HAPPY VERNAL EQUINOX, EVERYBODY
Most likely, Marzanna was originally a goddess of life who oversaw all of nature including death. As the years passed Marzanna became a deity associated with winter, death, torment, plague, pestilence, and nightmares. When spring arrives her powers subside, she dies, and the spring goddess Vesna is born. For centuries, it’s been a tradition in Slavic cultures for the people to help this process of change come to fulfillment.
This ritual in which Marzanna is banished represents the end of the dark and challenging days of winter, the victory of life over death, and the welcoming of the spring rebirth and reblooming of nature. Vesna, goddess of spring (morning, birth, youth and fertility), is an Artemis-like protector of the wild, often pictured wearing a bear skin, as bears are her familiars and guardians. Mother Bear protecting her children. She’s the goddess of wild nature, forests, animals, hunting, and the moon. What is called “the copse,” a wand of the early blooming pussy willow or hazel, is decorated and carried to represent her and welcome spring’s reawakening.
The Spring Goddess Vesna - Ukraine
