Blessed Ostara – Spring Equinox – Full Moon

Welcome to Spring!! And welcome into Aries season.

Yesterday was Ostara/Spring Equinox and I spent the day cleansing my space and preparing a feast for dinner last night. I did four things in particular for celebration of Ostara –

1. created/painted/filled a wooden intentions egg,
2. cleansed my front door and drew a protection sigil under my front mat,
3. made low carb, dairy free, grain free, and sugar free hot cross buns and Greek seasoned brisket for dinner, and last but not least,
4. sat with my Ostara Tarot cards last night to receive the messages I need to keep in mind for this next season.

Wishing or Intention Eggs

I followed Moody Moons’ directions for creating the wishing or intention eggs. I wasn’t able to find fillable wooden eggs in time, so I ended up going with a medium sized wooden Russian doll. Sure, it doesn’t really have the right “egg” shape, but I honestly wasn’t bothered by that.

Above in the picture are all of the items I gathered, besides the little piece of paper I wrote my intentions on, for the wishing eggs.

• 1 wooden egg/cylindrical wooden container
• biodegradable glitter
• spring colored paint
• burlap ribbon
• medallion or old earrings

I worked on the egg throughout the day, finishing it as the moon was rising and stuck it in my window that receives full moonlight during full moons. Feel free to check out Moody Moons’ post about what she did with her eggs!

Front Door Cleansing/Sigil Drawing

A few months ago I finally found a string of bells on a rope that is now wrapped around my front door handle. These bells are intended to help protect and make it more difficult for negative energy to enter the sacred and safe space that is my home. But in an effort to increase the protection around my front door, I made eggshell chalk from powdered eggshells and created a protection sigil.

I have struggled with sigils before and felt like I couldn’t draw well enough to create my own. I decided that this protection sigil and ritual was important enough to me that I would try again. So I sat down Tuesday afternoon and started working on the phrase I wanted to use.

I’ll do another post specifically about sigils another time, but for now, here are some pictures of what my process was.

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The phrase I chose is “This Space Is Protected.” I then went through it, crossing out every vowel, then took the remaining letters, crossing out all duplicate letters. That left me with the letters “T H S P C R D.”

As you can see in the paper to the far right of some of the pictures, I had started playing with the letters and trying to create a sigil with their shapes. The pieces of paper with the progression of the sigil are when I started realizing how the sigil wanted to flow and I allowed my hands to follow the instincts I was being given. The sigil surrounded by four crystals is the finished sigil. I knew I needed the “S” to be most prominent. The “S” stands for space, sacred, and safe. All things embodying the root of the sigil.

Yesterday morning as the bright sunlight warmed my front door, my 4 1/2 year old and I cleaned and wiped down the front door. I lit a bundle of sage and used the smoke to help clear out the space. As I prepared for drawing the sigil, I unwrapped my eggshell chalk.

Honestly, I will be creating a different recipe for future eggshell chalk. The recipe I had was pretty decent, but the chalk itself was completely stuck to the paper I had wrapped it in. But enough of that, moving back to the ritual!

Note about eggshells – eggshells are considered powerful and can be used for protection charms. By crushing up cleaned and dried eggshells, you can use the powder to sprinkle along your windowsills or doorways, or to dust your hands with before dealing with a negative person/situation/energy. It isn’t a bad idea to keep a small jar of powdered eggshells in your witchery cabinet or shelf.

I took my finished sigil and careful drew it under the space normally occupied by my door mat. My front porch is slated rougher wood so the chalk did not want to show up on the wood. However, it did leave a scratched in sigil and I believe that sigil will be there for as long as we live in this place.

I carefully replaced the mat and my 4 1/2 year old and I stood on the mat over the sigil and held our hands up to our chests as we sent our energy into the sigil to activate it. My kiddo really loved being able to help me out with the ritual and it was a sweet moment as we stood there in our bare feet, the sun warming up our toes, as we activated the sigil together.

LC/DF/GF/SF Hot Cross Buns

One of the traditional foods for Ostara is Hot Cross Buns. But, due to my now extensive food restrictions, I can’t eat a traditional hot cross bun. Off I went to my faithful Pinterest boards to see if I could find a paleo/dairy free/grain free recipe. I found this one, and actually had all the ingredients!

Low Carb Hot Cross Buns – Ditch the Carbs

• 60 g coconut flour
• 30 g psyllium husks
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 2 tbsp granulated sweetener of choiceor more, to your taste
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/2 tsp mixed spice
• 1/2 tsp cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp ground cloves
• 4 eggs – medium
• 250 ml boiling water
• raisins/chocolate chips/ cacao nibs optional

Icing

• powdered sweetener icing mix

Instructions

Low Carb Hot Cross Buns

1. Mix all the dry ingredients in a mixing bowl.
2. Add the eggs and mix.
3. Add the boiling water and mix until evenly combined.
4. Roll into 8 equal balls and place on a baking tray.
5. Bake in a fan assisted oven at 180C/350F for 20-30 minutes until golden on the outside and cooked in the centre.

Icing

1. Mark each hot cross bun with a cross using the powdered sweetener confectioners/icing mix and water paste.

I actually used a small digital food scale when measuring out the coconut flour and psyllium husks, but there is an option over at Ditch the Carb’s recipe to have US measurements.

I made a few changes – first being, I used powdered psyllium husks, and second, used a mixture of cinnamon, ground cloves, and cardamon for the mixed spice. I also added cacao tidbits into the dough instead of raisins or chocolate chips. I was a little hestitant using coconut flour but I honestly can’t taste the coconut at all! I used up the rest of my Swerve sweetener between the 2 tbsp the recipe calls for, and then grinding the rest in my mortar and pestle to created the powdered sweetener for the icing.

When the buns got out of the oven, they were surprisingly fluffy and while they have a fairly typical psyllium husk kind of chewiness, day old buns actually taste amazing! Just be aware that they aren’t going to taste like normal bread. But if you’re like me and haven’t eaten “real bread” in quite a few years, then these will taste quite heavenly!

Ostara Tarot

A sister-goddess tagged me in a post on Instagram for an Ostara tarot spread and I decided to go ahead an use the layout instead of just laying the cards out as I usually do.

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A post shared by Jess Carlson | Witchcraft 🔮 (@jessjcarlson)

These are the three cards I pulled from my Ostara Tarot deck

For the Egg, I pulled The World.

For The Seed, I pulled the 2 of Swords.

For The Sun, I pulled Justice.

All three of these cards spoke heavily to where I am right now, and even more so to where I’m moving to. There have been a lot of closing final doors, ending what I thought were friendships, and shedding unneeded situations and responses. I can feel the fires within starting to blaze brightly as we have crossed into Aries, are at the beginning of the Astrological year, and many new things are coming forth.

Blessed Spring my loves, thank you for reading.