Modern Mithraism Lib : Ostara Table

Ostara Table

4021.03

OSTARA TABLE
Ostara is the goddess of the Dawn and of Springtime, the Dawn of the Year for the living world. She represents the renewal of life that comes at those times.
The Proto-Indo--Europeans perhaps called her Xáusōs. She became the Greek Eōs, Roman Aurora, Vedic Uṣas, Avestan Ušā, Lithuanian Aušrine and Ausra, and Germanic Eostre.
At the Festival of Ostara at the spring equinox we can lay a table to her, a seasonal altar to the goddess. On this table we should offer her items that represent or support the renewal and flourishing of life.

According to one commentator the Persian version of the Ostara Table should contain:
Symbols of the Material world:
1. Stone - symbol of matter, the lowest form of the material world (often substituted with gold coins)
2. Grass - wheat, barley or lentil sprouts growing in a dish - symbol of the vegetable world and of re-birth.
3. Egg - decorated with designs - symbol of the animal kingdom and of fertility
Symbols of the Immaterial world:
4. Candle - symbol of the light of being, energy or the creative force
5. Mirror - symbol of allowance and the field of possibilities where the creative force reflects and makes everything possible
6. A fish in water - symbol of life without limits, the infinite (water) and life within it (fish)
Symbol that ties the two together:
7. Wine - symbol of the human, with the jug or glass as the body (material) and the wine as the spirit (conceptual).
Taken as a group these symbols show a progression from the material to the spiritual, with stone (matter) at the lowest end, and candle (energy) at the highest, and the wine (human) in the middle, connecting these two worlds together. So, this is the point of the seven-item table, to remind us of our purpose as humans in this world; the idea that we are here to not only experience limitation and the material world, but also to experience transcendence and higher consciousness in the spiritual or conceptual realm.

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MZ) If the PIE word Xausos means 'Rising' then perhaps Ostara is best described as the 'goddess of the rising sun' rather than 'goddess of the dawn'. A small difference perhaps, but it explains why she is goddess of the spring as the sun is rising higher in the sky as the year progresses.