For years I have written little cultural bits on the Goddess Oestre (Ostara), pre-Christian agrarian fertility traditions…you know, the usual stuff.  The other day I watched one of Jimmy Kimmel’s segments where they interview random passersby outside the television studio.  The question was “What does the Easter Bunny have to do with Easter?”  Only one person, a little girl, said something even vaguely in the ballpark:  “Bunnies come out in the spring.”  Everyone else just stared blankly at the camera.  

I could work myself up in a lather about Christian theocracy appropriating and eradicating earlier religions, but I think the more fundamental issue is that we as a species have trouble with time travel.  
What’s that, you say?  What is he on about now?  Hear me out:  We all tend to live in the present, and to the extent we think about the past and are influenced by it, this past is mainly our own biographical past.  Maybe we include our family history a bit, maybe even our childhood community.  But do we see ourselves in a larger historical context, riding a wave through time?  Not much.  We remark on change, on the events shaping our lives, in much the way we talk about the weather or about a new restaurant.  We see ourselves as existing in the present, and experiencing things in the present, when we should see ourselves as time travelers, linking the past to the future.  

If we don’t, the past recedes behind us and becomes strange and incomprehensible.  The Easter Bunny becomes a quirky artifact instead of a reminder of the world our ancestors lived in, when each spring was a miracle, and things like eggs, grass, and rabbits hopping around were cause for celebration that life will go on.

How many other things floating around us in the sea of the present are part of the wave we are riding from the past?  I’m guilty of just treading water as much as the next person, simply trying to keep from sinking.  It’s hard work.  But I want to ride the wave.  How about you?