If you live anywhere near Ottawa, you’ve probably spent this month feeling a little whiplashed. Warm days that tease us with spring, followed by snowstorms that remind us winter isn’t done. Gentle rains that melt the world into softness, followed by ice that snaps everything back into cold. It’s been a season of mixed signals, and honestly, a lot of us are tired.
So if you’re feeling a bit shaken, a bit stretched, a bit unsure what season you’re even standing in, you’re not alone. This is the emotional weather of March. This is the strange in‑between place where winter and spring wrestle for the sky.
And right in the middle of that tug of war sits Ostara.
There’s a moment every year when the air shifts. It’s subtle at first, almost shy, like the world is taking a slow breath after holding it all winter. The snow hasn’t fully melted, the trees are still bare, and yet something in the light changes. Something in the wind softens. Something in the earth stirs.
That moment is Ostara.
It’s the Goddess visiting the world again, brushing her fingers across the land and reminding us that even the coldest winter has an ending. No matter how deep the snow, no matter how long the darkness, life waits just beneath the surface. Quiet. Patient. Certain.
And like winter, the difficult seasons of our lives can feel endless. We lose people. We lose love. We lose security and certainty. We lose the version of ourselves we thought we’d always be. Hardship looks different for everyone, but the feeling of being buried under it is universal.
Ostara doesn’t ask us to compare our winters. She simply reminds us that spring always returns, even when we can’t see it yet.
The Craft has always been about balance. The Lord and the Lady. Light and dark. Work and rest. Giving and receiving. Softness and strength. These aren’t things we chase or force. They’re truths the universe holds whether we cooperate or not. We can ride the flow or fight the current, but balance will find its way. And when we choose to move with it, the Craft becomes a place of peace.
Ostara is the moment we feel that balance shift. Day and night stand equal for a breath, and then the light begins to win again. Not in a triumphant roar, but in a gentle, steady return.
And with that return comes colour.
In Ottawa, spring arrives like a memory you didn’t realize you missed. Tulips paint the city in soft strokes. Greens return in shy little patches. The canal edges brighten. The whole world feels like it’s waking up slowly, stretching, blinking, remembering itself. There’s a dreamy nostalgia to it, like falling in love with the same season over and over again.
Ostara invites us to notice that. To pause long enough to feel the shift. To let the world’s awakening stir something in us too.
You don’t need a complicated ritual to honour this sabbat. Planting seeds is enough. Potting a little indoor plant is enough. Preparing seedlings for the garden is enough. There’s something sacred in giving life to something that will one day nourish you, whether it’s a tomato plant or a pot of cheerful flowers on the windowsill.
And if your ritual looks more like banishing a chocolate bunny, well, the season has room for mischief too. The bunny is one of Ostara’s oldest symbols for a reason. Soft, gentle, cuddly, but undeniably wild. A creature of the forest pretending to be tame. A reminder that the Craft can be kind and playful without losing its depth.
Ostara is a poetic invitation to begin again. Not in a dramatic, life changing way unless that’s what you need. Sometimes a new beginning is simply taking a breath you didn’t know you were holding. Sometimes it’s choosing hope again. Sometimes it’s letting yourself believe that the universe wants to support you, even if you’re not sure how yet.
Whatever beginning is waiting for you, may you find it in your own time, in your own way.
And if a chocolate bunny must be sacrificed, so be it.
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