What Is Ostara?
What is Ostara and when is it celebrated in Australia?
Ostara is the pagan and Wiccan sabbat of the spring equinox, celebrated in Australia and the Southern Hemisphere on or around 23 September each year, when day and night are equal in length and the year tips into the growing season. It is a festival of balance, renewal, fertility, and new beginnings, marking the official shift from the contracting, inward energy of winter into the expanding, outward energy of spring and the growing light.
The name Ostara is believed to derive from a Germanic spring goddess, Eostre or Ostara, documented by the Venerable Bede in the 8th century as a deity honoured during the spring month. The historical record is thin and the scholarly debate about the extent of her cult is ongoing, but the spring equinox as a sacred time of renewal is documented across many ancient cultures independent of any single deity. The modern Wiccan Wheel of the Year adopted the name Ostara and attached it to the spring equinox in the mid-20th century, and it has become the most widely used term for this sabbat across contemporary paganism.
In the Southern Hemisphere, Ostara falls six months out of phase with the Northern Hemisphere calendar. While Northern Hemisphere practitioners celebrate Ostara in March, Australian witches celebrate it in September, when the local land is genuinely in spring: flowers blooming, days lengthening, temperatures rising. This alignment with the actual seasonal shift is what gives Southern Hemisphere practice its particular potency. You are not performing rituals about spring while standing in autumn. You are celebrating what the land is doing right now.
Read: The Eight Wiccan Sabbats Complete GuideWhat do you do at Ostara?
Ostara celebrations centre on renewal, planting, balance, and welcoming the returning light. Common practices include setting new intentions for the growing season, planting actual seeds or seedlings as a physical expression of magical intentions, creating a spring altar with seasonal flowers and eggs, performing rituals of balance between light and dark, cleansing the home and magical tools after winter, and celebrating the fertility and creativity energy of the season.
In witchcraft specifically, Ostara is the sabbat for planting the seeds of what you want to grow in the months between now and Lammas (the summer harvest in February for Southern Hemisphere practitioners). What you set in motion at Ostara has the entire growing season to develop. It is a beginning ritual rather than a culmination: the action of planting rather than the celebration of harvest.
Ostara Correspondences
| Category | Ostara Correspondences |
|---|---|
| Season | Spring equinox, the moment day equals night and light begins to lead |
| Australian timing | 23 September 2026 (Southern Hemisphere spring equinox) |
| Themes | Renewal, balance, fertility, planting, new beginnings, creativity, the returning sun |
| Colours | Green (new growth), yellow (returning sun), white (balance and clarity), pastels (new spring flowers) |
| Crystals | Green aventurine, citrine, rose quartz, clear quartz, moss agate |
| Herbs | Jasmine, lavender, rose, chamomile, rosemary, dandelion |
| Candles | Green, yellow, white, or pale pink |
| Symbols | Eggs (fertility, potential), hares (Eostre’s sacred animal, swiftness), seeds, flowers, the rising sun |
| Deities | Eostre (Germanic spring goddess), Persephone (Greek goddess of spring’s return), Flora (Roman goddess of flowers), any spring or fertility deity from your path |
| Foods | Eggs in any form, spring vegetables, honey, seed breads, fresh herbs, early season fruits |
Setting Up Your Ostara Altar
- Cloth: Green, white, or yellow. Spring-coloured fabric or a cloth with floral or nature imagery.
- Centre piece: A bowl of eggs (real, wooden, or ceramic), or a nest with eggs to represent fertility and potential. Seeds in a small dish are equally traditional and appropriate.
- Candles: Green for growth, yellow for the returning sun. Lit at sunrise or at your ritual time.
- Crystals: Green aventurine and citrine flanking the centrepiece. Clear quartz to amplify the intention energy of the altar.
- Flowers: Whatever is blooming in your local landscape in late September. Jasmine, jonquils, freesias, wattle remnants, and early roses are all seasonally appropriate for Australian spring altars.
- Seeds: Actual seeds in a small dish or packet, representing what you are planting in the magical and literal sense. If you intend to grow herbs for your practice, bless them on this altar before planting.
- Water or morning dew: Collected at dawn on the equinox if possible. Ostara dew is considered particularly charged in folk tradition, associated with beauty, renewal, and vitality.
The Complete Ostara Ritual
The Spring Planting: A Complete Ostara Renewal Ritual
A complete solitary Ostara ritual for the Southern Hemisphere practitioner, designed to be performed at sunrise, midday, or at a meaningful time during the day of the equinox. The ritual centres on the act of planting: naming what you are growing in the season ahead and committing to tending it as deliberately as you would tend an actual seedling.
-
Begin at sunrise if possible, or at a meaningful time during the day. Light the green candle first: "I light this for growth. The earth is warming. The light is returning. I am ready to grow." Then light the yellow: "I light this for the sun that leads the growing season. Welcome back."
-
Hold the seeds in your closed palms and breathe into your hands three times. Each breath carries intention. Before you breathe, name what each breath is planting: the first for what you want to grow in your external life, the second for what you want to grow in your inner life, the third for what you want to create and offer in the world.
-
Write in your Book of Shadows your three Ostara intentions in full, dated 23 September 2026. These are your season’s seeds: what you are committed to tending from equinox to harvest (Lammas in February 2027 for Southern Hemisphere practitioners).
-
Plant the seeds in the soil while speaking your intentions aloud. One seed per intention if you have enough. As you press each seed into the earth: "I plant this with intention. I will water it, tend it, and not abandon it when the growing is slow."
-
Water the seeds with the spring water or dew, speaking: "The equinox sun blesses this planting. The balance of light and dark holds this soil. What I plant today grows."
-
Place the green aventurine beside or in the pot as a crystal anchor for the intention. The crystal stays with the plant through the growing season.
-
Close with gratitude to the season: "Ostara, spring equinox, returning light. I meet you with open hands and clear intention. The wheel turns. I turn with it." Allow both candles to burn down completely or snuff them and relight at each watering of the seeds through the season.
The most important part of this ritual is the actual tending. Check the seeds every day. Water them. If they die, plant again. The physical act of tending the seedling is the magical practice in miniature: attention, care, patience, and faith in what cannot yet be seen.
The Eostre Debate: What We Actually Know
The Historical Record
The Venerable Bede, writing in 725 CE, mentioned a spring month named after a goddess called Eostre, from whom the Anglo-Saxon spring celebrations took their name. This is the primary historical source for the spring goddess whose name became Ostara. Jacob Grimm expanded on Bede’s reference in the 19th century, extrapolating a more complete Germanic goddess, but the original evidence is thin. Modern historians debate whether Eostre was a widely worshipped deity or a localised tutelary figure whose name simply described the season. What is not in dispute: the spring equinox itself, the eggs, the hares, and the celebration of returning fertility are rooted in deep and genuine seasonal practice across many cultures. The name Ostara is a modern pagan adoption of the Anglo-Saxon spring month name, and it is a fine and appropriate name for the spring equinox sabbat regardless of the ongoing scholarly conversation about Eostre’s historical extent.
Free Resource: Ostara Seasonal Planting Template
Sorceress Sanctuary · Free Resource · Ostara Seasonal Intention Planting Template
MY THREE OSTARA SEEDS
Seed One · External Life (what I am growing in the world):
What I am planting:
What tending this requires of me:
What I will see at Lammas (February 2027) if this seed grows well:
Seed Two · Inner Life (what I am growing within myself):
What I am planting:
What tending this requires of me:
What I will feel at Lammas if this seed grows well:
Seed Three · Creative Life (what I am creating and offering):
What I am planting:
What tending this requires of me:
What exists in the world at Lammas if this seed grows well:
WHAT I AM RELEASING TO MAKE ROOM (the winter thing that is done):
[write it here and then cross it out deliberately]
MY OSTARA TENDING COMMITMENT:
I commit to checking in on these intentions at: New Moon October | Full Moon October | Beltane (31 Oct) | Summer Solstice (Dec 21) | Lammas (Feb 2027)
What is blooming in my local landscape right now that I name as a sign:
Prepare Your Ostara Altar
Crystals, candles, ritual herbs, and altar supplies for the spring equinox.
Free shipping on all orders over $45, globally.
