passive, feminine, Yin way of healing. All we need to do to regain our health is to return to the bosom of Mother Nature and live in accordance with Her laws.
The Gaia archetype underlies all notions of the Nature Cure. Mother Nature is a healing goddess for the ancients whose glory was celebrated each spring, long before organized religion came into play.

 Easter, the name: According to the Encyclopaedia Britannica, "the 8th century derived it from that of the Anglo-Saxon spring goddess Eostre, whose name, in turn, might have come from "Eastre," meaning spring. Once again, pagans honor her as the "goddess of dawn," one of many fertility goddesses celebrated during their spring equinox.
Christ Carrying the Cross puts history's most amazing event into a context as relevant to contemporary America as it was to the Flemish masses back in the 16th Century. In this miniature version of Pieter Bruegel's massive painting, Jesus (in the center) is barely visible. That's part of Bruegel's message. For the crowds in the picture were as oblivious to the suffering Savior in their midst as the average person on a city street might be today. Much like today their minds were on their games, on their petty arguments, on their mischievous children, on the stately guards and, especially, on the spectacle of the execution ahead. The identities of the accused mattered little. They never recognized the King who gave His life for them.

"Eostre, a Germanic Goddess, is associated with both spring and sunrise. Tradition has it that Eostre, saved a bird whose wings were frozen from the harsh winter by turning it into a magickal, egg laying hare. Eostre was a maiden whose aspects of renewal and rebirth brought about the reappearance of bright spring flowers, baby chickens fresh from the shell, baby bunnies from their winter dens and the reoccurrence of the plow in the field. In some European traditions flowers grew from her footprints.

"Pagans lit new fires at dawn to cure ills, renew life and protect the new crops. In some cultures this sacred day included the ringing of bells, singing of songs, and decorating of hard boiled eggs. Eggs were a symbol of both the sun god (the golden yolk) and fertility (the white shell symbolizing the White Goddess) and were used both as talismans and eaten in ritual. The eggs of wild birds were gathered and these eggs are recreated today with the dyes used in Easter celebrations. The weaving of Easter baskets harks back to the weaving of birds' nests, a necessity prior to egg laying and the continuation of the life cycle."

In the 1960's, James Lovelock formulated the Gaia hypothesis. It states that all life, and all living things on this planet, are part of a single, all-encompassing global entity or consciousness which he named Gaia. It is this global consciousness, Mother Gaia, that makes our planet capable of supporting life, while our near neighbors in the solar system are barren and lifeless.
Through the global consciousness of Mother Gaia, all living things on this planet, from their most primordial instincts, are constantly interacting with their environment to ensure the harmony, balance and continuity of Life.
 Live in balance with Mother Nature and health and healing are yours; violate Her laws and get out of balance, and you pay the price in suffering and disease. In this sense, all medicine and healing can be seen as a system of ecology. Let us use the celebration of EASTER to be an affirmation of our love for our planet!