I'm raising my daughter Pagan. She's highly spiritual in her own right and says she believes in ALL the gods (which I think is cool as hell). For being an eleven-year old she is very tolerant of the religious and spiritual beliefs of others.
Now, the thing about ancient paganism as a way of life is that the religion, in addition to it's deep connection to nature, usually boils down to either survival of the self, or survival of the species. This means a lot of the holidays, rituals and rites of passage usually involve some sort of hunting, agriculture or, well, sex.
So, being a pagan parent I worked at finding something child friendly for my daughter to believe in. I remembered reading one variation of The Legend of Ostara in a calendar of Goddesses. I began to tell this version of the story to my daughter.
It became much more than a story. It also became a parable for radical acceptance. Ostara became my daughters Goddess and best friend.
Then I got creative, nerdy, and a little pranky.
I convinced my daughter that Ostara's bunny rabbit was named "Frances", which you may know is a (insert word that means opposite of nickname) for "Frank".
As in... Frank... the Bunny.
I'm waiting until she's way older before I let her in on the joke.
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