Hare Worship

Hare Worship in the Ancient World

‘A Hare’ by Walter de la Mare

Eyes that glass fear, though fear on furtive foot

Track thee in slumber bound.

Ears that whist danger, though the wind sigh not

Nor echo list a sound;

Heart—Oh what hazard must thy wild life be

With sapient man for thy cold enemy!

Fleet scatterbrains—thou hast thine hour of peace

In pastures April-green

Where the shrill skylark raptures never cease,

And the clear dew englobes the white moons beam.

All happiness God gave thee, albeit thy

Roves Eden as did Satan long ago.

The Sacred Feminine

by Elva Thompson

 The Hare has been forgotten by the modern world. Gone is the day when the Hare Goddess Unnut ruled over the temples of Dendera and the Alkonquin Indians of North America turned their faces to the east and prayed to the Great Hare who began the world: Michabo Ovisaketchak.

Lost now is Queen Boudicca of the Iceni and her hares of peace and Freya of the North with her hare companions. No more does the Hare in the moon stir the pot of immortality in China and Africa, and it is long been forgotten that in India, the Hindu call the hare in the moon Sasanka.

The Hare as a Sexual symbol.

The Hare is a sexual symbol. She is the most fecund of creatures and can have three litters of leveretts a year and, is one of the very few mammals that can be pregnant with one litter and conceive again. This is known as superfoetation, defined as ovulation, fertilisation and implantation of a second set of eggs during pregnancy.[Rollhauser, 1949] This probably explains why the Egyptian hierogylphic for the verb: ‘to be’ is a hare.

The hare  symbolises  sex , and the moon governs menstruation and the production of eggs.

In the book  ‘The Lady of the Hare’ by John Layard there is a quotation from C.G.Jung about the hare as an archetype.

C.G. Jung, in his Integration of the personality, London, 1940, has this to say about the hare.

The most efficacious archetype of all, however, and of the greatest import perhaps for the very reason that archetypes have their strongest effect when not watered down by vain repetition, was one that is not recognised as a symbol at all by official Christendom, namely the hare.  And since this archetype has not as far as I know, yet been taken note of by psychologists, I propose now to trace its history in such measure as is possible from available sources.

The Easter Bunny

Easter falls after the full moon at the spring equinox and in the ancient world the goddess Eostre presided over the four day period. It is from the name of the Hare goddess, Eostre/Eostra/Eostara that we get the words oestrogen and oestrus. Some say there’s a man in the moon, but the ancients knew that the legs of the man are the ears of the hare that forever stirs the pot of immortality[sex]. Spring is the celebration of the sexual act[spring, leap, jump]. The hare is the essence of fertility and at Easter, the ‘Easter Bunny’ comes bearing the egg of life.

She is the sacred feminine, the dawn, the east, the air, the leaping[semen]hare.

This mystical and magical creature has been reduced to an Easter Bunny and a chocolate egg.

The Great God Pan

Her consort is the horned god of the forest, the great god Pan and it is interesting to note that Pan was born in a hare skin. This is symbolic of the innocent sexual act that is Nature. Pan is the Sacred Masculine, and the Hare the Sacred Feminine of the ancient world. These two great polarities of nature have been forgotten by modern man.  Pan has been reduced to a drunken sex maniac and the hare is hunted to the death, not only in the fields of earth by gun or dog, but also in the heavens.

Lepus Lepus the constellation of the hare springs from under the foot of the Dog Star [Sirius] who is out with his master [Orion} the hunter.

This symbolises the persecution of the female essence by the male ego.

As above, so below.

Love Zen

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