Spring on our little island is a time of great joy. The sun returns after what seems like a breathless, frigid winter. The red-breasted robins hungrily stalk worms and puncture fresh green grass. Gardens are trimmed with golden dandelions, purple crocuses, and delicate tulips. The world is alive again.

After months of being cooped up, campus seems to buzz as students soak up every ray of sunshine. The flowers emerge and the baby bunnies are so small they fit in the palm of your hand.

Despite the end of semester pressure and looming exams, it’s a time of celebration and hope.

One of the ways I’ve engaged with the season is by organizing the campus-wide Easter Egg Hunt hosted by University Christian Ministries (UCM). I’ve been a student leader with the club for four years, and this event always ended up as my responsibility. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not mad about it. It’s a big project, but a fun one as well.

Several hundred colourful plastic eggs are filled with tickets and distributed across campus by teams of volunteers. Students collect the eggs over a three-day period and return them to UCM in exchange for prizes like squishmallows, video game gift cards, and—naturally—chocolate.

The egg hunt takes place during the chaotic last week of classes, this year from April 4–9. Students can be seen with handfuls or even shopping bags full of eggs.

It’s been a strange year of letting go of routines and traditions I once held dear. As my graduation looms ever closer, I have handed this event off to the capable hands of UCM’s vice president, Mekayla Gray.

Last week I found myself itching to get started on the event planning only to remind myself that I’m not leading it this year. As I walked along the wooded path from my class to the library, I contemplated the empty feeling of change. In the busyness of my semester, I suddenly found a moment of quiet.

It was at that moment, as I stood in the woods and remembered the Easter season in years past, that I thought perhaps this year I could just be a student. If I spied an egg, I could collect it. I’m unsure if I will participate, even if I don’t volunteer, but I took comfort knowing that this event will continue long past my graduation.

The Northern Hemisphere sees Easter as one of the markers of spring. In the Christian tradition, the death of Jesus on Good Friday and His resurrection on Easter Sunday highlights this season of rebirth. Tradition lifts the sombre weight of His crucifixion into a celebration of life anew on Sunday.

But the seasonal rhythm of death and rebirth is not limited to Christianity. Many cultures maintain a mythology involving the removal and return of a deity to mark the changing seasons.

In Greek mythology, Demeter laments the loss of her daughter, Persephone, to the Underworld. The mortal world is thus marred by her grief for six months of winter until Persephone returns and Demeter’s joy manifests as spring.

In the Anglo-Saxon mythology, Eostre is the goddess of the dawn and the spring. The vernal equinox—around March 20—marks the transition from winter into spring and is seen as Eostre’s return; she brings with her light, warmth, and most importantly, the return of crops and therefore life itself.

This life-giving goddess was so celebrated that the old Germanic calendar called the month of April “Ōstarmānod,” meaning Eostre-month.

Though many consider Eostre the origin of the word Easter, others debate its etymology. Britannica disputes the claims of modern folklorists, instead stating that [the word “Easter] derives from the Christian designation of Easter week as in albis, a Latin phrase that was understood as the plural of alba (‘dawn’) and became eostarum in Old High German.”

Interestingly, the French word for Easter–Pâques–doesn’t derive from the same origin, but rather comes from the Greek “Pascha” meaning “Passover.”

While the English word’s origin is unclear, the origins of one of the most prominent and well-known figures of this holiday, the Easter Bunny, come from stories about Eostre.

Few primary sources exist due to the nature of oral storytelling, but the Legend of Eostre goes something like this.

One spring morning, when it was still quite cold, Eostre was walking through the woods and came upon a little bird. The poor creature had frost coating its wings and Eostre knew it would die if she walked away. Having compassion for the bird, she transformed him into a hare. Warmed by the transformation, the hare was able to live.

Children have hunted for colourful eggs left by this Easter hare with accounts as early as 17th-century Germany. It’s possible that either Dutch or German settlers brought this tradition to America, where it quickly became popular with religious and non-religious families alike.

Eggs have been decorated in conjunction with Easter for centuries. The tradition of decorating eggs is believed to have originated with Trypillians in Central Europe who dyed eggs potentially as far back as 4500 BCE. From this hatched the Slavic tradition of making pysanky, Ukrainian Easter eggs decorated using wax and dye.

A family friend with Ukrainian heritage once taught my siblings and I the art of making these ornate eggs. We carefully poked holes in the shell with pins and gently blew the egg out. Then we carved designs in wax on the shell with toothpicks.

We layered wax and dye until the entire shell was covered. The wax is traditionally melted by flame (but we used a hairdryer) and wiped away to reveal the completed design.

We kept our eggs for many years, using them as decorations on the fireplace mantel at Easter time. Sadly, mine broke when I moved.

The practice of finding or giving colourful eggs evolved into one of finding toys or chocolates. Now, the holiday is practically synonymous with chocolate eggs.

Throughout childhood, I raced my cousins around my grandparent’s yard, looking for plastic eggs full of chocolates. The goal was to find more than the others.

As we got older, my mom continued the fun of egg hunts by hiding eggs in the nooks and crannies of our house.

Those egg hunts had all the energy of a race but ended in the diplomatic dealings of trade at the living room coffee table.

Mostly because I despise the malt eggs.

While I don’t wake up to find Cadbury’s Mini Eggs all over my house anymore, I still feel excitement for the holiday. There’s something about the vibrancy of spring that just feels magical. Perhaps it is those new baby bunnies.

Egg hunts, especially the one here at VIU, are an excellent excuse to get outside, to stop thinking about studying, and to purposely look around this place that becomes so mundane to us.

We are reminded by the flowers and the vibrant greens of trees and grasses that winter does end. Life does return. Cycles and seasons close, but they also begin again.

Practicing tradition brings us out of ourselves and into something greater. So, take a break, get outside, and look for magic in the ordinary. And you never know, perhaps the Easter hare is one of the bunnies on campus.