"The only thing constant in the world is change. That's why each day I take life as it comes" - India Arie.

Pretty deep quote hey!

For those who were looking for some deep and moving email this week I am afraid I am all out of deep. What I can say though is that we have 3 more people that have joined our community and those are Grace, Tyrone and Adrian, welcome to our little community which is also online on www.mondaymail.blogspot.com. Please feel free to give any comments either on the email that was sent out or on how to improve this community or on what topics are of interest to you. Please, if at any time you feel that this email is a waste of precious inbox space kindly drop me a line and I will remove u from the list.

Gotta love April in SA its littered with public holidays, its beautiful. 4 more days of Lent to go and you can go back to your weird and wonderful ways.

Friday is the day known to Christians as Good Friday. The name ‘Good Friday’, as per Wikipedia, came from early English name Godes Friday which meant Gods Friday and it underwent metamorphosis into Good Friday, kinda like God be with ye became goodbye. Well Good Friday is the start of the Easter weekend, commemorating the crucifixion of Jesus at Calvary and his resurrection on Easter Sunday.

So now why do I tell you all this that many of you might already know, well I have been thinking about this for a while and someone please tell me where the Easter egg and Easter bunny fit into this whole story?

So I went onto the good old www and found some interesting things about both of these things. Now from what I’ve read, apparently since time in memoriam, the egg has represented mystery, magic, medicine, food and omen (here I thought it was just stuff we got from chickens that made our muscles grow and farts stink J). During Pagan times, the end of winter and the earth once again bursting with life was likened to an egg hatching and bringing forth life. Many people way back when believed that the egg had special powers, I mean imagine this oblong object today… chicken tomorrow, it’s a kinda magic. So strong were the perceived powers of eggs that they were sometimes buried in the foundation of buildings to ward off evil, pregnant young Roman women used to carry them around foretell the sex of their unborn child, French brides used to step on eggs before they entered their new homes.

Enter Christianity…the focus of the egg representing the rebirth of the earth shifted to represent the rebirth of man. The egg symbol was likened to the tomb from which Christ Rose. The egg was thus symbolic of the grave and life renewed. There is Polish folklore that tells of Mary Magdalene giving eggs to the soldiers at the cross. Apparently in Eastern Christianity, eggs were forbidden during Lent, you were forbidden to eat meat or dairy (dairy was anything that could be taken from an animal without drawing blood…and eggs were considered dairy).

There are a couple of ‘stories’ around how and why easter eggs are decorated. One such story is that of Mary Magdalene telling the soldiers that Christ has risen, and gave them a red egg, the red being symbolic of the regeneration of humankind as a result of the blood shed by Jesus’. Another interesting one was a Polish legend about Mary M going to the grave to anoint the body of Jesus. She had a normal basket of white shelled eggs with her as a meal and when she arrived there and uncovered the basket, the white shelled eggs had miraculously turned rainbow in colour.

So in a nutshell, Easter = death and resurrection...life renewed….Egg = seemingly inanimate object…few days later bursting with life…just incase I was waffling earlier

So where does bugs bunny come from?
Well up north, spring is around the corner, this happens to coincide with Easter. Eggs, Rabbits and Hares are symbolic of fertility…life. (just as an aside female rabbits can actually fall pregnant with another litter whilst already pregnant..hectic). Its pretty arb but they just came into being as a result of myth and folklore…

If u didn’t know, now u know.

Birthdays
01 Carnita/Grace
02 Gorata
04 Otto
05 Kirst Neth

That’s me for this week, happy Passover, Happy Easter, and happy long weekend to all the masses.

Maximum respect

Y
‘que sera sera’